Dre_00 said:
Not to be pedantic but we need to define what we mean by bunkering a prevent D. To me, bunkering isn't defending. It's defending extremely deep with no real intent to keep possession after you win the ball.
I have no problem with defending deep for long periods especially to protect a late lead. But if you win the ball back and your first instinct is to flail it aimlessly into no man's land where there's no chance of you retaining possession, that's a big problem.
And if you do manage it to clear it to a player who is able to bring it under control for more than a few seconds, you have got to get players in support of him so that you can continue to keep possession. You don't have to commit players at pace to start a counter attack. But you do need to commit some players to midfield so that you can try and keep the ball there as long as possible.
As I remember it, Wales in the second half wasn't really a bunker. It was just a complete bypass of midfield that was exasperated by our substitutions. Iran on the other hand...maybe it was the substitutions again (and their performance). Maybe Berhalter had no intent for them to play like that but...they couldn't even find an outlet and when they did, the outlet couldn't win the ball and it didn't appear many, if any, were coming to help him to retain it.
Haha - I should have known that when I used the b-word someone would make me wish I had gone into more detail.
To me, bunkering is a generic term that just means putting a majority of players behind the ball, ceding more possession, and hoping you can preserve a lead. I think a lot of soccer fans think that playing defensively is supposed to be frantic and look haphazard (and it can in a lot of circumstances), but it should be a pretty natural change with some very structured play. One thing I've noticed about our team when we're playing defensively, is that our shape changes too slowly when we do actually gain possession. You're going to get some long clearances from the backline, there's just no way around that. Ideally you have an attacking player who can maybe chase one or two of those down and steal some seconds to allow the rest of the team to "unwind" from their compact shape behind them, but that's just not going to happen with this roster. Anyway, I think when we do gain possession and find a first pass up the field, we're too slow to shift back into our possessing shape and move back towards the middle third or attacking third of the field. Either a midfielder dribbles right back into an opponent and loses the ball or hoofs it over the backline in hopes our FW can run it down (which again never happens). I don't know if that should be blamed on the players or coaches (probably both). We're young and lacking in experience in a lot of key areas and I don't think GB excels in this particular area of in-game strategic coaching either.
