The Mixer: The Story of Premier League Tactics, from Route One to False Nines. Michael Cox
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‘Every time we got into the German half and couldn’t find someone to pass to, players would turn around and pass to me, and I would pick it up,’ Schmeichel later recalled somewhat sheepishly. ‘How can you win football matches like that?!’
The new law forced goalkeepers to become more comfortable in possession, and Schmeichel was proactive in evolving. Upon arriving at Manchester United the previous summer, with back-pass reform on the horizon, Schmeichel insisted that the goalkeepers should play a more active role in training. Rather than being separated from the main group, Schmeichel wanted to take part in passing sessions with the outfielders, an important change both tactically and psychologically. He would later stun opponents by charging upfield for corners when United were behind in the dying seconds, sometimes with great success. This has become accepted practice in modern times, but Schmeichel introduced the concept to English supporters, first showcasing his attacking qualities on Boxing Day 1994, when United were 1–0 down at home to Blackburn Rovers. With three minutes remaining, Schmeichel raced forward into the opposition box, distracting three startled opponents and enabling Gary Pallister to find space; he headed towards goal, and Paul Ince smashed in the equaliser.
Schmeichel had already scored multiple times in Denmark, and later netted a consolation goal for United with a powerful header in a 1995 UEFA Cup tie against Russian side Rotor Volgograd. He also had an overhead kick against Wimbledon disallowed for offside – surely the first-ever goalkeeper penalised for that offence – and would, fittingly, become the first Premier League goalkeeper to score, during his sole season at Aston Villa. Schmeichel was a genuine revolutionary, convincing fellow goalkeepers that they weren’t simply about defending their own goal from opposition attacks and that they could launch – and indeed finish – attacks of their own.
But Schmeichel wasn’t particularly reliable with his feet in traditional goalkeeping areas. In Manchester United’s second-ever Premier League game, a 3–0 home defeat to Everton, the great Dane made the first possession-based goalkeeping error of the post-back-pass era when he was tackled by Everton’s Mo Johnston, who curled the ball home. The majority of Schmeichel’s errors came with his feet or when sweeping outside his penalty box; he kicked the ball straight to West Ham’s Matthew Holmes in February 1994, allowing the winger to cross for a Trevor Morley goal, then three months later gifted Ipswich’s Chris Kiwomya an open goal when air-kicking outside his box, and he was dismissed in an FA Cup quarter-final against Charlton when handling 15 yards outside his penalty area.
Other, less celebrated goalkeepers adjusted well, like Norwich’s Bryan Gunn, who contributed to his side’s excellent passing football. Seaman also coped admirably, partly because he was accustomed to playing behind Arsenal’s famously aggressive offside trap and was encouraged to sweep proactively by George Graham. Even before the back-pass change, Graham had Seaman working on kicking the ball with his weaker foot, then an extremely rare skill for a goalkeeper, although the rule change did cause him problems. ‘When the rule came in, first of all, you went to the safety route,’ he admitted. ‘If someone passed it back to you, just booted it, you just made sure you got good contact. Then you develop that and get a bit more confident with the ball, so you try to control it … the more you do it, the better you get – you learn who to pass to, where to find players.’ As goalkeepers increasingly passed the ball rather than hoofed it, they acted as an eleventh outfielder, and teams started playing out from the back.
Schmeichel, meanwhile, once had a blazing row with Ferguson over the subject of his kicking. Manchester United were 3–0 up at Anfield in January 1994, but contrived to blow their lead and drew 3–3. Ferguson was understandably furious, but surprisingly targeted Schmeichel for continually sending balls up the middle of the pitch, where Neil Ruddock was heading them back, allowing Liverpool to maintain their pressure. Schmeichel didn’t appreciate the criticism, and after Ferguson had threatened to throw a cup of tea over his goalkeeper, he launched a volley of abuse. He later phoned his agent demanding a transfer, although Ferguson called him into his office the next day and told him that he was going to be sacked anyway. After the Dane apologised, both to his manager and his teammates, Ferguson reversed his decision, and Schmeichel spent five more years at the club, ending his extraordinary spell by lifting the European Cup as captain in 1999.
Schmeichel never entirely solved his kicking problems, however, making two atrocious errors with his feet both home and away in a 1998 FA Cup tie against relegation strugglers Barnsley, who won the replay. Considering the nature of his international success with Denmark, and his subsequent struggles with kicking, it’s impressive Schmeichel put personal preferences aside to declare that ‘the back-pass law is the best rule change ever – it has changed the game.’
Significantly, however, Schmeichel popularised the concept of a goalkeeper acting as a playmaker – but with his hands rather than his feet. His incredible long-range, overarm throws had barely been witnessed before in English football, and became a fundamental part of Manchester United’s attacking weaponry. Ferguson’s side largely played counter-attacking football at this stage, based heavily around wingers Ryan Giggs and either Andrei Kanchelskis or Lee Sharpe, who frequently received the ball on the run, because Schmeichel could accurately hurl the ball half the length of the pitch. ‘When I get hold of the ball, I try to create counter-attacking opportunities,’ Schmeichel explained. ‘It’s not always successful, but the tactic forces the opponents to turn around and head for their own goal, which is both strenuous and demoralising.’ Schmeichel even recorded assists with his hands. In February 1994, away at QPR, he launched the ball straight up the centre for the speedy Kanchelskis to dribble forward and open the scoring in a 3–2 win. Two years later, in a 5–0 thrashing of Sunderland – a game better remembered for Eric Cantona’s legendary chip into the top corner – Schmeichel caught a tame header and immediately, from three yards off his line, chucked the ball into the opposition half for Ole Gunnar Solskjær, who raced clear of the defence and finished calmly.
Not until Pepe Reina, who joined Liverpool in 2005, did the Premier League witness a goalkeeper so adept at these immediate, accurate long-range throws to launch counter-attacks. By this stage goalkeepers were generally also extremely comfortable with their feet, the majority growing up accustomed to the modern laws. ‘I was ten years old when they changed the back-pass rule,’ said Reina, who won the Premier League Golden Glove award three consecutive times. ‘I was still young enough, thankfully. It caught me just in time, as I was beginning to develop my skills.’ But even by this stage, in the mid-2000s, Reina’s kicking received significantly less attention than his throwing, indicative of how Schmeichel had created the template for the Premier League goalkeeper. ‘Schmeichel’s long throws were so powerful and allowed his team-mates to create danger at the other end … his approach was clearly ahead of his time,’ said Serie A veteran Samir Handanović. Nigeria’s Vincent Enyeama summarised the thoughts of a generation of keepers: ‘Even though Edwin van der Sar was my role model, Schmeichel brought in a different kind of goalkeeping.’ Schmeichel was the first Premier League player to provide inspiration across the world.
Van der Sar, who excelled for Manchester United around the same time as Reina was doing so for Liverpool, was famed for his quality in possession, primarily because he grew up at Ajax, where the visionary Johan Cruyff had inisisted that the goalkeeper be an eleventh outfielder long before the back-pass change. Van der Sar became the accepted goalkeeping role model, with Thibaut Courtois and Manuel Neuer citing him as their inspiration because he was so comfortable on the ball. Kicking had become an essential part of modern goalkeeping, and those poor in possession found themselves marginalised.
Meanwhile, Schmeichel also helped revolutionise the Premier League in a different manner entirely. Of the 242 players who started a Premier League match on the Premier League’s opening weekend, just 11 were foreign. By virtue of simple probability, you’d expect only one of the 11 to be a goalkeeper. Instead, it was four: Schmeichel, plus Wimbledon’s Dutchman Hans Segers, Canadian international Craig Forrest at Ipswich and Czech Jan Stejskal for QPR. A year later, with overseas outfielders still rare, there were six more foreign regulars between the posts: Australian Mark Bosnich at Aston Villa, Russian Dmitri Kharine at Chelsea, Norwegian Erik Thorstvedt at Tottenham, Zimbabwe’s Bruce Grobbelaar, who had regained his place at Liverpool, and two more Czechs, Luděk Mikloško of West Ham and Pavel Srníček of Newcastle. Jim Barron,