Carlos Bilardo, the manager of the 1986 World Cup winner Argentina, BOASTED that the 3-5-2 combination was his innovation. BRIAN GLANVILLE says this came about more as an accident rather than intent.
Liverpool started the present season with an un-accustomed 3-5-2 formation not too convincingly. At Wembley, in the Charity Shield, they, as Cupholders, lost 4-3 to the league champions, Leeds United.
The wide open spaces on the right flank of Liverpool’s defence were a gift to Leeds, especially to their left side attacker, Rod Wallace, who did much as he pleased, laying on a couple of his team’s four goals.
In their opening League match, at Nottingham Forest, Graeme Souness, Liverpool’s manager, persisted with the 3-5-2 formation, and again, it shipped abundant water. Forest, who hadn’t impressed me at all a couple of weeks earlier when I saw them comfortably beaten by Sampdoria at Leeds in the Makita Trophy, had a wonderful time of it against a Liverpool defence which again conceded far too much space.
FOREST EVENTUALLY WON 1-0 with a spectacular cross-shot by Teddy Sheringam, but had it not been for the excellence of Liverool’s new young goalkeeper, James, the margin could have been much more.
Predictably, perhaps, the 35-2 formation swept the world of football after a World Cup: that of 1986 in Mexico, when Argentina won the trophy using that formation under the leadership of Carlos Bilardo, and defeating West Germany in the Final.
Subsequently, Bilardo would boast that his new formation had won imitators everywhere. This to some extent was true, but his claims tended to mask the fact that 3-5-2 came about only by accident: and comparatively late in the competition, at that.
This story is from the September 16, 2017 edition of Sportstar.
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This story is from the September 16, 2017 edition of Sportstar.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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