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IIt is of course important that we draw the positive. In the modern age, that’s all you can do after defeat, and look for insights that you can put into action. While it seems almost in distasteful to hint at something that went right for England after a dismal Nations League season that culminated in their worst home defeat since 1928, there was a vague silver lining in the fatigue and frustration. Not only did Jack Grealish bring England back into the game in Germany, his performance in Munich heralded a new way of conceptualizing the game.
Grealish is one of those players who has been screaming for about 18 months. There is an electorate within English support and the panditocracy that calls for its inclusion. He’s a smart, bright player who seems somewhat normal; If he wasn’t a gifted soccer player, he would watch games in a beer garden and tease Jäger bombs. He has an unaffected friendliness that makes it almost impossible not to warm to him. But can you trust him to track his man down, block passing lanes and not lose the ball with a gauche trick too much?
It’s an issue Gareth Southgate and Pep Guardiola have both struggled with. Grealish spoke about how difficult it was for him to learn a new style at Manchester City in an unusually insightful on-pitch interview after the final game of the league season. Southgate has spoken of the importance of allowing him his freedom. But without a return to football as it was 40 years ago, when complex systems were less common and the team could be built around a playmaking genius, how can that be achieved?
The answer was in Munich: by getting him from the bank. context is everything. When the game is in limbo and you’re trying to set the pattern, Grealish is a gamble. But later, when a stalemate needs to be broken or you’re chasing goals, those anarchic qualities become a blessing, even when you’re defending an lead and looking for an outlet on the counterattack. A dribbler will never be more effective than against tired defenders, even if in practice that just means winning a series of free kicks. That role of second-half substitute, game-breaker, finisher feels like it was made for him.
There remains a feeling that the starting XI is the real deal, that being a substitute is somehow less than that. Players like David Fairclough and Ole Gunnar Solskjær resisted being called ‘super-sub’, insisting they were more than that. But there’s no reason why a player who comes on should appear inferior. Especially now that the Premier League has joined the rest of the world in allowing five substitutes, it seems likely that bench specialists will become more common; All it takes is a mindset shift.
In the past, there was a feeling that football was getting close to that point. When Romelu Lukaku was on loan at West Brom in 2012/13, Steve Clarke regularly started with either him or Shane Long and then, when they lost legs from centre-back, got the other to exploit spent limbs.
This then has two advantages: not only does the player come into the game fresh and have an advantage over tired opponents, but the player who starts knows they can play at full strength from the start since their game will likely only last an hour or so this takes time – and that in turn should exhaust his direct opponent.
While this makes sense in midfield, it is perhaps even more valuable when the duels between wingers and wingers can extend almost the entire flank and require a lot of stamina anyway.
Specialist substitutions are at least semi-acceptable for goalkeepers who are expert in penalty kicks. Andrew Redmayne had not played a minute in Australia’s qualifying but came on for captain Mat Ryan, with seconds remaining in Monday’s World Cup qualifying play-off against Peru. How responsible his antics, dancing on his line and throwing away the Peruvian goalkeeper’s inscribed water bottle, were in Australia’s victory is unclear, but he joined a growing list of substitute goalkeepers credited with inspiring penalty shoot-out victories.
The earliest seems to have been Nikos Christidis, coming on for Lakis Stergioudas in 1976/77 when AEK Athens beat QPR in the Uefa Cup quarter-finals and saved Dave Webb’s penalty, since managers as diverse as Martin O’Neill and Louis van Gaal have died tactics applied. But resistance remains, with Thomas Tuchel being widely criticized for bringing Kepa Arrizabalaga to February’s League Cup final, despite the same plan having worked in the Uefa Super Cup final earlier in the season.
But when penalties are so pronounced and require reflexes and game theory skills as well as game reading and positioning, why shouldn’t some players who aren’t necessarily the best open-play goalkeepers excel at them? When learning opponents’ habits and tells is such an important part of the process, it makes perfect sense for a player to focus on repetition while the open-play keeper continues with the game itself. It’s just convention that makes the idea uncomfortable or worth condemning when it goes awry—which it occasionally does.
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In the days of one, two or even three substitutions, the benefits might not have seemed worth the effort compared to signing a fresh outfielder or covering for potential injuries. However, now that five are allowed (plus an extra one in extra time) it seems reasonable that a few could be reserved for specialist use, be it goalkeepers saving penalties, tricky attackers in the form of Grealish or other specific roles.
It’s already starting to happen. All that remains is general acceptance and that players enjoy the role of the super submarine. Finally, you play against weakened opponents in search of glory. What’s not to enjoy about it?