guys,in every fussball thread i go(in lyn,mpn,or beyond),everyone call their team plays attractive football.from arsenal to Manchester United to Tottenham Hotspurs to even clubs like bolton and blackpool.

now from your own perspective view,how do you define attractive football?

for me clubs that plays attractive football are

1-attacking oriented
2-plays ball on both flank
3-high pace
4-awesome long,accurate passes
5-crunching tackles
6-aggressive play

all of which are present in top BPL(with exception to arsenal.too laliga-ish for my liking).

not that i hate passing game(or possession football).i like it as much as the next guy.but too much of it makes me feel that is's more of a demonstration rather than a proper football game

what you dont like =/= ugly.
plus i didnt know crunching tackles and aggressive play is attractive. you like seeing players breaking each other's leg?
i usually switch to boxing/ wwe if i wanna tune into aggressive sports.

You're right that it's subjective and I agree with all six actually. Football is a contact sport and some aggression is all part and parcel of the game.

But what you say does not contradict possession football in any way.

1) Possession football tries to be attacking in nature, since you try to hold the ball up in the opposition's half and start plays there.

2) Switching flanks is a vital partof possession football, since it releases teams from pressure.

3) Movement, again, is important and pace helps this. Add to that the fact that possession football means passing into space is always needed, pace becomes a vital element in it.

In many ways, your run-of-the-mill direct football can sometimes degenerate into simply pace on the flanks, but very little in the centre (relying instead on fox in the box poachers without much pace).

4) Arsenal and Barca do long passes in abundance. It's why Arsenal holds on to Fabregas and Xavi can dictate play from deep positions.

The stereotype of short passes only neglects the fact that good possession football teams prize the technical ability of accurate passing, which includes over long distances.

5) Crunching tackles don't contradict possession football of course. There is no constraint on how to get possession back.

It must be noted however, thorughout the Premier League, interceptions are always greater sources of possession turnover than tackles for all twenty teams.

6) Again, possession-based teams can do this. Arsenal has a worse disciplinary record than Wolves.

In short, possession play doesn't have to contradict what is seen as a typical English play. It must be said that punting the ball forwards even in the Premier League is now far more refined than the old days. If you like the old long ball, the Scottish Premier League is definitely one to watch.

Aduh why u start a thread like this

It's gonna be a Glory Hunter V2, where a harmless definition discussion thread turns into a god-knows-what argument after 50 pages For example, 1 will come in and say their team is attractive, then another will come in and say "win ugly is more important" and it goes on and on..

But anyway to contribute my opinion, attractive football simply means making the fans awake the entire game, or won't switch it to other channel because they don't wanna miss a single second of it (another game on another channel for example). Doesn't matter which style...total football, tiki taka, counter attacks, wing overlaps etc. As long as you can keep audience eyes glued to the match, then it's attractive.

I'll be first to say, no single style is the most attractive/least attractive, so try to keep this in mind so as to not create another "opinion war"

The TS is pretty clear that beauty is subjective in his post and title.

I've seen threads like these on other sites that become very interesting discussions on why some people like certain styles and it has helped dispelled stereotypes of each way of playing.

So if everyone present their opinions in a reasoned manner and take care not to do the "you are wrong!" argument, it can actually be enlightening.

But no offence to anyone, but I can see a Lowyat discussion degenerate quickly into mindless personal attacks, so I'm not hopeful.

successful counter attacks for me.

its like making the opponent angry

well, TS intention is good, unless some flying baboon comes here and misdirect the topic itself.

anyway,

attractive football for me is successful one-touch passing and also a bloody super counter attack move, leaving the defenders flat on their butt. gives you an adrenaline rush seeing the outcome these two situations.

As long as Sam Allardyce is not in charge, any football is beautiful football.

=CASE CLOSED=

Attractive football is all about winning, no?

Crunching tackles aren't really beautiful or attractive...Don't get why you would think like that

why?

attractive football for me is when the team has high teamwork,pace with the ball,score some beautiful goals and some individual brilliance.

for me,some of brilliant football team i watched are:
1)arsenal the invincibles.that's what made me fall in love with this team.
2)mourinho's first season in charge of chelsea.joe cole,gudjohnsen,damien duff.whenever you see them do counter attack,you can expect goal.
3)barcelona en route to paris 2006.ronaldinho's brilliance against juve and chelsea.
4)mark hughes's man city with bellamy-tevez-ade.see them tore arsenal apart at eastland.heartbreaking it is,but they played brilliantly.
5)liverpool 2008/2009.the season when gerrard and torres become the most dangerous pair in epl.
6)spain the euro champ.they played better than the world champion team imo.

and yes.crunching tackles are not beautiful.football is not rugby.

Because Sam Allardyce plays a stinking version of football known as fartball.

This post has been edited by Zan81: Feb 14 2011, 11:34 PM

I disagree this previously until I see defensiven tactic used my Mourinho... I was like oh my... How discipline the players are to defend their box... Its same as kamikaze signed the sucide contract to their king and swear to die defending their country... After that...I realized that... Boring football and park the bus defence have their own beauty too. Like what pyroboy1911 said...



It concludes that...there is no single team with most astonishing exceptionally attractive football...The definition vary depends on the timing and situation.

Attractive football

Viera - Bergkamp - Henry - Pires - Ljunberg

The closest to it

Song - Wilshere - Cesc - RVP - Nasri - Walcott

or read Arsenal thread for explanation . (Im slightly biased though)

Honorable mention :

Park - CR7 - Rooney counter against Arsenal ( if im not mistaken )

Germany's counter in WC

And Spain's possesion football is so much joy to watch .

In short , fast and accurate counter that led to goal is my favourite type of football style .



This post has been edited by Breaktru: Feb 15 2011, 12:12 AM

attractive football means every time the team goes forward...chances will be created and convert to goal...so actually the attractive football is all about attacking but defending also has its own attractiveness which tackles and aggressive play comes to the picture.

1. attacking oriented - likes to go forward and good at attacking, which means the team will be deadly from all directions. whether its from the center or both flanks, short and long passes or crosses
2. play ball on both flanks which means more only fast running dribble and crosses, so it's almost the same as point 1
3. fast pace - very fast moving and passing, one touch passing is the best fast pace game
4. long accurate passes - typical english football, but a good team needs some short passes to have more attacking moves, and same as point 1
5. tackles - rather than crunching tackles, accurate and well timed tackles is what football needs. tackles are made to get the ball but crunching tackles are more towards the players. when tackles are on players, usually a foul will be called and the game has stop which its quite annoying if you're looking forward to watch a fluent game
6. aggressive play - aggressive will be more on closing down opponents. physically, a bit of pushing and pulling is definitely there. but not the elbows, knees and boots on the players.

Instead of crunching tackle,why not clean and beautiful tackle and slide?

I watched many times of it since Maldini era and its attractive for me than a rough.

No I'm not blaming TS, I'm "pleading" other posters to show some class before anything starts I like discussions more than anything, but like minority says, bashing can start from nothing in this forum

Anyways!

Crunching tackles can also form beautiful football, or rather a beautiful match..provided both teams go all out. Classic MU v Arsenal match anyone? Keane v Vieira provides the same adrenaline and pleasure to watch no? (btw it depends on what your definition of "crunching tackles" are. Not all hard tackles are foul-worthy.)

Generally fast tempo plays are nice to watch, provided they don't lose the ball every other time they try to play it fast.

Arsenal's second goal this week was awesome. Walcott outrun..

possession football can be fun ... at times, it can be boring as hell ...

back then, watching mourinho's chelsea was like watching paint dry ... what's attractive about passing the ball around between the defenders and midfielders ... when chelsea went behind and needs to attack, it suddenly became a much more exciting game, probably coz robben and cole were bloody speed demons ...

for me, possession football is only fun when the ball is in the final third ...

This post has been edited by spursfan: Feb 15 2011, 07:14 AM