As Andres Iniesta prepares to add to his 100 Champions League appearances for Barcelona against Paris St Germain on Wednesday, Adam Bate hails the decision-making ability of an understated icon of the game…
Wednesday 10 December 2014 11:22, UK
Making decisions on a football pitch isn’t easy. In fact it is arguably the difference between a competent player and a truly special one.
You only need to watch a favourable YouTube compilation to appreciate that technical wizardry – far from being beyond the average player – is within the capabilities of many. The true skill is in reproducing it and adapting the skill to the situation.
Arsene Wenger has claimed: “The top players all know what they are going to do before they get the ball.” But that isn’t a simple task. In an interview for ESPN, Wayne Rooney explained: “When a cross comes into a box, there's so many things that go through your mind in a split second, like five or six different things you can do with the ball. You're asking yourself six questions in a split second.”
With as many as six choices routinely at a player’s disposal, that’s a decision-making process that a merely good footballer will get wrong more often than not. Ever wondered why that supposedly unpredictable winger dribbles when he should cross but then crosses when he should dribble? Could it be that he has taken Wenger’s words too literally and pre-planned his actions without care for the possibilities of the given situation? Pre-planning: it’s the curse of the flawed footballer.
It’s a criticism that Liverpool hero Steven Gerrard has become accustomed to. The talk of Hollywood passes has stung the midfielder and the withering assessment of former Milan coach Arrigo Sacchi that Gerrard “lacks what I call knowing-how-to-play football” has dogged the player more than the Italian perhaps ever intended. But a telling passage in Gerrard’s own autobiography in which he reveals the influence of team-mate Gary McAllister hints at the limitations of his methods.
“Gary Mac helped me, particularly with my passing,” explained Gerrard. “Sometimes I hit a long ball when I should have chosen the shorter option. At one point a debate even broke out in the press about my passing. Jesus! It did gnaw away at me, all this talk about whether I was trying too many Hollywood long passes. So one day I sat next to Gary on the bus, flicking through the papers, reading all this stuff about my passing.
Gerrard continued: “‘Macca, why am I choosing to play a long pass instead of a short one, or vice versa? I can’t get my selection right.’ ‘Don’t be worrying,’ said Gary. ‘You’re still young. It’ll come. If you give the ball away, keep your next pass short. Only play a long pass if you know it will definitely get there.’ During matches if I lost possession, Macca would say, ‘Keep the next one.’”
As a means of building the confidence of a young professional, McAllister’s wisdom may well have been sound advice. As a blueprint for greatness it’s a problem. If the long pass isn’t on then why play it? But equally, if the defence-splitting pass is available then why ignore it just because the previous one failed? Gerrard admits he is essentially playing by numbers.
Of course, it would be wrong to make out Gerrard is alone. Wesley Sneijder has developed into a player happier in the knowledge that his only remit upon receiving the ball is to create, while the Argentine culture of the enganche – the hook – actively encourages this type of player. For the playmaker, his responsibility is to make things happen when on the ball whether the situation renders it possible or not. As one of the most famous of them all, Juan Roman Riquelme, memorably declared: “When the team doesn’t win, it’s Riquelme’s fault.”
While Gerrard views decision-making as a pre-meditated role of the dice, Riquelme appears to view it as a deal with the devil – the responsibility and the glory is his alone. The iconic Argentinian is often characterised as the last of the playmakers, an anachronism weighed down by the burden of his role. In some ways he could not be further removed from Barcelona’s Andres Iniesta – a man almost self-consciously part of a team. But Riquelme is in no doubt who the real maestro is.
“The one who plays the game best is Iniesta,” Riquelme once told FIFA. “He knows exactly when to go forward and when to drop back. If he’s got the ball out on the left he knows who’s out on the right. He picks the right moment to do everything: when to dribble, when to speed things up and when to slow things down. And I think that’s the only thing that can’t be taught or bought. You can learn how to shoot and how to control the ball, but being aware of everything that’s happening out on the pitch – that’s something you’re born with or not.”
It all comes back to decision-making. Iniesta’s task has – admittedly – been made easier over the years by the near constant presence of Xavi Hernandez and Lionel Messi just yards from his side. Making the case for Roma’s Francesco Totti, Italian football expert James Horncastle argues: “If you look at Totti’s contemporaries, be they David Beckham at Manchester United, Raul at Real Madrid or Alessandro Del Piero in particular at Juventus, all three have always played alongside other great players, the common denominator being Zinedine Zidane. Totti never had a Zinedine Zidane at Roma, never mind a Luis Figo - his success was a solo effort, a one-man orchestra.”
But surely the argument can just as easily be flipped on its head. It’s precisely because Iniesta so frequently makes the right decisions that we may never know what he would have been capable of at a less successful club. If the right thing had not been to pass to Messi but rather to take on six men or to try that audacious Totti-style chip from 30 yards, perhaps we would have been marvelling at an altogether different player.
There is time for Iniesta to move to his beloved Albacete, where he is a shareholder, and rage against the machine. But for now we must be content with the clues we have. Man of the match performances at the 2010 World Cup final and the 2012 European Championship final, for starters.
That sequence did not continue in 2014 and with Iniesta in underwhelming form for Barcelona, he finds himself well out of the reckoning for the Ballon d’Or. Cristiano Ronaldo is the favourite as both he and Messi close in on the target of scoring 100 Champions League goals before their careers are through. Iniesta, meanwhile, will build on his century of appearances not goals against Paris St Germain on Wednesday. For the patrons in Zurich, the Ballon d’Or vote will be their decision. But when it comes to decision-making on a football pitch, Iniesta is already a winner.
A version of this article originally appeared on Football365
