Is physical football a myth?

So, every now and then we hear people saying things like "the Barclay's Premier League is a physical league" or "Chelsea and Inter are strong, physical teams" and in general from time to time physical football as a style of play is being brought up and mayhaps compared with some other styles.

But is it really a myth?

Most of such contacts in football where strength actually determines which player will come out on top occur in the penalty area (corner kicks etc) and that's a rather small proportion of the football field. Sure there are standing tackles and occasional tussles for the ball in outfield as well, but how often are they actually so physical that a player's strength plays key part and not his other attributes like quickness and composure?

"Michael Essien is a good DM, he's so physical and everything".
Sounds familiar? It's easy to think that strong midfield players like Essien make good defensive midfielders because of their physical abilities. But again I must ask, how often do you see these strong DMs actually employing their strength to stop a player and how often it's just a good clean tackle (not requiring that much strength) or dispossessing an opponent without actually wrestling him to the ground? Liverpool's Lucas was a great DM for us last season and he's not exactly a beast. Yes, there are a number of good, strong DMs (like Essien), but I'm not convinced it's actually their strength that greatly helps them to become good DMs.

And this one someone might have seen coming:
Barcelona are the best team in the world right now and they are full of midgets. Messi runs rings around physically strong defenders for fun. If there is any significant advantage to be found from physical strength in football, how come the best team in the world can lack it completely?


Well, just something I've been thinking of.

Personally I do consider physical football to be a bit of a myth. There are many brilliant players who are also very strong, but I think it's too simple to look at a player, notice that he's strong and conclude that his strength is one of his key attributes. Like, go watch a Drogba goal compilation and see at how many goals he actually needed to use his superior physical strength to score x)
I'm guessing you won't have to raise too many fingers to keep count of those.

I dont think physical only means strength. Pace and stamina also constitute physical attributes!

I do agree with you in general though!

Physical in football means use of muscle capabilities. It means pace, stamina, compact build, height etc.
You don't need to have all of the attributes to be physical,of course

It's all a myth. Have you noticed it's mostly African players that are described that way? It's BS. To play football at the highest level you need a bit of physicality, obviously some more than others. La liga, you can get away with it becasue that's not the main thing there, in the EPL it would help you greatly to have a bit of strength. Essien isn't a physical player, I don't know where that even comes from. Messi rides more tackles due to his low centre of gravity so should he be called a physical player? Isn't reaction speed and dribbling abiliity physcical? It is now a word used by people to discredit people.

football is a myth

there is no such thing called football

only rugby, drama, rugby, drama

thats all...........

Good point Art, but I'll have to disagree here.

Yes, it is true you need a certain amount of strength to play football even in the non-physical leagues. Yet there is a difference, as for example in the La Liga, players more often avoid contact and prefer to work with their feet only as compared to others where they use their upper body and feet.

Their definitely is more priority to bulk up in the premier league as most of the players do in fact rely quite a lot on their pace and strength (especially the latter) to do the work for them.

Alan Shearer is a classic example of a striker who used the physicality of the EPL to his advantage as he frequently used his elbows and shoulders to weave past his markers as their are countless other examples.

In the EPL, players who run out of pace don't have much else going in their game (unless they change) as their reliance was always heavy on it as which is the same case with players who rely on their strength.

Physical football simply means the full use of your body rather then just your feet as EPL is undoubtedly physical despite the countless technically blessed players.

This is especially true for the lower teams.

The problem here lies is, If your gifted with your feet, The physical and guys with more strength can get you off the ball IN NO TIME. They push you away, Hit you hard even though it wont look like a foul.. Lots of things..

Strength is important in Football.

I do agree, its overrated in terms of how big an impact people seem to think it has.

I remember last summer, the amount of people who were going on about David Silva being too weak and how he cant handle the league.

That was blown completely out of the water by his performances.

But what I do think, if you have great strength, in certain situations its useful.

When Yaya Toure goes on one of his runs, he is nearly unstoppable because he gets up good speed, has good feet for his size but also nobody can unbalance him by being contact. He can run in a straight line and the only way to stop him is to get the ball cleanly. Anybody trying to shoulder him and unbalance him will only unbalance themselves.

I guess simply put, its overhyped in my view, but certain players can use it to their advantage in certain situations.

The Franchise wrote:I do agree, its overrated in terms of how big an impact people seem to think it has.

I remember last summer, the amount of people who were going on about David Silva being too weak and how he cant handle the league.

That was blown completely out of the water by his performances.

But what I do think, if you have great strength, in certain situations its useful.

When Yaya Toure goes on one of his runs, he is nearly unstoppable because he gets up good speed, has good feet for his size but also nobody can unbalance him by being contact. He can run in a straight line and the only way to stop him is to get the ball cleanly. Anybody trying to shoulder him and unbalance him will only unbalance themselves.

I guess simply put, its overhyped in my view, but certain players can use it to their advantage in certain situations.

Well Silva actually was struggling in the first half of the season due to his lack of physicality and frail body.

But this brings up the point that a pure technical player who is frail can succeed by using their intelligence and guile to avoid going the physical route as Silva aptly did with City later on.

I dont think he was struggling. And any struggles had was probably more to do with the speed and uptempo constant running style of the PL.

I dont remember him getting consistently pushed off the ball much more then in La Liga.

Physical football is what is played by teams that haven't got the technical ability to play proper football. Here in England we try and justify it by saying "You have to be physical in the EPL because it's the best league in the world and it's fast paced and full of player with high endurance." When in reality physical football is only played here because the vast majority of the clubs haven't got the skill, discipline or coaching to play proper football. The fact that players like Scott Parker can do well in the EPL sums it up, in a league like La Liga where proper football is played he wouldn't make the bench for most of the teams.

End Rant/

Sorry I just hate how most teams in my country play football, even the national team do it.

You're wrong R9 was one of most physical players ever, Batistuta and Pele were VERY physical
It's just a trait, only being physical isn't enough of course but it helps in quite a lot of the situations
I'd say Messi got more physical over the course of last 2 years

I wasn't thinking in terms of individual players, more about teams like Stoke, Bolton and Blackburn who's entire play style revolves around physicality.

This is an example of a perfectly legal, according to football rules (shoulder against shoulder, fighting for possession), tackle. In which Lass used his strength to dispel Messi. The ref blew for a freekick in this instance thou.

Lol, that is not shoulder against shoulder. That is barging and that is a foul!

kiranr wrote:I dont think physical only means strength. Pace and stamina also constitute physical attributes!

That's a good point, physicality isn't just about strength. However, when people talk about physical football they most of the time mean muscle strength. For instance, Stoke's little reputation as being the total opposite of Barcelona with their physical football: people hardly mean that Stoke will run Barca to exhaustion.

Arquitecto wrote:Good point Art, but I'll have to disagree here.

Yes, it is true you need a certain amount of strength to play football even in the non-physical leagues. Yet there is a difference, as for example in the La Liga, players more often avoid contact and prefer to work with their feet only as compared to others where they use their upper body and feet.

Their definitely is more priority to bulk up in the premier league as most of the players do in fact rely quite a lot on their pace and strength (especially the latter) to do the work for them.

Alan Shearer is a classic example of a striker who used the physicality of the EPL to his advantage as he frequently used his elbows and shoulders to weave past his markers as their are countless other examples.

In the EPL, players who run out of pace don't have much else going in their game (unless they change) as their reliance was always heavy on it as which is the same case with players who rely on their strength.

Physical football simply means the full use of your body rather then just your feet as EPL is undoubtedly physical despite the countless technically blessed players.

This is especially true for the lower teams.

A fair argument, I partly agree. I do, however, question the proportion of this sort of football where you "use your whole body rather than just your feet". Meaning, how much that sort of situations actually happen even in the Premier League, which is recognised to be quite physical. The game is, after all, football and you can't play it with upper body strength to a great extent. Probably there are more situations requiring full body strength in the BPL than in La Liga, but I'd still argue that those situations make up only a small percentage of footballing situations in the BPL.

The Franchise wrote:
I remember last summer, the amount of people who were going on about David Silva being too weak and how he cant handle the league.

That was blown completely out of the water by his performances.

...

I guess simply put, its overhyped in my view, but certain players can use it to their advantage in certain situations.

Thanks for the good example and "overhyped" is actually a word that describes my thoughts about physical football very well.

aford92 wrote:Physical football is what is played by teams that haven't got the technical ability to play proper football. Here in England we try and justify it by saying "You have to be physical in the EPL because it's the best league in the world and it's fast paced and full of player with high endurance." When in reality physical football is only played here because the vast majority of the clubs haven't got the skill, discipline or coaching to play proper football. The fact that players like Scott Parker can do well in the EPL sums it up, in a league like La Liga where proper football is played he wouldn't make the bench for most of the teams.

End Rant/

Sorry I just hate how most teams in my country play football, even the national team do it.

Your piece would make sense if lack of technical ability automatically meant greater physical attributes.
Like, if you're not technically gifted, you will be physically strong. But it isn't like that. Simply because some teams have less technical ability than others doesn't mean their players will actually be fantastically physical. A team will probably try a more direct approach if their opponent are technically better, but that doesn't necessarily mean that that team is physically better than their opponents, imo.

paperbackwriter wrote:

This is an example of a perfectly legal, according to football rules (shoulder against shoulder, fighting for possession), tackle. In which Lass used his strength to dispel Messi. The ref blew for a freekick in this instance thou.

Well, here is where it becomes a bit of a matter of opinion. Personally I think the challenge in the video is a foul. Although Lass might have gotten the ball using less strength and not giving a foul. But this leads to a question about football's rules: How much physical strength you are allowed to use before it's a foul? I'm thinking it's not that much, really, and therefore being strong might not aid you that much on a football pitch. In any case, thanks for the video, it fits the thread perfectly.

Art Morte wrote:

kiranr wrote:I dont think physical only means strength. Pace and stamina also constitute physical attributes!

That's a good point, physicality isn't just about strength. However, when people talk about physical football they most of the time mean muscle strength. For instance, Stoke's little reputation as being the total opposite of Barcelona with their physical football: people hardly mean that Stoke will run Barca to exhaustion.

Yes yes i agree. I guess it also means the style of play which Arquitecto explained to a certain extent. The style of play where players get stuck in while challenging. For example, if Stoke was playing against Barcelona, you could easily have a situation where two players literally block Messi off the ball to win back possession.

Such plays do seem to more common in the PL. So rather than physical indicating strength, it could be in reference to the style of play. The likes of Essien, Lass etc would block off someone from passing them or passing the ball, while someone like Busquets would rely on interceptions of the ball.

paperbackwriter wrote:

This is an example of a perfectly legal, according to football rules (shoulder against shoulder, fighting for possession), tackle. In which Lass used his strength to dispel Messi. The ref blew for a freekick in this instance thou.

Yeah thats not perfectly legal.

Lass knew he wanst going to get to ball first, so he just knocked him on the floor.




This is more of a example, but even this is border line.

That just looks like a down right push. At least Lass, there is some element that one can say shoulder to shoulder but that was just plain old pushing.

Anyway, At some point, a footballer/football team needs to be physical as it is a physical sport. Cannot escape that fact. I personally don't think it's that overrated nor a myth but I do believe it is usually used as an excuse to hide the fact that some teams just don't have the technical fortitude to really play a decent passing game.

Also, teams like Chelsea and Inter who are labelled "Physical teams" are physical teams but are quite technically inclined (maybe more Inter than Chelsea) hence why they tend to win more than teams who are just physical. You can't win by strength alone...

epl plays much more pshychical than epl etc.

in la iga there is more dribble pass and run

epl is more like hoof and run

Even Barca's brand of Football can actually be considered Physical, tbh.

All that Stamina, all that Speed.

Yes it does matter. You think barca players are weak, you are wrong. Dani alves, messi are strong. Pique, puyol, abidal are very strong. and they are all quick