Defense Wins Championships...Or Does It?

Statistics show defense don't necessarily win championships in football.

From Vizual Statistics.

Would love to see if a similar thing happens in hockey, basketball and baseball.

In some cases, teams with outstanding defenses win titles but sometimes the perception of strong defenses give the impression of high success.

The chart made me think of the Italian soccer national team.

Italy is renowned for its reputation as 'high priests' of defensive soccer. Particularly, having mastered the art of 'catenaccio' a chain defense with a sweeper (libero) "cleaning up" any mistakes made by the backline. Outside a center midfielder marshaling the middle of the field/pitch, the sweeper position demanded a lot of thinking.

It was extremely rare to score on Italy. They were defensively flawless producing world class defender after defender, keeper after keeper, deep lying midfielders after crushing deep lying midfielder.

The New Jersey Devils, Pittsburgh Steelers and Detroit Pistons of world soccer if you will.

But while this philosophy produced consistent impressive results, it never produced a championship except for a European title in 1968. Since the Superga crash in 1949 decimating a highly skilled and entertaining Torino squad combined with the rise of Helenio Herrera's 'Grande Inter' teams of the 1960s that also employed ruthless defensive tactics and prowess, converted the Azzurri into believers as well.

Not to be confused with 'anti-football,' where anti-football basically puts '11 behind the ball', the Italian way never did this since it did employ a sophisticated method of building up a play. It was to cede possession for periods of the game thus preserving energy and keeping the ball in critical moment - particularly on the counter-attack. It was a contradictory style in that in order for it to function it needs competent and capable distributors of the ball and strikers - and Italy had that.

It was a style only purists could appreciate but for the neutral fan it was tedious to watch.

It was a practical tactic predicated on results.

And what were those results since 1968?

Here:

1968: Euro title
1970: World Cup final
1978: World Cup 4th place
1980: Euro semis 3rd place
1982: World Cup champions
1988: Euro 3rd place
1990: World Cup 3rd place
1994: World Cup final
1998: World Cup quarter-finals
2000: Euro final
2006: World cup champions
2008: Euro quarters
2012: Euro finals

So in 13 of 23 Euro/World Cups, Italy reached at least the quarters but mostly the semis and finals.

Very impressive. That's 56%.

Defense did that but here's the thing. In all of Italy's World Cup triumphs, in 1934, 38, 82 and 06, defense balanced with offense was the recipe. 1970 and 1994, where they lost, they played more cautious and defensive. In fact, 1994 was (I would have to confirm this), probably the last time they used a sweeper at the backline.

Long-winded post just to make that point, eh?

****

Nice video from 1945. Grande Torino:




Possibly one of the all-time great games given the context. With Sampdoria three points ahead of Inter Milan in the standings, and in search of its first Scudetto (title) the stage was set for a dramatic showdown of epic proportion. Inter was a powerhouse led by German greats Klinsmann, Matheus and Brehme but Sampdoria remained resolute despite being badly outshot. It was a game that saw Bergomi (Inter) and Mancini (Sampdoria. Former manager at Manchester city currently at Galatasaray) sent off; an all-time great defender and prolific goal scorer. In the end, Sampdoria prevailed and even reached the Champions League final the following year only to lose to Barcelona. The game marked the net dominance of Serie A soccer on the global scene.