What is the best formation in football?

is it 4-4-2 or 4-5-1 or 4-2-3-1? etc

I think 4-2-3-1 is certainly the best option for most clubs, it's the most solid defensively and offensively but I am firmly of the belief that you play the best formation for your best players, rather than trying to fit players into a formation.

4-4-2.

Simple and effective.

The Poznan

442 historically has been and teams who can play it now and play it well tend to do well.

However In modern football the way players have developed 4231 is a brilliant formation and has risen to prominence.

4-4-2 works in a football world where everybody plays 4-4-2, the problem is that these days it's quite easy for clubs to get dominated in the middle by teams who play five in the midfield and there aren't a lot of quality 'traditional' wingers who run down the by-line and cross the ball into the strikers, don't think 4-4-2 works as well with inverted wingers.

Flat back four,
Two holding midfielders, one going forward when the team has possession.
Two wingers.
One attacking midfielder, playing just off the striker.
One striker.

Football is basically a very simple game, made difficult only by the people who play it.  

The trouble with formations, is that they straightjacket teams and make them too dependent on players who specialise in one particular aspect of play.  

Because of this, teams now need huge squads of players.  In these days of modern formations, a manager has to have more than one player of each specialism to allow for injuries and resting the poor darlings so they don't get "tired".   (how footballers survived 42 league matches and multiple cup replays in a season I'll never know..!!).  Substitute benches have to be filled with as many specialists as possible so that, if necessary, the formation can be changed during the match.

Forget the formations.  All any football team needs is:

A goalkeeper
two full backs  (one on each side of the pitch, natch)
two centre backs
Three or four midfielders, take your pick
The rest are forwards  (note:  not 'strikers')

Simple, innit..?

What this system allows for, is that it credits footballers for having the nous and wit to be able to figure out what to do in any given situation without having to check with their coaches diagram first to make sure that doing it won't mean the team 'loses it's shape'.  

Hmmmm.... perhaps that might be asking a little too much.   Couldn't be done, could it..?   Of course it couldn't.    Which is why the Dutch team of the 1970's made it to two world cup finals playing something they called "Total Football".  This was a rather novel idea that every player in the team should develop his skills to enable him to be able to play in the position of any other member of the team.

Football really isn't a difficult game to play, unless you make it so.

Indeed, more tactics have drawn a funny line across how systems work. England always played a 442, yet Sheringham has never been a striker leading a line. 442 was based on wingers who got up and down the pitch, yet most still have to.

Even the 4231 is a false economy. It says nothing for roaming, for different areas of dominance and much more.

Dolphin Ziggler wrote:Indeed, more tactics have drawn a funny line across how systems work. England always played a 442, yet Sheringham has never been a striker leading a line. 442 was based on wingers who got up and down the pitch, yet most still have to.

Even the 4231 is a false economy. It says nothing for roaming, for different areas of dominance and much more.

Well..... not quite. England didn't play wingers under Alf Ramsey, which could be why his world cup winners of 1966 were known as the "Wingless Wonders". A nit-picking point, perhaps, but one worthy of making, methinks.

Ramsey kept it simple. It worked.

Oh aye, but youre about the only person who can figure out how to use the internet that actually remembers that Fourth

I personally love a 2-5-3, gives you five men in the midfield and two strikers the best of both worlds. Hull play it right now in the prem., a bunch of good sides play it in Italy. If you have wingbacks that really cover a great deal of ground it can be devastating.

The Fourth Lion wrote:

Dolphin Ziggler wrote:Indeed, more tactics have drawn a funny line across how systems work. England always played a 442, yet Sheringham has never been a striker leading a line. 442 was based on wingers who got up and down the pitch, yet most still have to.

Even the 4231 is a false economy. It says nothing for roaming, for different areas of dominance and much more.

Well..... not quite.  England didn't play wingers under Alf Ramsey, which could be why his world cup winners of 1966 were known as the "Wingless Wonders".   A nit-picking point, perhaps, but one worthy of making, methinks.

Ramsey kept it simple.  It worked.

Not quite true there, Ramsey altered his tactics depending on the opposition, one game he would use wingers and then next he would not but he still utilised wide men such as Alan Ball. In short short he used wide men in the mould of a Beckham rather than a Giggs.

Italia 90 we definitely didn't use a 4-4-2 formation, was a 5-4-1 which suited the largely defensive tournament that it was.

hbk48942 wrote:is it 4-4-2 or 4-5-1 or 4-2-3-1? etc

Depends on the players available.

socal1976 wrote:I personally love a 2-5-3, gives you five men in the midfield and two strikers the best of both worlds. Hull play it right now in the prem., a bunch of good sides play it in Italy. If you have wingbacks that really cover a great deal of ground it can be devastating.  

The problem is that it only works for me with players who are wing-backs, there are very few actual wing-backs playing football today because football is generally played with 4 at the back. With full-backs the formation becomes too defensive and ends up being a 5 man defence, with wide midfielders it ends up becoming too attacking leaving the defence exposed.

Crimey wrote:

socal1976 wrote:I personally love a 2-5-3, gives you five men in the midfield and two strikers the best of both worlds. Hull play it right now in the prem., a bunch of good sides play it in Italy. If you have wingbacks that really cover a great deal of ground it can be devastating.  

The problem is that it only works for me with players who are wing-backs, there are very few actual wing-backs playing football today because football is generally played with 4 at the back. With full-backs the formation becomes too defensive and ends up being a 5 man defence, with wide midfielders it ends up becoming too attacking leaving the defence exposed.

Liverpool have played with it and it is an attacking formation if played right. I agree though it requires two great wingbacks, players that run like the devil, but it is a naturally aggresive formation. 5 in midfield and two strikers. It is not an easy formation to play but the fact that it can shift to a 2-3-5 based on need is a strength in my book and not a weakness, it can flip so easily from attack to defense. I know it is not as favored as the 1-3-2-4 in modern football but its uniqueness can create problems because of that fact. I feel like a one striker set up can leave that player very isolated.