Should Canada have played a bunker strategy against teams like Croatia?

[football_world]

Just watched Morocco beat Spain. Now Morocco was doing the textbook definition of bunkering.  Very nice bunkering by Morocco, coaches in the future will be studying how Morocco bunkered against Spain.

The interesting part of Morocco's bunker is, it was a very compact bunker.  Morocco was voluntarily letting Spain walk up to about 65% up the field without challenging Spain.  The striker for Morocco was positioned around the 35% part of Morocco's side.  But once Spain tried to pass into the remaining 35% of Morocco's side, that's where the turnovers happened for Spain.

Also, Morocco's defense was very organized.  Heck, the entire team was very organized on defense. Very impressive bunkering defense.

Edited December 6, 2022 by football_world

[El Hombre]

To the original question: No.

This answer is heavily influenced by revisionist history and my rose coloured glasses and also my attempt to reconcile that flying halfway around the world was worth it.  But nevertheless, I'm glad we played fearless attacking football even if it meant an 0-3 record because this lays the groundwork for 2026.  Anything we got here was gravy so long as we adequately prepare for 2026 and I think (I hope) we did that.

One thing we needed to do was show the rest of the world our greatest attribute and that was our attacking strength.  They all know about Davies and David but it would be really hard to show how dangerous Buchanan and Laryea and Eustaquio and Kone could be if they were constantly hemmed in our own half.  If our performance helps our players progress to new heights with their club football ahead of 2026, that will be worth it.  Were Celtic and Watford more keen to put pen to paper after seeing Johnston and Kone in this system on the world stage?  Would Buchanan have Serie A rumours swirling otherwise?  Will other moves happen because Canada is now just a little more on the radar than they were before?

We won't know until January whether this paid off, but my completely biased point of view is telling me right now that going out there and playing like we wanted to has created some buzz that will help our most promising players.

Sure, we could've bunkered like Costa Rica and maybe eked out a 1-0 win like they did against Japan, but to do that we would've required flawless goalkeeping and mistake-free defending.  Otherwise there would be just as good a chance as getting shelled 7-0 like they did against Spain.  Comparing their tournament to ours, would you prefer a 1-0 win against Croatia but also a 7-0 shelling against Belgium?  I wouldn't.  I think that would've been terrible on the whole.

So, I won't know for sure until Feb. 1st, but if a couple more players progress to bigger and better leagues in the next two months and if their performance in the WC in any way helped that, then I think it'll be worth it as we will be in a better situation come 2026.

Finally, we scored our first goal in the World Cup because of this style of play.  Bunkering only reduces the odds of that happening and I will be goddamned if we went scoreless in another world cup.  Or, worse yet, our only goal be an OG.

[The Beaver 2.0]

23 hours ago, El Hombre said:

To the original question: No.

This answer is heavily influenced by revisionist history and my rose coloured glasses and also my attempt to reconcile that flying halfway around the world was worth it.  But nevertheless, I'm glad we played fearless attacking football even if it meant an 0-3 record because this lays the groundwork for 2026.  Anything we got here was gravy so long as we adequately prepare for 2026 and I think (I hope) we did that.

One thing we needed to do was show the rest of the world our greatest attribute and that was our attacking strength.  They all know about Davies and David but it would be really hard to show how dangerous Buchanan and Laryea and Eustaquio and Kone could be if they were constantly hemmed in our own half.  If our performance helps our players progress to new heights with their club football ahead of 2026, that will be worth it.  Were Celtic and Watford more keen to put pen to paper after seeing Johnston and Kone in this system on the world stage?  Would Buchanan have Serie A rumours swirling otherwise?  Will other moves happen because Canada is now just a little more on the radar than they were before?

We won't know until January whether this paid off, but my completely biased point of view is telling me right now that going out there and playing like we wanted to has created some buzz that will help our most promising players.

Sure, we could've bunkered like Costa Rica and maybe eked out a 1-0 win like they did against Japan, but to do that we would've required flawless goalkeeping and mistake-free defending.  Otherwise there would be just as good a chance as getting shelled 7-0 like they did against Spain.  Comparing their tournament to ours, would you prefer a 1-0 win against Croatia but also a 7-0 shelling against Belgium?  I wouldn't.  I think that would've been terrible on the whole.

So, I won't know for sure until Feb. 1st, but if a couple more players progress to bigger and better leagues in the next two months and if their performance in the WC in any way helped that, then I think it'll be worth it as we will be in a better situation come 2026.

Finally, we scored our first goal in the World Cup because of this style of play.  Bunkering only reduces the odds of that happening and I will be goddamned if we went scoreless in another world cup.  Or, worse yet, our only goal be an OG.

I take your points, and I acknowledge that you are answering a specific question: should we have bunkered?, but I feel that we could have achieved much--if not all--of what you feel we might have achieved this WC if we used smarter tactics. No, not a full on cynical bunker, but something smarter than the balls-to-the-wall approach we employed this WC.  

Edited December 7, 2022 by The Beaver 2.0

[Greatest Cockney Rip Off]

No

[ECW]

On 12/6/2022 at 1:39 PM, El Hombre said:

To the original question: No.

This answer is heavily influenced by revisionist history and my rose coloured glasses and also my attempt to reconcile that flying halfway around the world was worth it.  But nevertheless, I'm glad we played fearless attacking football even if it meant an 0-3 record because this lays the groundwork for 2026.  Anything we got here was gravy so long as we adequately prepare for 2026 and I think (I hope) we did that.

One thing we needed to do was show the rest of the world our greatest attribute and that was our attacking strength.  They all know about Davies and David but it would be really hard to show how dangerous Buchanan and Laryea and Eustaquio and Kone could be if they were constantly hemmed in our own half.  If our performance helps our players progress to new heights with their club football ahead of 2026, that will be worth it.  Were Celtic and Watford more keen to put pen to paper after seeing Johnston and Kone in this system on the world stage?  Would Buchanan have Serie A rumours swirling otherwise?  Will other moves happen because Canada is now just a little more on the radar than they were before?

We won't know until January whether this paid off, but my completely biased point of view is telling me right now that going out there and playing like we wanted to has created some buzz that will help our most promising players.

Sure, we could've bunkered like Costa Rica and maybe eked out a 1-0 win like they did against Japan, but to do that we would've required flawless goalkeeping and mistake-free defending.  Otherwise there would be just as good a chance as getting shelled 7-0 like they did against Spain.  Comparing their tournament to ours, would you prefer a 1-0 win against Croatia but also a 7-0 shelling against Belgium?  I wouldn't.  I think that would've been terrible on the whole.

So, I won't know for sure until Feb. 1st, but if a couple more players progress to bigger and better leagues in the next two months and if their performance in the WC in any way helped that, then I think it'll be worth it as we will be in a better situation come 2026.

Finally, we scored our first goal in the World Cup because of this style of play.  Bunkering only reduces the odds of that happening and I will be goddamned if we went scoreless in another world cup.  Or, worse yet, our only goal be an OG.

Good point.

Herdman has never bunkered and his ethos is attack and “new Canada”. After decades of the frustrations of managers who have zero confidence in our ability to attack, I’m okay with this. He’s improved over his tenure and I don’t see why he can’t continue that. 

I think it’s a necessary step to attack and maybe that means being a bit naive. Maybe it takes until the next manager to become more well rounded. Maybe it takes Ancelotti. 

About certain of our players showing well, it’s Herdman who has brought them in…. 

Edited December 8, 2022 by ECW

[Kent]

When we were up 1-0 on Croatia I strongly felt like we still needed at least one more goal, because I don't think we are capable of just bunkering to hold a result. Maybe there were tactics to get better results, but I have followed the team to varying degrees since the early 90's, and we've always bunkered until Zambrano and then Herdman came along, and we've never done as well bunkering as we have these last few years (with apologies to the 2000 Gold Cup team).

[ECW]

4 hours ago, Kent said:

When we were up 1-0 on Croatia I strongly felt like we still needed at least one more goal, because I don't think we are capable of just bunkering to hold a result. Maybe there were tactics to get better results, but I have followed the team to varying degrees since the early 90's, and we've always bunkered until Zambrano and then Herdman came along, and we've never done as well bunkering as we have these last few years (with apologies to the 2000 Gold Cup team).

I liked Zambrano very much for that reason, for the mentality shift. Part of Herdman’s success has come with the extra-positive relations he has with his players… which has something to do with some of the best of them committing play for Canada. 

Fully predictable full-on defending was dead boring.