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From full-backs in midfield to diamond formations: Reviewing 2014's tactics

Tactically, 2014 was an interesting year for football at both club and international level, with more variety than usual, and some intriguing concepts being popularised -- or re-popularised.

Here's a review of some of the most interesting tactical features of 2014.

Guardiola's full-backs in midfield

It's extremely rare to see players in positions you've never seen before, but Pep Guardiola's use of Philipp Lahm and David Alaba early in 2014 was genuinely revolutionary.

It was particularly noticeable in the 3-1 home win vs. Manchester United in last season's Champions League quarterfinals: their defensive positioning was that of natural full-backs, but rather than surging down the flanks to make overlapping runs, they instead drifted into central midfield positions.

The idea, supposedly, was to allow Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery to come deep and collect possession with space to run into -- without overcrowding in those positions, because Guardiola always attempts to cover space evenly. In truth, it wasn't entirely useful -- Bayern dominated the centre ground but might have tested United more by creating overloads on the flanks -- but it was a fascinating experiment, and the type of thing that makes Guardiola such an intriguing coach.

A World Cup dominated by individuals

The most prominent sides at the World Cup tended to base their entire system around one player, who was given a more central role than might have been expected.

The obvious example was Neymar's Brazil. Luiz Felipe Scolari has previously used Oscar centrally with Neymar cutting inside from the left, but the Barcelona player was moved inside into the No. 10 role, and he thrived. Brazil's semifinal thrashing to Germany had other causes, but they clearly missed Neymar.

Argentina's system was similar. Alejandro Sabella had spent the past couple of years attempting to get Gonzalo Higuain, Lionel Messi, Sergio Aguero and Angel Di Maria in the same side, with Messi often drifting in from the right. But when Aguero and Di Maria were unavailable, it became a straight, boxy 4-4-1-1 with Messi as the link between midfield and attack. He provided some moments of magic until the quarterfinal stage, but couldn't provide the decisive contributions in the semifinal or final.

Elsewhere, there was a brilliant Colombia side that depended upon the brilliant James Rodriguez utterly dominating the game from a No. 10 role -- he'd previously often played from the left -- while the Netherlands used winger Arjen Robben as a centre-forward to great effect.

The major exception was the eventual winners, Germany -- who were without arguably their star player, Marco Reus, and moved Mesut Ozil and Thomas Muller to the flanks. Whereas others depended too much upon their star man, Germany were a true team.

Counterattacking popularity

While possession-based football was totally dominant a few years ago, recently there's been a shift and more emphasis upon attacking quickly and directly. European champions Real Madrid were the best example, with their 4-0 thrashing of Bayern Munich particularly memorable. Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and Di Maria were all rampant on the counter during that part of the year.

Across the city, Atletico Madrid achieved a hugely unlikely La Liga title victory while averaging less than 50 percent possession, an incredible statistic. An emphasis upon quick transitions through the wide players was their main approach, with strikers David Villa and Diego Costa starting deep before driving powerfully through the centre too.

Liverpool's title charge ended in failure, but it's worth remembering that they massively exceeded expectations in the first place. Whereas Brendan Rodgers was previously known as someone who preached possession football, he told the likes of Luis Suarez, Daniel Sturridge, Raheem Sterling and Jordan Henderson to attack at speed into space, which blitzed opponents in the early stages.

Sweeper-keepers

From a purely tactical perspective, the most memorable individual performance this year was Manuel Neuer's sweeper-keeper display against Algeria in the World Cup's second round -- when he started extraordinarily high up the pitch and made a number of interventions when Germany's opponents played through-balls beyond the defence.

It wasn't a completely revolutionary approach. Former Colombia international goalkeeper Rene Higuita springs to mind, and former Barcelona coach Johan Cruyff always insisted the goalkeeper should risk being lobbed a couple of times a season and become an 11th outfielder. But this was different: this was the world's best goalkeeper, performing for the eventual World Cup winner. Neuer made it look cool, calm and composed rather than crazy, and he could popularise the art of keepers standing in increasingly advanced positions.

More formational variety

The four-man defence has dominated for decades, but recently there has been an increasing number of sides using three centre-backs instead. While three-man defences featured in Serie A for a number of years, due to the slower tempo and lots of teams playing narrow, the idea has spread.

For example, Manchester United's recent 3-0 win over Liverpool saw both sides playing three-man defences, which would have been unthinkable five years ago, while Barcelona and Bayern have also experimented with that approach. The likes of the Netherlands and Costa Rica overachieved at the World Cup with three at the back (although the Dutch also used a back four), while Chile and Mexico were also highly exciting.

Ronald Koeman's Feyenoord are also worthy of mention as he restored pride to the then-struggling Dutch giants and had a winning percentage of almost 60 percent, while Hull reached the FA Cup final with three centre-backs. Two of them -- James Chester and Curtis Davies -- scored in the first 15 minutes while Alex Bruce had a header cleared off the line, which was an unlikely way for the formation to appear prominent.

The diamond has also made something of a comeback. Again, this has been the case in Italy for a while, but Liverpool have often used Sterling behind two strikers, something England -- even under Roy Hodgson, who likes boxier systems -- replicated towards the end of the year.

Man-marking in midfield

One of the most curious matches of the year was between the Netherlands and Chile, in the final game of World Cup Group B. Louis van Gaal instructed his midfielders to stick tightly to their opponents when out of possession, a man-marking approach the Dutch used throughout the tournament. Van Gaal usually changed his formation to match the opponents in the centre and left a spare man in defence.

But, peculiarly, Chile were doing exactly the same thing. Jorge Sampaoli had never previously encountered Van Gaal, but they come from a similar type of coaching school that emphasises the spare man and pressing. Therefore, the midfield battle was simply about six players, in three groups of two -- one from either side -- following each other around for the entire match. They went in and out, back and forth, and barely ever received the ball because they were never in space.

Therefore, despite both teams being technical, the play became quite direct, with the defenders having to bypass that zone and hit the forwards, or bringing the ball out from the back themselves, which didn't happen as often as it should have. It's perhaps only comparable to the meetings between Guardiola's Barcelona and Marcelo Bielsa's Athletic Bilbao in La Liga a couple of years ago -- which makes sense, given that Guardiola worked under Van Gaal and Sampaoli was Bielsa's heir at Chile, with both men getting excellent results with unique tactics.

Van Gaal has often used this approach in the Premier League with Manchester United, Brendan Rodgers has borrowed the tactic at Liverpool too, and Stoke played that way against Southampton. Generally, midfielders form a solid shape and then concern themselves with tracking runs, but now it seems a viable approach to abandon your own shape entirely in order to nullify opponents.