The father of Italian Football journalism and champion of catenaccio, Gianni Brera is reported to have said that “perfect game of football would end nil, nil” with this in mind marking can be just as attractive and fascinating as attacking play, there are two main types of marking, Man and Zonal but each has deviations both systematically and situationally.
Man-marking was the dominant style between the 1920s and the 1950s as teams persisted with team-orientated man coverage in open play until the 1990s and beyond, especially in Germany. The system originated with classic W M formation because two teams deploying W M essentially covered each other by default, each player was responsible for tracking their man, being close enough to press and tackle immediately and not losing them. The advantages are clear, it's straightforward to pick someone and stay close to them wherever they go. As is generally the case attacking modifications adapted to nullify this style of defence. As was observed overtly in the case where players such as the number 9 were dropping back into space. As famously attempted by Nandor Hidegkuti (Hungry) against England in 1953, neutralizing the impact of Man-Marking.
The classic deficiency of man-marking is exposed if a player moves away from their position. The marker tasked with that player must follow or leave, which either creates space if they track or a free player if they don’t. An alternative to this is, flexible man marking, marking still applies but if there is a loss of lateral or vertical movement by an attacker the marker hands them over to another defender. This is easiest in the team deploying a sweeping central defender, the outer center backs mark an opposition striker but if the striker runs laterally, he is handed over to the sweeper. This means it harder to overload or drag defenders out of position, the subsequent logical extension of this especially now that pressing is prominent among sides is space-orientated man-marking.
Each defensive player is responsible for a zone of the pitch and if an opponent enters that zone, they are man-marked. This is mostly decreed now by pitch area, while the midfielders might mark each other, a team‘s strikers could deploy space-orientated man marking, if the opposition center backs push up into the midfield, if they don’t strikers remain positional. In this form of man-marking, the similarities to situational pressing are evident. The last and most frequently deployed form of man-marking now except for set pieces is when a player is deployed to counter a specific threat, usually, the opposition’s most creative player, while the rest of the team would employ zonal marking, one destroyer tracks the opponent’s most creative cog and is tasked to negate their influence on the game. Any player can do this, which occasionally leads to the team changing its shape, in relation to the position of their destroyer. Mourinho deploying Morouane Fellaini in the number 10 position at United, for instance, diverts the 10’s natural role as the creator to a destroyer, and Fellaini is tasked to nullify the opposition’s deep-lying playmaker, rather than creating himself.
The first development toward zonal marking occurred in the 1950s in Brazil especially under Zizi at Fluminense. Where a 4-2-4 formation allowed one of the two center backs to push forward or stay back if a full-back push forward, this was merely possible because the team had started marking zonally rather than by man, so the center back was sometimes spared their man. As football’s understanding of space increased in its sophistication, players started to analyze pitch in terms of the zone and orientate accordingly. Arrigo Sacchi’s AC Milan was encouraged to think of the ball, the opposition, open space, and their teammates as the four reference points that would decide their position.
Zonal marking was a natural adjunct to this and as it advanced it became more useful because of how it lends itself more naturally to a pressing game. Zonal marking is deployed either on the base of position or man, position orientated zonal marking shifts the team’s block laterally and vertically to compress the space on the pitch. It can be used to press but it focuses more on squeezing the space and preventing options. Man-oriented zonal marking is not dissimilar to space-oriented zonal marking. The man with the ball is the reference point, the defending team adjusts themselves to maintain a certain distance from that man as a whole rather than shifting as a unit as is the case with position-orientated zonal marking. Zonal marking is now more than normal in open play while men marking still exists largely at set pieces.
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