TOTAL FOOTBALL OR JUST VERY GOOD PLAYERS?

Total Football seemed to come to our notice with Ajax in the 1970s, when players ran around and changed positions willy nilly, under the care of Rinus Michels. If you happen to read "Inverting the Pyramid", by Jonathan Wilson, he would say Viktor Maslov, the coach of Dynamo Kiev in the 1960s, was the man who invented "Total Football".

Matt Gillies produced a brand of football at Leicester that certainly seemed "total" and it is only cultural snobbery that discourages the experts to recognise the achievements of the coach of this unglamorous Midland club, but rather name the exotic Dutch and Russians as the inventors of such fluid football. There is more to this than meets the eye.

In Germany, at the same time as Leicester's success, Rudi Gutendorf led Meidericher SV (now known as MSV Duisburg) to unusual success in the Bundisliga, achieving his success on a shoe string budget. He used the bolt (der reigel) formation that maintained the principles that everyone in his team defended and attacked, allowing full backs to overlap in a 4-4-2 system. Unfortunately his team soon complained that they were getting "worn out" with all the running and I suspect Klopp's Liverpool may be feeling this too! The hard work led to success nevertheless.

Gilles read the coaching manuals and followed the great free flowing Hungarian system created by Gustav Sebes, who led the Magyars to thump a stodgy England in the 1950s. Prior to that, in the 1930s, there was the Austrian Wunderteam, under Hugo Meisl. His brother, Willy, wrote a book called the Soccer Revolution in 1955, which named the system as "The Whirl". These days coaches use the word "rotate".

Of course, you have to have players to carry out the system, it doesn't come naturally to all. So with Sindelar in Austria, Puskas in Hungary and Cruyff in Holland, there was genius. In Leicester, Gilles had Dave Gibson and McLintock as his "hubs". Neither hardly genius, but Leicester had a golden period when they won the League Cup in 1964, came fourth in the top division at best, but held their own and went to three cup finals in nine years (1961, 1963 and 1969).

Frank McLintock, Gibson, Mike Stringfellow and Graham Cross were part of this new breed of Leicester "wingers", "inside forwards" and "half backs", who inter-changed down the flanks, creating space for runners. Fluidity was the key. ( Gordon Banks probably payed a part in this success too!!)

So impressed with the movement of Leicester City when he played them, Bill Shankly adopted the system for his emerging 1960's Liverpool side.

Sadly, Gilles contracted tuberculosis and left Filbert Street in 1968, having taken charge of 508 matches in his time with the club. Leicester were soon relegated in 1969.

Gilles was at Nottingham Forest until 1972. He died at the age of 77 on December 24th 1998.

Perhaps we are now seeing a new breed of Foxes in 2016.