The 1970s saw three World Cups, broadcast for the first time around the world in colour via satellite.
As if spurred on by the technological advances that made football globally available
and in vibrant splashes of colour, the 1970s’ three World Cups produced some of the most
exciting attacking sides ever seen on football’s biggest stage.
The 1970 World Cup, held in the blistering
heat and high attitude of Mexico, was won by Brazil.
The selecao , coached by the Zagallo who was a player in the successful campaigns of
1958 and 1962, were universally acclaimed as the best team of the tournament.
Indeed, in 2007 World Soccer’s experts voted the side the greatest of all time.
But every thesis needs an antithesis, and the Italian side, coached by Ferruccio Valcareggi, were just that.
Valcareggi’s side lined up in a form of catenaccio , the style developed by Helenio
Herrera of Inter in the 1960s from Karl Rappan’s verrou, as seen in an earlier video in this series.
Catenaccio , the bolt, saw the team line up with an attacking wing-back, two centre-backs,
a sweeper, and a deep-lying playmaker, often
assisted by a bustling, screening midfielder.
The emphasis was on quick transitions from front to back, with width provided on one
side by the wing-back and on the other by a wide
midfielder or winger, who was also expected to track back.
In some ways, the system anticipated a sort of 3-4-3, though asymmetrical.
Giacinto Facchetti, Italy’s captain in 1970, was also the key cog in Herrera’s Inter
and the Italian squad had a number of other Inter
players, showing the reliance on the Milan side’s system.
Valcareggi had attempted to add some attacking verve to Herrera’s template by
playing two out-and-out strikers, Luigi Riva and Roberto Boninsegna , in front of Mazzola,
but the Italian coach had to alternate Mazzola
and Gianna Rivera , his two most creative players,
because he could not fit them both into the side.
At its best, Valcareggi’s system saw wing- backs with energy, Angelo Domenghini so far
forward he was effectively a midfielder, and a
libero-style sweeper who could carry the ball forwards, with Mazzola dropping off or surging
forwards to create or score.
However, all too often the Italian mentality of playing tight and waiting to capitalise
on errors meant they were stolid rather than
inspiring; it should be noted, too, that while Brazil
overwhelmed Uruguay in their semi-final, Italy had to slog it out in extra time against a
tough West German team, and so brought heavier legs into the final.
Despite that, it is hard to see any way that Zagallo’s side could be beaten.
Their system, effectively a 4-2-4, retained the roving centre-back
of Brazil’s earlier transition to the back four, in this instance Piazza.
Pele and Tostao were both deep-dropping centre-forwards, while Jairzinho and Rivelino could beat men
outside or rove infield.
Gerson created from deep with Clodoaldo screening, and both full-backs
got forwards, Carlos Alberto on the right somewhat more than Everaldo on the left.
The emphasis was on rotation, with Jairzinho popping up on the left, the midfielders or
Piazza happy to carry from deep, and Pele or Tostao dropping off; sometimes, both did,
and Rivelino or Jairzinho would push inside.
This resulted in a shape that could resemblea 4-2-3-​
1 or even a 4-2-2-2; the point was that most of the side had licence to roam and find space,
which made marking difficult, especially with the rigid system used by the Italians.
Brazil won 4-1, the crowning goal by Carlos Alberto a genuine work of art. While in 1970 the best team won, it could
be argued that Holland’s 1974 side was the best,
along with the Hungary vintage of 1954, to have reached a World Cup final and lost.
Inspired by Johan Cruyff and espousing the philosophy
of Total Football, the Dutch played a revolutionary style that originated at Ajax
under Rinus Michels.
The term Total Football, in fact, originated in response to Holland’s
1974 performances and the essence of the style was
a 4-3-3 becoming a 3-4-3, at times, in possession, and the use of space, creating it in attack
and squeezing it while defending.
The sweeper, in ‘74 converted midfielder Arie Haan, could step up into midfield to
spray passes, while the right and left flanks played
a mesmeric style of interchanging football, overlapping and interchanging at will.
The central midfield three usually saw a playmaker at the base, with shuttling cover runners
and Johan Neeskens detailed to mark any opposition playmakers.
Neeskens was a ferocious presser of the ball and man, a style that
was taken up by the rest of the team over time.
Ahead of the midfield was a front three of Cruyff, Rep, and Rensenbrink who could attack
from anywhere with Cruyff especially dropping off or pulling wide.
Total movement, pressing, the control of space, a level of interchange bordering on the
telepathic and supported by extraordinary levels of fitness: Total Football was cooperative,
a perfection of system built on individual skill.
And yet, despite taking the lead before the West Germans touched the ball in the Final
and despite having plenty of chances to win the game, Holland lost.
In Gerd Muller, Uli Hoeness , and a back four featuring Vogts, who man-
marked Cruyff from right-back , Beckenbauer, and Breitner, West Germany had superb
players with organisation and bloody-mindedness.
It was enough to capitalise on the Dutch inability to score, and West Germany won 2-1.
It was a similar story in 1978, although hosts Argentina also benefitted from some absurd
refereeing, a violently partisan crowd, and a military junta hell-bent on winning the
tournament on home soil.
The Dutch played as they did in 1974, this time with Arie Haan in central midfielder
and Ruud Krol sweeping.
Argentina played a nominal form of 4-3-3 under the urbane, chain-
smoking coach Cesar Luis Menotti . Their system was evocative of 4-2-4 though, with
Americo Gallego a sitting defensive midfielder, withdrawn from Ossie Ardiles , a creative
box-to-box player.
Ahead of them, Mario Kempes played in the hole as a number 10, but got
forwards to join a hard-working, bustling centre-forward Leopoldo Luque.
Luque and Kempes could interchange, and the wide players, reinstalled in Argentine football
after a period in the 1960s when they went out of fashion, were expected to cut inside
to provide the full-backs room to overlap, as
well as playing with width themselves.
​ Ardilles was the dynamo who made everything
tick, his short passing, quick recycling of possession as he moved up the pitch, and his
ability to win the ball in midfield alongside the
bruising Gallego, crucial to Argentina’s slick, rapid style of football.
In some ways, Argentina’s style anticipates quite a modern 4-2-3-1.
As Tim Vickery has said, while there were certainly issues off the
pitch that contributed to the Netherland’s second
World Cup final defeat in as many tournaments, there is a tendency to overlook Argentina’s,
and Menotti’s, tactical virtues.
As Menotti himself said, “A team is, above all, an idea.”
The 1970s showed that, tactically, ideas could take football almost anywhere.
It was an intoxicating time when the beautiful game truly became just that.