What is the Americanisation of the beautiful game?

There has always been zonal or man marking in football
well before the Americans became really interested in our version of the game. There are still differences of opinion as to which method is more effective for defensive purposes among coaches around the world.

Conjunctivitis.com - A site for sore eyes.

Liverpool used 'Zonal Marking' in their heady days when Hansen was playing for them.
Howard Wilkinson used the zonal system for over 30 years and implemented it into many of the England teams when he was Technical Director at the FA.

But I don't think that Sterling is likely to get his head on the ball at a corner.
These days at corners, teams tend to deploy a combination of zonal and man-to-man marking.

People like to criticise zonal marking as if you concede a goal through zonal marking, the system is at fault, whereas if you concede with man marking then you can point the finger solely at the player.

It must be extremely difficult to watch both the player and the ball simultaneously while trying to stay with your man and then try to win a header.

Not saying this would have stopped it, but if there was a player 'zonally' at the back post they could have been focussing on the ball and beaten Monreal to the header.

As Willo says teams do a combination of both man and zonal and I trust Roy to sort it out.

Blog: Andy Johnson's Magic Hat [Link]

Twitter:

[Tweet Link]

This thread seems to have lost the plot. What's the latest on Cabaye's injury, anyone? How long is he out for?

The right place at the right time