by Roy Henderson // 8 August 2011 // 4 Comments
BARCA. These days weâre reading more and more on the subject of Barca. Guardiola this, and La Masia that â every trophy they add to the cabinet comes with fresh proclamations of their righteousness â itâs not only fashionable to do so, itâs reached the stage where every fresh steaming dollop of âpraiseâ heaped upon their midden induces a little wave of nausea. Barcaâs way is *the* way. Barcaâs way is the Truth.
Now. When something become so fashionable that itâs taken as a universal truth, alarm bells should start ringing in wiser ears. Iâve been guilty of their deification to some extent myself; after all, we all want success for our club, and we like to think that by emulating what the management and coaching staff have put in place at Barca, weâll guarantee our ongoing success for a generation or more. Take their mould and spit out a new version of La Masia at LFC, and weâre set â job done.
But thatâs lazy thinking â the kind that might get you into trouble a few years down the line if youâre not careful. So letâs be careful. In the coming years you can bet weâll see broadsheet articles aplenty telling us thatâs just whatâs happened â that weâve straight up plagiarised that Barcelona-branded âTruthâ. Under the stewardship of a Spanish manager, after all, Liverpool head-hunted two luminaries of the Barca coaching establishment while purging the youth set-up of its existing staff in a putsch akin to a ânight of the long knivesâ. Suddenly the club were following some kind of uniform tactical blueprint. The rhetoric started sounding a little like the stuff coming out of Catalunya. So hey â if it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck⌠right?
Well, wrong. If you think Liverpool Football Club is operating âLa Masia Liteâ, youâre wrong. And if youâre worried that might be a bad thing â you shouldnât. The people in charge have been thinking this stuff through.
The seeds of Liverpoolâs current youth setup were sewn in the minds of Rafael Benitez and Pako Ayesteran. Neither man works for the club any more, granted; but the way the clubâs footballing operations are now structured under the stewardship of Messrs Dalglish and Commolli are a result of the thinking of our erstwhile Spanish strategists. In the Autumn of 2010, Pako Ayesteran was kind enough to give us a glimpse of his thinking in this area. When asked in the context of Spanish footballâs recent success what English football has to do to catch up, his reply was both subtle and enlightened.
âWhen we talk about having united a group of players who share similar characteristics, being nurtured in the same philosophy, then clearly there has to be an institutional reference point. That Ăs obvious.
âEvery success story leaves clues behind, but as well as identifying them, you also have to be able to adapt them to your own philosophy and culture. So right now, English football needs to be faithful to its own culture, whilst recognising that there are different ways of playing football.â
POLICY OF TRUTH
Was Pakoâs comment some empty throwaway remark aimed at placating the English journalists he was talking to? After all, what on earth could be considered âgoodâ about English football? Whatâs it won recently? Well, a fair bit if you take a long-term view. Thereâs a danger that you restrict your timeline and forget just how dominant English sides, and specifically Liverpool, were during the 70s and 80s. The game might have changed a lot since then, but lest we forget, Barcaâs formula was founded on a blueprint developed in the 60s and early 70s. Michels managed them, Cruyff and Neeskens, and when Cruyff rocked into the Nou Camp in the late 80s, they decided to buy it wholesale, Victor Kiam style.
So what did they buy? They bought what was, at that time, a 20 year old approach to the game that had won its club three European cups in quick succession, and had arguably taken the Dutch national team to two World Cup finals. Old. But not so bad.
Fast forward 25 years and Barcelona are winning European Cups at much the same rate as their Dutch forebears, only this time theyâve systematised things, and considered the very risks that jeapordised the Ajax setup, while all the while tailoring it to suit their clubâs own needs and context.
So whatâs Pako getting at? Well, it might be possible to pick up âLa Masia Liteâ off the shelf, and commit to an approach hydroponically germinated in the âDam 45 years ago, but why would you bother? The staff at Liverpool only needed to dust off the keys and have a look in their own vault to find a blueprint of their very own â a âTruthâ a decade or two fresher than the one Barca picked up in 1988, and with an even earlier vintage â Shanks took the reins at Liverpool six years before Rinus Michels started at Ajax.
Having been convinced as a player that keeping the ball was the key to it all, itâs hardly surprising that as a manager, he set about baking in a style founded on possession. And he refined and refined it without reference to the accepted footballing âtruthsâ of his time. He took the FA coaching manual and threw it in the bin. And he refined and refined it and each time a significant challenge to his methods arrived, Shankly would respond, and tweak, and improve the system. A nice, natural, intuitive system based on simple principles that were reinforced repeatedly in his day-to-day coaching.
A good example of this came, oddly enough, when the two blueprints overlapped in 1967.
Shanklyâs side faced the young Ajax side in the European Cup quarter finals, and âCruftâ (as Shanks called him) and co delivered what could only be described as a wake up call. But Shanks being Shanks, he refined and refined it, and borrowed what he felt he needed to from that Ajax approach.
And so his Liverpool side would begin to feature the sweeper keeper, and centre halves who could carry the ball into the midfield, disrupting the opposing sideâs organisation, and outmanning the opposing side. Marry that with the simplicity of pass and move, and you arrive at something not far removed from the system in place at Ajax during that time, albeit stripped of its intellectual airs and graces, and founded on all that was good about the British game.
Of course, we know what happened next. His approach was taken on by successive managers and became second nature to the club from root to fruit, and refined and refined until, at its height in the late 80s, we saw the game expressed at its pinnacle in front of our very eyes. A pinnacle arguably only matched, in the words of Pep Guardiola himself, by the current Barcelona side. And if you believe Arrigo Sacchi, it was Liverpoolâs version of the âTruthâ that he tried to copy and systematise in his approach with AC Milan. You might say we were on to something, and our brand of the âTruthâ was just as tasty and effective as anyoneâs.
So when Pako Ayesteran talks of the importance of an âinstitutional reference pointâ, heâs not talking about some nebulous invention â heâs talking about the essence of what made Liverpool what it is: refining and refining and refining what works within the clubâs community and competitive context.
PAKO âNâ PEPâS PREOCCUPATION
Ayesteranâs words are echoed and expanded upon by Pep Segura, and itâs here that you realise weâre not simply seeing the wholesale reproduction of the methods that he and Borrell helped put in place at Barca.
âI have seen in my short time here in this country working at Liverpool, that there is just as much talent, just as many players with the same hunger, will, and desire to learn as in every other country. All that is missing are the means to enable the players and coaches to develop. ThatĂs not down to the players. ItĂs down to the Academy heads, and those with a vested interest in youth football.
âThe great thing about La Masia â the concept that IĂd like to try and bring to Liverpool â is this. BarcelonaĂs La Masia represents the clubâs policy. Itâs a symbol of the clubâs philosophy. When your policies keep changing when one day you say black, the next day white, then there will always be a problem in trying to establish a clearly defined concept of player development.â
And thereâs the key point. What does Segura single out as the most important thing from Barcaâs approach? A simple, abstract point â the same point underlined by Ayesteran. The institutional reference point. The club embodies its own philosophy â that commitment sets it aside, and everything it achieves flows from that foundation. So why are these Spanish experts insisting on an English and Liverpudlian core to the clubâs youth development?
WEâRE NOT SPANISH WE ARE SCOUSE
Pako Ayesteran and Rafa Benitez were outspoken during their time at Liverpoolâs helm about the nature of the English game. As well as the physical demands, however, one quote from Pako always really stuck in my mind.
âI remember a coach in Spain once said that Spanish girls in the 1970s and 1980s were brought up not to be on their own, but to always have someone with them. They were educated to be part of a family, not on their own. They were educated to be married and be with the children of her husband. I think something similar has happened with our team. Liverpool is the team that more than any other feels the difference when they play away. The support they feel when they play at home is so huge and important that when they play away, the difference is massive. When Chelsea play in Stamford Bridge, the Chelsea players donât really feel the support of the crowd, so the difference is not massive for them. One thing the players have to learn is to compete and have the self-confidence independent of the supporters. You need the right mental attitude when the conditions are not comfortable. Itâs a psychological attitude thatâs so important.â
Yet he went on to qualify that later in the same interview. A Liverpool player, it seems, needs to learn not to rely on the home support to perform; but at the same time, they need to understand why that support is a privilege, and perform to a level that honours it.
ââŚsomething I hate is when the players donât realise they lead a privileged life. They have a big responsibility to the supporters. They have to work hard not just for themselves, but for the club and the supporters who follow them everywhere. Sometimes when people say they are doing everything they can, it is not true. You can always push yourself a little bit more.â
To put it another way, a Liverpool player needs to understand and embody what it means to be a Liverpool player. So in light of that, we should take a look at whatâa being put in place at the Academy. Segura recently addressed the Catalunyan INEF Football Congress on the subject of Liverpoolâs approach to youth development, and Spanish blogger Marti Perarnau described its content in detail. To say the talk was interesting is an understatement.
Perarnau began as follows.
âThe âtargetâ of the Liverpool Academy is twofold: to implement a common style of play in teams through all age groups, and to provide players for the first team.â
Segura then went on to explain that while the younger age groups focussed on skills and playing games, from the age of 16 on, Liverpoolâs kids now start both tactical and psychological training, alongside the physical and skills-related work youâd expect.
Why?
âWe want to work with our players, but do so with our style of play.â So (paraphrasing Segura) as a result, the clubâs analyses four key factors when considering any new player coming into its youth ranks.
The technical aspect: do they appreciate the passing game?
The tactical aspect: do they know how to play when we donât have the ball?
The psychological aspect: are they interested in what it takes to be a professional?
The physical aspect: do they have speed, strength and size?
Those four key building blocks differ from those used at Barca. Player assessment at Barca, weâre led to believe, is driven by clear technical and tactical criteria, but the third and fourth listed above, while intuitively important at any club, are secondary concerns. Carles Folguera, Seguraâs counterpart at Barca, neatly sums this up.
âWeâre always looking for a type of player whoâs not physical but a very good thinker, whoâs ready to take decisions, who has talent, technique and agility. Physical strength is not important.â
Back to Segura. He next underlined the importance of the institutional reference point we discussed earlier. Perarnau quotes him as saying âItâs the idea and style that make an organization strongâ â the same point made in his interview with Revista.
The kids at the Academy are, it seems, being inculcated with Liverpoolâs principles of play and style. The clubâs strategy is central to everything â in Perarnauâs words, it all has to âwork efficiently and consistent with the philosophy of the club.â And next comes the really interesting bit. They learn their craft within the framework of a 4-2-3-1. Maybe not something laid down by Shankly, but certainly something the club had become accustomed to under Rafa Benitez.
Seguraâs comments here are particularly interesting. âI would have preferred a 4-3-3, but England has historically used the 4-4-2, and we had to adapt.â Another departure from the methods ingrained at Ajax and Barca, with a tip of the hat to the clubâs context and recent tradition. And itâs here that Perarnauâs description starts to really chime with our own version of the âTruthâ: every session focusses on moving the ball from the defense, with passing (or ball circulation as itâs referred to nowadays) at high speed.
The guiding principles for their work? Perarnau listed them as follows.
Everyone must put in the same amount of work
The work must emulate the freedom of street football
They must learn to use the full depth and breadth of the playing surface
They must play with a constant attacking spirit
They must understand how to work within the 4-2-3-1
Our game develops from the defensive line
We play as a collective
We are creative
On this last point, Perarnau expanded a on Seguraâs message a little further: âthe English player is disciplined and is used to learning automation and order, but Spanish players are traditionally more creative â we must move in this directionâ.
So itâs intriguing. We have a mix of whatâs natural to our Academy intake as predominately English players, and we have an appropriate emphasis on strength, physique, and mental toughness from a peculiarly early age. But beyond that, we take the elements of the Spanish model that mirror our own historical blueprint, and bake the approach into each and every kid we teach.
WHY ISNâT EVERYONE DOING THIS?
Well, who knows? Maybe they are. What sets Liverpool Football Club aside right now is the fact weâre aligned from Chairman and board to tea lady. Thatâs no mean feat, and as anyone with an insight behind the scenes at Real Madrid might tell you, resources alone arenât always enough to engender operational harmony. The true barriers to achieving an aligned footballing setup are the emotional and psychological ones. It takes genuine buy-in from the decision makers at every level, as a result of either fear of the man at the helm, or a more collegiate buy-in to the âvisionâ â the kind of institutional reference point Ayesteran talks about. To get to that stage, Liverpool had to literally hit rock bottom. The club were hours from the financial brink less than a year ago, but from the ashes, Henry and Co realised that they had something powerful in place, and decided to make it central to the clubâs future strategy.
THE LIVERPOOL WAY
But that in itself wouldnât be enough if it simply lifted a solution from elsewhere without a little thought. They need to keep their guiding principles in mind in whatever they do â a methodology that really isnât too different from the one set out by Shanks. If theyâre clever, theyâll refine it and refine it, and retain a healthy disregard for what everyone else tells them they ought to do.
Surely thatâs the bedrock of the Liverpool Way.
Brilliant article by Roy Henderson
http://www.theanfieldwrap.com/2011/08/were-not-spanish-we-are-scouse/