THE REAL VALUE OF ENGLISH FOOTBALL
— Vittorio Pozzo | 10/12/1932 —

The English championship game is different from the English game of international matches. The match played today on the Higbury pitch between Arsenal and Chelsea is proof of this. The layout of the game is the same. That is, it follows the modern trend of working entirely in depth and aiming to achieve the practical aim in the shortest way and in the shortest time possible. But the tone of the activity is very different. This tone is vigor personified. It is the most sincere and fullest use imaginable of the physical energy that the player has accumulated in a week of work and care. Compared to today's battle between the two great London rivals, last Wednesday's meeting between the national teams of England and Austria was almost a rosy spectacle.

SEVENTY THOUSAND SPECTATORES.

The new stand was inaugurated at the Higbury pitch; the grandiose two-storey building capable of seating more than 25 thousand people cost something like 45 thousand pounds. This was a work that completed the reorganization program of the football club, on the verge of bankruptcy a few years after the end of the war, and which is now in first place in the championship table and at the head of the British football movement. Now the Arsenal pitch can accommodate 80 thousand people. The Prince of Wales was present and, despite the freezing day, around 70 thousand people were present, ten or fifteen thousand more than those who flocked to the international meeting with Austria.

Lively local rivalry divides the "reds" of Arsenal, the "gunners", as they are defined here, from the "blues" of Chelsea, the "pensioners", according to the popular definition deriving from the military hospital for invalids bordering the camp West End society. Busy environment therefore.

It was one of the fiercest and most interesting battles that the game of football can produce. 5 minutes into the match, Arsenal were already ahead. A shot from the left winger, Bastin, had beaten the Chelsea goalkeeper just wide of the post and halfway up. In the second half, Arsenal's right wing increased their lead with a long-range shot; then it was Chelsea's turn to score through left winger Brout and, towards the end, as darkness rapidly descended, the "scorers" definitively secured the result, scoring two more points thanks to center Coleman and of the left winger Bastin. Final result therefore: 4 to 1 in favor of Arsenal.

THE FIVE GOALS.

Of the five points, four were the five points scored by wing players, but more than the result it is the game played that is of interest, a game of spectacular speed and robustness. In England, the days of tight play and slow, staid actions are definitely over. No one works on the Newcastle United school, the school that delighted our student days in the immediate pre-war period. Now everything is open style, forward actions, long-term movement; the disposition of the men on the field has also changed. Arsenal are rightly considered the most elastic and fastest exponent of the new game theory, and the tactical attitudes that the "scorers" team adopts during a match actually deserve to be studied. The Arsenal team passes through the W-type attack layout for the team, and in reality the two half-wingers are almost never seen in the advanced formation. The two wingers and the center are up front and are the only ones who can score. But it is not this only tactical detail that is of importance and interest.

What catches your attention the most is the formation of the defense. The extreme sector of the eleven is made up of three men as well as the goalkeeper. From the two full-backs and the centre-half and this not in a vague and approximate way, but in a fixed, firm and constant arrangement. The centre-half is at the same height as the full-backs throughout the match, and actually finds himself further behind them when one of the two advances. In all 90 minutes of play that I witnessed today, Arsenal's second line centre, Roberts, did not abandon his purely defensive position for an instant. He remained guarding the famous centre-forward Gallacher, also known in Italy; he never did any attacking work and his Chelsea rival, O'Dowd, behaved exactly like him. Note that Roberts and O' Dowd are considered two of the best centre-halfs in English football at the moment. Two authentic full-backs in the most exact sense of the word.

The connection and construction game is done, both at Arsenal and at Chelsea, by the two inside forwards with their retracted position and the two wing half-backs who no longer have more than the position they assume when they enter the pitch. The two insiders and the two half-backs in question form like a square in the center of the pitch, a square that moves and bends with great ductility and mobility depending on the circumstances, but a square that forms like a defensive block and like a prepulsion spring in constructive work. All the advances start from here, the whole strategy of the game seems to emanate from it.

CLEAR DEMONSTRATION OF A GOOD GAME.

It's one of the most interesting things, seeing four Arsenal men we talked about operating in this central arrangement. Also because of these four men, two are called Jack and James, two intelligences of the game, two men whose technical finesse or ability to perceive situations and extract tactical advantages is not known whether to be admired more. The match played on the Arsenal pitch was, we repeat, something that deserved to be seen, a practical demonstration of a modern theory of the game. Many of the coaches who came from the continent to watch last Wednesday's match had stopped in London for the occasion and all, in agreement, were of the opinion that, from the point of view of game strategy and study of the English orientation of the moment, this, and not the one offered by the England-Austria match, was the most interesting and content-rich match. That was more beautiful, this was more instructive.

Hugo Meisl, on the eve of the test that pitted his men against the representatives of England, went to Birmingham to watch the Aston Villa-Sheffield Wednesday match, and came back admired, he came back convinced, sure of losing by a large margin, and this was his clear and open confession. In several of those who were at Higbury today, we continentals have come to conclusions about the value and efficiency of English football today which coincide with those of the Austrian coach. English football must be seen in the championship environment in which it was born and for which it lives. Then it says something truly beautiful and convincing.