Bert van Marvijk: 'Football was founded to be played like this' Part I
We met Bert van Marwijk during the week after practicing and talked with Borussias coach about footballphilosophy, the change of systems and arrogant dutchmen.schwatzgelb.de: Mister van Marvijk, please describe your football philosophie to us.
Bert van Marvijk: I'd like to be initiative, I'd like to have the ball. A player who is often in contact with ball feels better. That means that I am feeling offensive. But you have to be responsible. To play offensive does not mean, that ten players run forward. You can do it in several organisations, with two, three or just one attacker.
My philosophie is that I like to play with occupied wings. But I always keep the quality of the players in mind. I can't play with three attackers, if I don't have three. In Holland there are coaches who do so, no matter what kind of players they have. But I don't.
In this modern time all sports have become quicker and more athletic. You can see, that it gets less creative. Just look at tennis. In former times people got up early just to watch the matches of John McEnroe or Jimmy Connors. There were great long rallies. But now everything got more quickly, every ball has to be perfect. And in football it is almost the same. If everything is better organized it means that the room get's smaller. So you have to trie to create room. Certainly you want to play offensive, be often in front of the opponents goal. But then you make to room small for yourself. You have to deal with that.
schwatzgelb.de: In the last time there was a lot of talking about systems at Borussia, about 4-3-3 and 4-2-2. Regarding to our team, where do you see the advantages and the disadvantages of the two systems?
BvM: (reaches for the tactiboard, dispatches the players in 4-3-3 system): The advantage with three attackers – as you can see – is, that the arrangment on the pitch is probably the best. You almost could say, football was founded to play it like that. In this formation the players are arranged at best. Then you can play it like this (BvM moves the players, so the central forward is withdrawn) there you almoste have a real Number 10. Than you always can create triangles. That means that the .positionplay is the easiest .The disadvantage of such an 4-3-3 System is, that the opponent in most of the times is that well organized, so he blocks the outside forwarders. The match becomes static then. You could see that at the team of Holland during the last WorldCup. Everyone keeps his position, no one overruns. If the outside forwarders don't work, you really have a problem.
When you are playing with two forwarders and with, for example, a rhomb behind them (he moves the players on the board to a 4-4-2) then you see, that there are large free rooms on the wings. That means, that the outside defenders have much room to go forward. You also have to have midfielders who can overrun. You have a lot of room, but you also have to move a lot.. The forwarders often have to move to the wings. Only when you play like this, you can see, that you offer a lot of room to the opponent. If a team is not yet developed that far, you often give the initiative to the opponent.
But I like to have the initiative. In Holland, Brasil and Spain they want to have the initiative. In Belgium for example, they also talk about initiative, but than the opponent has the ball. They grow up completly different. I believe, Germany is a little between that. In Germany you can play very well like this (moves the 4-4-2 on the board in one half). We saw that very often. Everyone in the own half, the forwarders behind the middleline. And that at best at home! And we play and play and play and are in possesion of the ball and than we recieve a counter attack and loose the match. „They did play a tatical good match“ everyone will say, about the opponent. That is accepted here. That is a philosophy.
But I say, when we play ten times against such an opponent we can loose once or twice. But at the end you will win, when you think responsibly offensive. It is no fun to go after your opponent the entire match. Only for the forwarder, who is waiting for 90 minutes and than makes the goal this is, of course, great In our team we have no „skilled“ outside forwarder left. Odonkor; Buckley and van der Gund left. Buckley was a typical outside forwarder, David also, van der Gun even more. Now I have four offenders: Amoah, Valdez, Smolarek and Frei, but Smolarek is no center forward, but he showed that he can do that also. Lately we returned to a system with three forwarders, but typically different than in the last season in which we played with Odonkor and Buckley and a central forwarder. In the last games there were three forwarders but no real outside forwarder.
You can think about tactic and organisation for a long time but it is also a matter how it is executed. Barcelona plays with Ronaldinho, Eto'o and Messi. But Ronaldinho is no true outside forwarder, he often moves to the inside.
Another advantage of three forwarders is, that you can defend better. You can put your opponent under pressure more easy. If there is a phalanx of four in the defense (van Marvijks fingers fly over the board, a phalanx of four behind three forwarders, he shows how the forwarders aggressivly attack the defenders, move and tighten the rooms), which we practiced all the time today, then the forwarder has to make the correct movement, he has to force the defender to play the ball and he has to move in a way that the defender can't play back. The next forwarder has to come to the inside and so on. Like this you can make pressure and the field is well organised.
If you do this with two forwarders, than you can see here, there is a lot of room. Then one midfielder has to come out, you always have to move everywhere. That can be very dangerous. Or you let your outside defenders play more offensive. But there you can give the initiative quickly to your opponent. With three forwarders you can defend a little bit more easy.
If I think about my team, about the qualities, which she has and about modern football, I say: Play like this (builds a 4-3-3) when the opponent has the ball and like this (4-4-2) if whe posses the ball. But that doesn't always work out.
Than it es do be, like we played it now: Valdez and Smolarek forward, Frei back – now I have a rhomb again. This is very suprising. The two offenders can enter the penalty area, Frei runs back (Frei, Valdez and Smolarek now display a triangle), the inside defender doesn't follow because another forwarder is coming from the other side. If the forwarders move on, they cross – chaos in the defense. If they execute it well! But on the paper you can win everything.
What I tell you, we practice. But we can't say, that you can see this saturday. It takes month, half a year or a year to teach it to the players. Most coaches say, they can play four or five systems. I think that is good, but I believe the players can't. It takes a lot of time and work to practice a system.
What I want now, a mixture between 4-3-3 and 4-4-2, is a detail what I thinkof could work. But the danger is now, if the opponent posseses the ball whe have to find the formation immediatly. It doesn't matter to me if Valdez is left or right, but you have to switch quickly, that doesn't only mean run quick and a lot. It also means to think quickly. If you do so you don't have to run that much, you just have to learn to run effective.
I returned to three forwarders because there was so much trouble. But you know that, don't you. I wanted to move the team out of the trouble, back to the system it played for two years, perhabs they feel more secure in this system. Silmutaneously I thought that our forwarders can do that and that it might be more dangerous to the opponent. In the first half against Nuremberg we had several very good chances. If we scored two goals everyone would have said: „Well done, coach.“
I don’t like football based only on chances, but also the spontaneity has to remain. A player has to take responsiblities from time to time and do something on his own. Then he also is allowed to make mistakes (moves a player in the opponent penalty area), here perhabs he has to make misktakes. But not here in the defense. If an outside defender on the way forwards makes the same stupid error five times the other defenders don’t follow anymore, the midfield doesn’t follow and and between the forwarders andthe midfield there is a large hole.
schwatzgelb.de: So the systemchange is supposed to bring more certainty to the team?
BvM: The combination of 4-3-3 and 4-4-2. I have the players, to play it like that. I have players who need room to get in front of the goal. But you can’t talk about systems and tactics on and on. That’s an error which is made often in Holland. Important ist, that spontaneity remains. In Rotterdam I had to deal with much more nationalities. European players much more disciplined than African or Southamerican players. A lot of times I let then play eight versus eight, european against non-european. The european players where alway well organised. The others only won a few matches. So, what is better?
schwatzgelb.de: Probably to unite the strength of both?
BvM: Yes, excactly. You have to learn from each other. Real great players need their freedom, of course.
schwatzgelb.de: Like Ronaldinho in Barcelona, on who Barcelonas coach said that he was the only player in the team who has no precise position?
BvM: If you know, like Barcelona, that you are on all postions better then your opponent, than it is no problem. Than you can say: Ronaldinho – here please! But if you are an equal or weaker team you will loose. When we (Rotterdam, the editors) won the UEFA-Cup we had less quality than Dortmund, Glasgow or Inter. But we were better organised and a real team, so we won. An experienced, good team as Dortmund certainly could say: „Amoroso is just running forward and makes his own match.“ But if you are not really stronger than your opponent it may cause that you loose the match. In that situation you need every player in the optimal way. You understand what I mean?
schwatzgelb.de: Yes, it was similar in Dortmund when Andi Möller had all liberties in the match.
BvM:I have a very good relationship to Andi Möller and he told me the same thing. He said: „They let me free, but I had to do someting with that.”
schwatzgelb.de: You just said, it could take several months before a player understands a system. How does it work to teach such a system to a player?
BvM: Primarly through recurrences. It is always nice to recieve the compliment that your practice is very diversed. But football is used to be a recurring, always the same again, again and again. Once I watched a tennis match with John McEnroe. Two and a half hours he tried to bring his service on one special point. Always on the same point, just recurrence. He could have won the match easily but he had to play the ball to this one point. I believe that this is the right mentality. It is to vary your practice but also do recurrences. Today I matched it to the three offenders. Valdez scored a great goal, he was an example for quick switch and it started with Roman.
End of part I
Ramona Steding, Stefan Reinke, Arne Kazperowski and Thomas Bielefeld are responsible for this Interview.
The second part of the interview will be released next week.
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