European Football Championship 2008 - Ball watching

If you judge a player purely on what he does with the ball, you’ll never appreciate his true quality. Here are five who have impressed coaches with their play when they don’t have the ball at their feet.

For a fan, a football game is a matter of 90 minutes. For a footballer, it consists of hundreds of different actions – tackles, touches, passes, runs, jogs, headers. Spectators – and TV cameras – focus on a player with the ball at his feet. But even the great players only have the ball for 2% of the distance they run during a game. If we judge players purely on that 2% we are guilty of ball watching. English coach Don Howe insists that great players play as well without the ball as they do with it.

Why is running off the ball so important? “Because it causes danger,” says Howe. “You can do it by running behind a defence, the way Paul Scholes does for Manchester United.” Timing and instinct are key: “Those players have the knack of making a run so they arrive in the box at the same time as the ball.”

Real Madrid CF coach Bernd Schuster says Spain’s Cesc Fabregas has that ability: “Fabregas scores big goals, is good at breaking through, coming from deep.” Arsène Wenger, believes the 20-year-old is: “the closest thing to Paul Scholes I have seen.” Fabregas is yet to hit the net for Spain but had scored as many league goals for Arsenal in four games this season as in 2006/07.

10km per game…

A typical midfielder will run 9.8kms a game. England’s Frank Lampard will run further, with his trademark sprints from deep into the box. Howe says the England man’s strength isn’t so much timing but: “a gift of averages. He will make countless runs into the box, and on one of them, he will meet a pass and stick it in.” Since 2002, Lampard has been England’s second most prolific goalscorer with 12 goals, equal to Peter Crouch’s haul and five behind Michael Owen.

Andy Roxburgh, UEFA technical director, believes that in Deco, Portugal have one of the subtle masters of running off the ball. “He has speed and endurance and consistently covers more distance than anyone else, doing so at a high tempo.” Deco’s box-to-box running helps his team keep their shape. He can dictate the game, press opponents, move into threatening space or cover for a teammate.

Ballack off the ball

Howe believes that, when fit, Michael Ballack is a shrewd runner off the ball. Germany’s talismanic midfielder has, Howe says, one quality Lampard doesn’t have. “He is one of the best runners into the box because he can also score with his head.” Ballack has scored 35 goals from midfield for Germany who have only lost 16 of the internationals in which he has played.

At 30, Thierry Henry has lost some va-va-voom over the first 10metres but is to be feared over distance. “He may make 22 sprints a game,” says Roxburgh, “and that is crucial because the speed of transition from defence to attack can decide whether you score. Around 40% of goals from open play are scored from counterattacks.” Henry, whose uncle was a French 400m hurdles champion, needs two more goals to become France’s all-time top goalscorer.

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