Due to its structure and necessity, international football tends to have a less sophisticated tactical style than its club counterpart. Club seasons are so long and international breaks so short that there simply isn’t enough time for national teams to train together and develop an advanced tactical game plan. Even when a country do If one employs something unique, it is usually because enough of one’s players are either teammates of one club or play for different clubs with similar approaches. (See: Barcelona’s Spanish contingent from 2008 to 2012, or Bayern Munich’s German core in 2014.)
While this may, in some ways, contribute to a homogenized international game (4-2-3-1 pressing systems playing against each other tend not to result in the most exciting matches), it also opens up space to deploy proven and fairly simple methods. for a tournament. More than three days into Euro 2024, one of these tactics was at the forefront: Just give the task to a big guy and let him sort it out.
There is perhaps no more perfect counterpoint between the modern club game, which tends to value pace and technical skill, and the international game, where results only matter, than what the Netherlands have made against Poland on Sunday. After the two teams exchanged goals in the first half hour, Poland used an international staple and scored from a corner; the Netherlands responded via Cody Gakpo and a deflection 13 minutes later: the match got into rhythm. The Netherlands controlled most of the ball and chances, but the attacking trio of Gakpo, Memphis Depay and Xavi Simons were better at finding space than finding the back of the net. Fast forward to the 81st minute, where Dutch manager Ronald Koeman introduced his big boy, swapping Memphis for the six-foot-six Wout Weghorst in search of a winner.
Weghorst has had an interesting career. After leaving his native Netherlands for Wolfsburg in Germany, he scored at a reasonable rate, enough to earn a move to Burnley in the Premier League, where his production fell off a cliff. Loans followed, including a truly disastrous one to Manchester United in 2023, and although he is still on the books at Burnley, he is no longer anyone’s idea of prolific. However, Weghorst is a good tool for Koeman. He’s tall, he has a nose for goal and he can serve as a target for forward passes and crosses, as memorably proven during the thrilling but ultimately losing comeback effort against Argentina in the 2022 World Cup. While a player like Memphis is, even in his inconsistency, noticeably better than Weghorst, the big Dutchman might be better suited for games like the one against Poland, where a tough defense reduces Memphis’ preferred spaces to nothing.
Two minutes after entering the field, Weghorst did what he was brought in to do. In fairness, it wasn’t exactly a target man’s goal, as Weghorst moved into open space and latched onto a bouncing pass before lobbing it first time into the goal, giving victory for the Dutch. But watching the play again reveals that Polish defender Bartosz Salamon (6ft 5in, by the way) was playing alongside Weghorst, apparently to have a better position to defend against a high ball into the box. It wasn’t great defending, as he then lost Weghorst just enough, but it speaks to the effect of having such a big guy in the box.
Weghorst isn’t the only big man to make an impact so far in this tournament. Almost every match so far has seen at least one big man start or successfully replace, whether on the scoresheet or simply in the run of play. The opening match of the tournament between Germany and Scotland was a one-sided game from the hosts, and in the five-goal barrage was Borussia Dortmund’s Niclas Füllkrug (6ft 2in), fresh off a Champions League final at the during which he scored. several key goals for Germany, scoring his country’s fourth goal with a powerful strike from inside the box, his natural habitat:
Elsewhere, Denmark and Slovenia have fully embraced the big striker lifestyle, with both teams starting with target men at both striker positions: for Denmark, Rasmus Hojlund and Jonas Wind (both 6ft 3in) , and for Slovenia, Andraz Sporar (a relatively small group). 6 feet 1 inch) and Benjamin Sesko (a whopping 6 feet 5 inches). The size on display was so visible that Christian Eriksen, who scored Denmark’s stirring opener three years after collapsing on the pitch at the last edition of the Euros, looked small, despite being six feet tall. good health.
Even some of the players who haven’t participated much in their respective games fit the same profile. Italy is the starting number. 9 is Gianluca Scamacca, who is 6 feet 5 inches tall. Looking for an equalizer against Switzerland, Hungary immediately and reluctantly called on folk hero Martin Adam, who is 6ft 3in and built like a tank. Serbia’s front three against England could have been the tallest of the tournament so far, as Dusan Vlahovic, Aleksandar Mitrovic and Sergej Milinkovic-Savic all stand over 6ft 2in.
It’s a big summer for boys in Germany, and it’s exciting to watch an archetype who has been pushed to the fringes of the game’s elite by the progression from long-ball football to a more controlled and skilled football that took place this century. These types of attackers have not been entirely excluded from modern football (in fact, a big target player is a useful resource to circumvent the high pressing that is all the rage), and they may never be, but they are generally more technically limited. and therefore easier to plan on a weekly basis at club level. Size isn’t everything, even for these players, either, and a handful of them have more pace or more technical skill than one might expect from a traditional target man.
However, it is only at events like the Euros that these types of players can attract attention. When in doubt, teams can simply throw balls in the air to the guy taller than 6 feet and see what happens. So far, this strategy has worked more often than not, and it’s unlikely to go away as matches get tighter and tenser. Bring in the big guys.