The most innovative team of the era’s beginning was Hungary’s Magical Magyars, who, along
with Holland’s team of 1974, was one of the two great sides to have fallen at the
final hurdle in their pursuit of football’s biggest prize.
Their withdrawn forward, Nandor Hidegkuti, played effectively as an attacking midfielder
in the hole, spraying passes, dictating the team’s tempo, and making late runs to score.
The Hungarian side had already won Olympic gold in 1952 when they came to the 1954
World Cup as favourites, their movement and the withdrawn Hidegkuti created havoc for
opposition players; in centre-forward Ferenc Puskas, they also possessed one of the game’s greatest ever players.
Hungary played a nominal M-M formation, drawing back Hidegkuti and the wingers to invert the standard W-M.
However, as Jonathan Wilson notes, because left-half Josef Zakarias dropped off, and
Jozef Bozsik , the other half-back pushed up as
Hidegkuti dropped back, the formation was almost a 4-2-4.
But only almost: Zakarias did not actually line up as a centre-back, and so the left
back Mihaly Lantos was exposed; Hunagry’s excellence
going forwards had a tendancy to obscure their defensive issues and they were beaten
in the 1954 World Cup final, the so-called Miracle of Bern, 3-2 by West Germany.
The West Germans used Horst Eckel to man-mark Hidegkuti and Helmut Rahn attacked the space between Zakarias and Lantos.
Toni Turek , the West German keeper, also atoned for the spill that allowed Zoltan Czibor
to score by pulling off a wonderful save from
Hidegkuti, and Rahn’s 84 th minute winner sealed the most unlikely of World Cup wins.
1958 and 1962 1958 and 1962 belonged to Brazil, both as
victors but also in the way they played, with verve, style, and, in 1958, a certain Pele.
Both winning Brazil sides played with a back four,
but a back four in which one of the centre-backs, Hilderaldo Bellini in 1958 and Mauro
Ramos in 1962, were happy to carry the ball out and act as an auxiliary half-back.
Brazil played with two sitting half-backs, Didi and Zito, who could act as deep-lying
playmakers but also had a screening function for the back four, and with the stopper-style
centre-back joining them, could transition from a 4-2-4 to a 3-3-4 in possession.
Pele played much as Sindelar and Hidegkuti had before him, dropping off and linking the
half-backs with the centre-forward Vava, a role the Brazilians called the ponta de lanca. He was assisted by Zagallo , who played in a
moderately advanced left-wing role in 1958, not as
high as the mercurial Garrincha, but tucked back so deep in 1962 that he almost played
as the advanced right-sided midfielder in a three.
​Zito and Zagallo shuttled and covered, while
Didi screened and sprayed long passes wide, and with Pele dropping off and Garrincha playing
high and wide, but also cutting in towards Vava, the formation in 1962 could almost be
a 4-1-2-1-2, but with width.
It was an irresistible combination of tactical thought, individual skill, and belief in the
primacy of their football and it carried Brazil to two consecutive World Cups, beating
Sweden’s version of the W-M 5-2 in 1958 and Czechoslovakia’s 4-2-4/4-3-3 hybrid
3-1 in 1962.
Crucially, Brazil had recognised that a solid defensive set-up with four or five defensively-
minded players could allow the flair players such as Pele and Garrincha to function.
Tactics were releasing talent, having previously been used to negate them.
1966 saw England win their sole World Cup to-date and, quite probably, ever.
Playing on home soil, Sir Alf Ramsey’s side lined up
in a sort of 4-1-3-2, with Nobby Stiles less a half-
back and more the first real holding midfielder or anchorman in the modern game.
While Brazil’s deep-lying midfielders shuttled and played creatively, England used Stiles
to close down, tackle, and distribute short passes
to the more creative midfielders Alan Ball, Martin Peters , and the attacking midfielder Bobby Charlton.
Indeed, with Charlton pushing forward behind Geoff Hurst and Roger Hunt,
England’s formation was almost a diamond or 4-3-3 when in possession.
The purpose was to nullify the fact that wingers meeting a back four could be man-marked out of the game.
By withdrawing both wingers and instead playing through the centre,
England could create a numerical advantage in the middle of the pitch where they had
talented passes of the ball, anchored by Stiles who did not have to worry about creating but
could focus on defensive work.
With Charlton dropping in and Ball in particular pushing wide, England could achieve some
measure of width without ceding the midfield, and either centre-forward could also drift wide, as could Charlton.
In effect, the shape could become a form of 4-2-4 against weaker
sides, but reverting to a 4-1-3-2 against better ones with stronger full-backs.
Stiles could man-mark a deep-dropping forward, as he did
with Eusebio against Portugal in the 1966 semi-final, without disrupting the positioning of the back four.
England were physical, direct, and played long where possible; it wasn’t
pretty, but it was enough to beat West Germany 4- 2 and secure the Jules Rimet Cup for the hosts.
In some ways, the period can be seen as a sandwich – the style and swagger of Brazil
in 1958 and 1962 bookended by the pragmatism of West Germany in 1954 and England in 1966.
The common currency was tactics, but as Alf Ramsey
said, “I’m employed to win football matches. That’s all.”