The 442 Formation: Tactics, Strengths and Weaknesses
Everything You Need to Know About the 4-4-2 Formation
Did you know that the 442 formation dates back to an era of football from over 60 years ago?
Read this comprehensive guide to one of football’s most iconic and identifiable formations - featuring its strengths, weaknesses and tactical implications.
The iconic 4-4-2 football formation.
The 4-4-2 Formation: A Bit of Background
The 4-4-2 formation feels like the very staple of English football owing to its seemingly constant thread through the rich tapestry of the game on these shores.
You may think that football manager Alf Ramsey and his heroic English Lions of 1966 were the trendsetters of this formation, but you would be wrong.
In fact, England - despite being the homeland of football - were seen as slow to evolve tactically in comparison to other footballing regions around the world.
In the game’s early years, Scotland were the nation to first acknowledge the benefits of a short passing game.
Years later, as pointed out by Jonathan Wilson in his best-selling book, ‘Inverting the Pyramid’, South American teams were the innovators, and they were strategically more astute than football’s founders.
Wilson indicated just how primitive England’s approach to change was in an anecdotal passage about former Aston Villa Chairman, Doug Ellis.
It read:
“Ellis also claimed to have invented the bicycle-kick, even though he never played football to any level and was not born until ten years after the first record of Unzaga performing the trick.
The shaming aspect for British football, is that the game’s homeland was so ill-disposed to innovation, that it is just about conceivable that Ellis was the first man to perform a bicycle-kick on British soil.”
It was actually a footballing pioneer called Viktor Maslov, a significant but relatively unknown coach from the Soviet Union, who first devised the idea for a 4-4-2 formation.
Maslov, who managed Torpedo Moscow and Dynamo Kiev amongst others, saw Brazil win the 1958 World Cup with the 4-2-4 formation.
It was a system used by a host of other teams, to varying degrees of success, and was also implemented by the Soviet national team.
Hosting two wide wingers high up the pitch in attack, this system left two central holding midfielders.
The central midfielders would be supplemented by one of the wingers dropping back into midfield when they were pressed.
Maslov felt that the system could be developed in a way that nobody else had thought of before.
“Football is like an aeroplane. As velocities increase, so does air resistance, and so you have to make the head more streamlined.”
That was Maslov’s rather philosophical explanation of introducing the 4-4-2.
In pure footballing jargon, what he envisioned was, instead of having one winger drop back into midfield, he felt it made more sense to pull both high wingers back into midfield to ‘beef up’ the middle of the pitch.
This would mean having a right and left-sided midfielder who could operate up and down the flank in accordance with the current phase of play.
It gave his teams a two-man advantage in midfield and meant that full-backs were given added attacking responsibility, as they were required to step into the space in front of them when the left and right midfielders started to make their runs.
This seamless movement of a flowing football unit was what Maslov identified as the key to success.
The team working together as a vehicle, to him, was more important than the individual components’ value within it.
The players who didn’t have the ball were tasked with closing any space given to the opposition. This is widely regarded as the first form of what is known in the modern game as ‘pressing the opposition.’
Coaches in today’s game like Mauricio Pochettino and Jurgen Klopp are advocates of the Gegenpress strategy, which encourages players to win back the ball immediately after losing it.
It is believed Pep Guardiola refers to it as the five-second rule.
The 4-4-2 Formation: Strengths
Ideal setup for counter-attacking
It is solid defensively and can host two banks of four to stifle attacking teams (utilise the low block)
Two forwards can create a one-on-one (vs centre-backs) scenario in attack
Compact shape, easy to transition from defence to attack
The setup allows players to press the opposition from the starting position
Low block diagram
The 4-4-2 Formation: Weaknesses
Less possessional control, a numerical disadvantage in central midfield
Reliant on hard-working players to cover areas. For example, wide midfielders are required to cover defensively as well as support offensively
Strikers usually need to assist in the press, which can be strenuous
Fatigue may become a factor due to the nature of the player’s requirements during the game
The system can be exposed by being too rigid and one-dimensional. The opposition will look to play between the lines
Key Features of the 4-4-2 Formation
With counterattacks a regular feature of the system, it is key that the team employing this formation is athletic and hard-working.
Firstly, in terms of pressing the opposing defence with two forwards (or Centre Forward and Striker) supported by wide midfielders pressing high up the pitch.
Secondly, the midfielders will have a lot of space and pitch to cover, meaning lots of work to get through to ensure the midfield is not overrun.
Typically, the two central midfielders will consist of one holding and one supporting attack.
Sometimes this may look a little like a diamond formation, with one sitting deeper and one pushed higher up the pitch and closer to a number ten role.
In this instance, the wide midfielders will end up slightly narrower to combat teams who play with three central midfielders, in turn placing more emphasis on full-backs providing width going forward.
One feature of the 4-4-2 formation that has yielded success for a lot of teams is the use of two forwards.
Stereotypically, it is fair to say that teams in years gone by would opt for a big player and a little player as a partnership.
The big one acts as a target man, winning aerial duels, holding up the play, and the smaller, more mobile striker feeds off the balls that are won and runs in behind.
That primitive approach evolved into more sophisticated pairings that also worked in tandem, but had more overall footballing qualities.
In essence though, it leads to a similar result, and when thinking of the best pairings, they always have a player slightly deeper just off the number nine.
They would be full of craft and guile, possessing good all-round ability and creating chances for the prolific goal scorers in front of them. Partnerships like Yorke and Cole, Bergkamp and Henry or Sheringham and Shearer.
Teams That Have Made the 4-4-2 Formation a Success
England
The England national side has had relative success with the system.
However, aside from the World Cup win in 1966 and the ‘Oh so close’ tournaments of Italia 90 and Euro 96, the formation has been a bit of a straight jacket, shackling the chances of success at major international competitions.
In the case of Terry Venables’ Euro 96 campaign, he went through several different tactical approaches during the tournament.
One of the first systems he looked to implement was the Christmas Tree formation. It was viewed as a relatively new age tactic, with four defenders, three central midfielders, two attacking midfielders and one centre forward.
He may not have created the 4-3-2-1 formation (named because of its resemblance to a tree shape) but it was probably the first time most English football fans had heard of such a term.
The Premier League was full of 4-4-2’s at the time, like a forest full of common English Oaks, solid but unspectacular.
The glitz and the novelty of Venables’ Christmas Tree was gaining envious glances from other managers in the division.
That said, Venables’ best results were probably when he stuck to the 4-4-2, with a solid back four base that contained Psycho Stuart Pearce and the dependable Gary Neville, the balance of The Guv’nor Paul Ince and the enigmatic Gazza in midfield, Steve McManaman and Darren Anderton wide, and a deadly partnership in Teddy Sheringham and Alan Shearer up front.
Could it be that both Venables and Bobby Robson both managed abroad (at Barcelona no less) and understood how to utilise the 4-4-2 against different systems, having experienced how those in Europe operated?
The Christmas Tree formation
The likes of Venables and Hoddle made way for a more continental approach as the English FA hierarchy sought a change of direction and looked to the leading lights of management in other countries, such as Sven Goran Eriksson and Fabio Capello.
Ironically, and quite strangely, both stuck rigidly to the tried and tested 4-4-2 and refused to deviate.
Maybe they felt that the cut and thrust of English football suited the national team, or maybe they felt that the individual players at their disposal were not suitably accustomed to playing any other way. Who knows?
Manchester United
It would be impossible to talk about successful teams that adopted the 4-4-2 without mentioning the Man United side that won the treble in 1999.
In Beckham, Scholes, Keane and Giggs, they had a midfield with balance, poise, aggression and an eye for a goal. Up front, they had a dream partnership with Cole and Yorke.
That’s before you even mention the solidity of Neville and Irwin - and giants like Schmeichel, Stam and Johnsen.
Ferguson’s United were the masters of the counterattack. High-octane football with precision and a never say die mantra, they were a match for anyone.
However Ferguson, not usually one to be indecisive, apparently had reservations about using the tactic in European competition.
He was astute enough to acknowledge that some of the best teams in Europe would outnumber them in midfield and take control.
It helped that his side were great athletes and carried out the tactics necessary to nullify any threat presented.
They were compact without the ball. In Beckham and Giggs, perhaps their greatest-ever player. they had players who could play wide naturally and press forward, but who could also tuck in and keep the shape with the central midfielders to compress the spaces the opposition looked to occupy.
This graphic shows the shape and solidity of the system against Juventus in the Champions League Semi-Final.
The 4-4-2 formation in action!
In this case, Beckham, Keane, Butt and Blomqvist are in place and ready to mount an attack should they dispossess their opponent in midfield.
Leicester City
The Foxes were absolute outsiders quoted at the ridiculously high price of around 5000/1 to win the Premier League before the 2015/16 season.
But that is exactly what they did!
Despite every player essentially playing above and beyond their expected level, there is no doubt that the suitability of the players to a 4-4-2 system greatly affected their chances of lifting the prestigious title.
The 4-4-2 formation at Leicester City
Claudio Ranieri had gained the moniker of ‘tinkerman’ at Chelsea, such was his tendency to rotate players and shuffle his pack, yet at Leicester he struck on a formula that required only 12/13 players all season.
Just like Maslov had identified over 60 years earlier, Ranieri had a well-drilled footballing unit that earned success via its fluidity and ability to meticulously carry out instruction.
It should be pointed out that there was plenty of talent in Leicester’s ranks.
N’golo Kante, Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy had the season of their lives, but let’s be honest, tactically they got it spot on - and as a team, they were greater than the sum of their parts.
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