It might just be a somewhat skewed observation, or a real shift at this world cup. 4-3-3, 4-3-2-1, 4-2-3-1, etc seem to be the norm in the manner teams set up to play. Whichever way you look at it, thats an extra player in attack and more space at the back to exploit/ be exploited. Of all the teams the one still playing a more crowded backline is...yes, Brazil! For those who remember that wily, tough, and often ugly holding midfield days of his, that is Dunga doing his thing. It might have something to do, as well, with the coach wanting Gilberto (smile, Gunners fans) on the pitch.
But is this a shift in the way managers and coaches strategize OR just a way to ensure that matches don' t spill into extra-time (the phenomenon that labourers the world over and Americans call over-time), thus preserving the players for business end of this world cup and the next gruelling club season?
If it is a longer term shift in strategy, then we could get more of the passing, off-the-ball running, quick breaks, and ball-control treat that the likes of Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Ghana, and Japan have dished out thus far. Spain and Portugal are missing from that list only because I haven't managed to catch any of their games. The only endogeneous reason I can see for this shift is player preservation, and it almost goes hand in hand that coaches will then revert to a more crowded backline as soon as a really important game (read 'club') comes up. But that is being overly pessimistic about what insights coaches would glean from this experiment. It is already quite clear that with no 4-5-1/ 4-2-2 goalkeepers' quality is out in the open and in the spotlight - with there being that many more shots on goal.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
2010 Sunfeast 10k Debacle (***)
A shocking 63:47 (18secs slower than last year) at the Sunfeast 10k. During the run itself, I had been chasing sub-60 mins on my watch after the first two kilometers, which took a grand 16mins!! So, when I crossed the finish and my watched showed 59:45 I felt pretty good with the effort. But that lasted only a day or so before Marathon Photos uploaded the official times.
Any thoughts about the run time is depressing, let me turn my attention elsewhere regards the 10k.
(1) Out of the 6-7k crowd at the Open 10k, about .5k were girls and women. At the finish, with folks milling about, the absence of heckling, hooting, misbehaviour was pretty cool to observe. Guess that makes it only two cities in India where a crowd of men remain human around women - Bombay and Bangalore.
(2) Not only do we drive like idiots, we run like idiots too. Over the first two kilometers, on more than a few occasions, I came up to anything from 3 to 7 people walking abreast of each other, blocking the carriage way. This meant a lot of turning back to make up for the lack of a rearview mirror, sharp turns, hand signals, sideways sneaking past people, and speed changes.
(3) Venting helps. Somewhere running up to the first of the U-turns I asked a bunch of bums to keep left if they were going to walk. They said something in protest but I couldn't quite hear what they said.
(4) Port-a-loos?! Ended up waiting in a queue for two port-a-loos before the start. There was another queue for 3 port-a-loos a little up ahead. Sometime during the close to 1-hour in that queue, I calculated the expected wait time to be another 30mins. That was when there was only 15 to go for the start. We ran ahead and found one of the hundreds of spots within the Kanteerva complex where guys can take a leak. It was a big relief but by the time I got back into the holding area, it was obvious that my start would be behind4-5k of the partipating throng. If it is going to be port-a-loos next time, I better bring my own.
(5) Stretching rocks!!! One thing different from last year's run was that I spent about 15mins stretching post the run and woke up next morning without absolutely no ill effects.
(6) The Lucknow crowd rocks!!! Met Radhesh ('03) a little after the finish and he and a bunch of Lucknow folks had chosen the Basketball court inside the complex to meet up. Made a note that this is a good post-run meeting up zone and the benches there would also come handy with the stretching exercises.
(7) This headbanded Chennai Runner helped me with the pacing as well as the first 2km dodging strategy and if not for him my finish would have been worse that it was. Saw him at the finish and it appeared that he was one of the last Chennai Runners to finish. Running in the Chennai pressure cooker, perpetually on high or sim, helps these guys take us genteel Bangaloreans to the cleaners. Easily, from now on, they are the 'enemy'!!!!
So, a pretty interesting Sunday morning that was followed by a couple of weeks of driving (2,500km in total), and hoping off-and-on that I could forget the run time. I can see the entire running thing is catching on in this city - if it follows the same trajectory, then the organizers have their task cut out for next year.
***Turns out Marathon photos time is the gross time (gun to finish), and the net time (my start to finish) is close to the time on my stopwatch - 59:13 (4:16 improvement from last year). Thanks to Kishore for bringing this to my notice.
Any thoughts about the run time is depressing, let me turn my attention elsewhere regards the 10k.
(1) Out of the 6-7k crowd at the Open 10k, about .5k were girls and women. At the finish, with folks milling about, the absence of heckling, hooting, misbehaviour was pretty cool to observe. Guess that makes it only two cities in India where a crowd of men remain human around women - Bombay and Bangalore.
(2) Not only do we drive like idiots, we run like idiots too. Over the first two kilometers, on more than a few occasions, I came up to anything from 3 to 7 people walking abreast of each other, blocking the carriage way. This meant a lot of turning back to make up for the lack of a rearview mirror, sharp turns, hand signals, sideways sneaking past people, and speed changes.
(3) Venting helps. Somewhere running up to the first of the U-turns I asked a bunch of bums to keep left if they were going to walk. They said something in protest but I couldn't quite hear what they said.
(4) Port-a-loos?! Ended up waiting in a queue for two port-a-loos before the start. There was another queue for 3 port-a-loos a little up ahead. Sometime during the close to 1-hour in that queue, I calculated the expected wait time to be another 30mins. That was when there was only 15 to go for the start. We ran ahead and found one of the hundreds of spots within the Kanteerva complex where guys can take a leak. It was a big relief but by the time I got back into the holding area, it was obvious that my start would be behind4-5k of the partipating throng. If it is going to be port-a-loos next time, I better bring my own.
(5) Stretching rocks!!! One thing different from last year's run was that I spent about 15mins stretching post the run and woke up next morning without absolutely no ill effects.
(6) The Lucknow crowd rocks!!! Met Radhesh ('03) a little after the finish and he and a bunch of Lucknow folks had chosen the Basketball court inside the complex to meet up. Made a note that this is a good post-run meeting up zone and the benches there would also come handy with the stretching exercises.
(7) This headbanded Chennai Runner helped me with the pacing as well as the first 2km dodging strategy and if not for him my finish would have been worse that it was. Saw him at the finish and it appeared that he was one of the last Chennai Runners to finish. Running in the Chennai pressure cooker, perpetually on high or sim, helps these guys take us genteel Bangaloreans to the cleaners. Easily, from now on, they are the 'enemy'!!!!
So, a pretty interesting Sunday morning that was followed by a couple of weeks of driving (2,500km in total), and hoping off-and-on that I could forget the run time. I can see the entire running thing is catching on in this city - if it follows the same trajectory, then the organizers have their task cut out for next year.
***Turns out Marathon photos time is the gross time (gun to finish), and the net time (my start to finish) is close to the time on my stopwatch - 59:13 (4:16 improvement from last year). Thanks to Kishore for bringing this to my notice.
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