The makings of a great game

A number of eyebrows were raised a few weeks ago when reputable football analyst and ex-player Gary Neville described the Manchester derby as arguably the best game of the season so far. Although Neville stressed it was a “quality football match”, many found it well… boring. Meanwhile, you often hear commentators refer to a match saying “it has all the makings of a great game”. So what exactly makes a great game? And is a great game any different from a good football match?

Great games are not always good football matches. A good football match is one which serves its purpose i.e. using live and dead-ball situations to find a resolution between two teams in the most skilful way possible. A good football match will showcase footballing skills: the skills of attack and defence, of athleticism, teamwork and tactics. Great games meanwhile, attain a status beyond themselves. A great game leaves a mark on the viewer by enticing him to invest emotionally in the spectacle. A great game is enjoyed by the heart as much as by the mind. In truth, they tend to be remembered retrospectively and with a particular rosiness that often presents a distorted image of the match. The 1999 Champions League Final is a fine example: A game that was fairly innocuous until after the 90 minute mark has assumed a permanent place in football folklore.

Neville’s claims are difficult to agree with but it isn’t so hard to see what makes a good football match. But what makes a football match great?

Goals – The more the merrier. Goals crank up the entertainment value but they also tend to be reflective of good football and high activity, two positive features. Goals also tend to “change games” and thus keep them evolving, another positive. But goals are not always borne of skill or good play and you could have a poor football match with a number of goals. The recent Newcastle-Norwich 6-2 game offers an example. Many of the goals were the result of ultra-lax defending even though some of the attacking play was of a decent standard.

Competitiveness – Competitive games tend to play out better and generate more interest. One-sided games get boring, perhaps a good reason why Pep Guardiola’s Bayern only seem to be involved in great games outside the Bundesliga. Meanwhile, part of what has cemented El Clasico’s place as the premier football tie is how closely matched the two teams are. Popular ESPN writer Michael Cox recently wrote a piece explaining that the new competitiveness of the English Premier League has lifted entertainment levels but the question is this: have we had more great games so far this season?

Drama – Football is as much about entertainment as it is about art and nothing beats raw drama for entertainment value; whether it is last minute goals, inexplicable comebacks or contentious decisions. Dramatic activity off the field also plays a role. For example, the infamous “Pizzagate” match is still one of the most talked about games in English premier League history. These games leave enduring memories even if they are not always good football matches. Again, the 1999 Champions League Final offers a precise example.

Impact of the result – To some extent, a game has to matter for it to be deemed great. For that reason, this is a very important criteria. The flip side is that the occasion sometimes inhibits teams a bit and we rarely see peak performance when it matters most. Recent World Cup Finals are a good example. The last tolerable final was probably France 1998 (and even this is borderline). Nonetheless, games of significant occasion will always be remembered with a little bit more lustre. And when we do get a quality football match on a significant occasion, claims to greatness swiftly and deservedly follow.

Quality of play – A distinction should be made between moments of quality and phases of quality. A poor game could be punctuated by moments of quality (think Chelsea in the second half of the 2014/2015 season). The Bayern-Barca match up in the Champions League semi-finals of the same year provides two examples of games with quality patterns of play. Truthfully, this is probably the most important factor in making a good football match but a great game? Doubtful. We do sometimes define great games by their moments (Zidane’s volley in the 2002 Champions League Final, for example) but matches rarely attain greatness just for being very good. Perhaps this is an indictment of how we fail to properly appreciate the skill aspect of football but more often than not, matches are revered and remembered for their narratives, not just for their skill.

Tactical match-up – Another criteria that makes a very good football match. And when it clicks, it often leads to a great game too. English football’s favourite hypothetical about technical players doing it on a cold, windy Tuesday night away at Stoke is based on this premise. When football cultures and strategies collide, we sometimes get fireworks. Arsenal’s victory over Barcelona at the Emirates in 2011 is an example of this as Wilshere and co passed and ran their way out of Barcelona’s infamous collective press on the way to a sleek footballing win. This is perhaps the category Neville was appealing to in his praise of the Manchester derby. Even with that, I have to disagree. Machester City’s tactical set-up was good but Louis Van Gaal’s United are too blunt for the game’s lack of chances to be attributed to City’s defensive set up. City may have executed their tactical plan well but United definitely did not. A better example here is the Chelsea-Barcelona 2009 Champions League semi-final tie where Guus Hiddink came so close to successfully nullifying an all-conquering Barcelona team. The games resembled chess matches at times but still constituted fantastic spectacles.

Stories – Stories go beyond drama and capture the heroes within the sport. Great games require great actors to star in them. Whether it is the Wenger-Mourinho feud that underlines any Arsenal-Chelsea clash or a player returning to his old stomping ground, the stories crafted from football matches go a long way to determining their greatness. A great game is like a great story and the very best include the classic elements of swagger, suspense, tragedy, twists, climax and farce. Liverpool-AC Milan (2005), Manchester City-QPR (2012), Brazil-Germany (2014) all have most, if not all of those features.

Bonus Category

Comedy – A personal favourite of mine but one that is unlikely to hold up in proper argument. Farce has long since been a welcome facet of humanity’s leading forms of entertainment and football is no different. Southampton’s 8-0 trouncing of Sunderland in the 2014/2015 season is a fine example. The game showcased some pretty good football and delivered in terms of goals but what made it really stand out was the calamitous behaviour of the Sunderland players whose performances stretched the realms of belief. If in doubt, go and have a look at the first goal of the game – a superbly struck effort by Vergini – into his own net.

People will disagree on the relative merits of the criteria above and may even include and exclude other criteria. This just shows that we all value different elements of the game differently and thus make different judgements about what makes a great football match. Perhaps you even disagree that there is a difference between a good football match and a great one. But somehow I believe people can sense the difference – if Swansea City and Everton play their socks off in a breath-taking midseason mid-table clash, we are unlikely to deem it a classic. But a dramatic, slightly scrappy, final day Tyneside derby to decide who stays up? Well, that has all the makings of a great game.