The beauty of the beast: On the ‘Makelele Position’

Remember yesteryear’s defensive midfielder? The (usually) nuggety stocky guy with unkempt hair? Strangely this condition affected defensive mids of all hues-, socks around his ankles, permanent scowl, and all the footballing ability of a wet chicken with two left feet? He was the team’s hatchet man; didn’t break down the opposition moves so much as literally break down the opposition. He was always the dude with no pace, skill, ability, vision etc but had what they called ‘heart’. A positive spin for murderous rage expressing itself on a football pitch. He was always a folk hero or villain (never in between), depending on where you were from. Nicknames always indicated some kind of brutal authority; The General, Guv’nor, Chief.

So it is some minor miracle that his is suddenly football’s en vogue position. From Carlos Dunga cleaning up in front of the Brazil back-four and giving the show-ponies in front of him room to manoeuvre and samba through the 1994 World Cup, to Marcos Senna being the steady influence behind the near abstract expressionists that are Spain’s midfield wizards, the defensive midfielder has become crucial to a team’s success.

Think of all the great teams of the recent age, from the aforementioned Brazil side of 1994, to France getting to two World Cup finals with Deschamps, Karembeu, Makelele, and to some extent Patrick Vieria keeping Zidane, Djorkaeff, Petit, Ribery, and Henry free to weave their intricate patterns upfront. The Brazil winning team of 2002 may have been engulfed in hype over the otherworldly skills of Rivaldo, Ronaldinho and Ronaldo, but it was Emerson and Gilberto keeping the opposition at bay and on the back foot that helped generate and maintain that momentum. Ditto Italy 2006 with the ever snarling yet extremely likeable Gennaro Gattuso (almost literally) snapping at the heels of opposition playmakers, and keeping them far busier getting rid of the ball than doing something useful with it.

Modern football has evolved into a pacey, skilful arena (see the rise of Cristiano — not the real — Ronaldo, though underestimate the contribution of Owen Hargreaves and *choke* Michael Carrick in granting him space, at your peril) where quick counterattacks and goals can come from anywhere anytime, as opposed to the tried and trusted feed it through to the goalpoachers’ approach from days of yore. Nowadays midfielders need to not only create for the foxes in the box upfront, but are expected (as opposed to when such was welcome, but not expected) to weigh in with goals too. The likes of Robert Pires, and Rivaldo were the beginning of that trend and it is being taken to the next level. As such, defensive patterns have had to evolve. You cannot simply expect the back four to soak up all the pressure coming towards them. You have to stop the enemy while the attack is still in its genesis.

Conversely due to the pace of the game, once said opponents are robbed of the ball, you need to get on top of them before they can regroup, hence today’s destroyers have a passing ability to match that of those who wear the hallowed Number 10 jerseys of great (and small *cough* Kaizer Chiefs *cough*) clubs everywhere. So you now have the Sennas with an ability to slide cleanly through a man to retrieve the ball and almost in the same motion, get up and make 30m slide rule passes across the field before the opposition recovers. Patrick Vieira (at Arsenal at least) was a master of this. He had all the passing ability of a Zidane (if less vision) but no opponent got through him easily. Roy Keane (the last of the pure blood and thunder midfield generals at the highest level) would attest to Paddy V’s abilities.

No team at the top tier of football operates without that warrior lurking in the shadows of midfield, getting through tons of work and emerging with no accolade except from true students of the game. For it is only when they have made a hash of things that they get attention as the villains of the piece, or when they are not there and one wonders why their team isn’t flowing like it used to. It’s almost like the fetcher in rugby, always at the bottom of the ruck/pushing the law to its limits to secure possession/slow down the opponent’s ball/get in their faces while others get the glory.

There is no greater literal example of this than what happened to Real Madrid’s much vaunted ‘galacticos’ when Claude Makelele followed the lure of the rouble to Chelsea F.C., and suddenly Zidane, Figo et al were stuttering, lacking the space they’d previously had to go beserk raining shots on goal. At the same time, Chelsea F.C. were having an Indian Summer of it in the English Premiership, strangling the life out of teams before lumping it up to Drogba to nod one in 38 games a season. (Incidentally, Juventus were doing the same in Serie A with Vieira and Emerson combining to make the Delle Alpi positively Trojan in its impregnability. Say what you like about ‘Calciopoli’ , but refs cannot prevent the opposition from scoring against you; it’s still up to you to keep a clean sheet so that penalty the ref awards you in injury time results in a 1-0 win.). The Ghanaian born Makelele’s influence was so great and he was such a prime example of this, that the position has become widely known as ‘the Makelele position’.

Even other teams have adopted this; the examples are everywhere, look at how Liverpool capitulated to Manchester United when Javier Mascherano got himself sent off for questioning the referee while not having a Manchester United badge on his shirt. Arsenal suffered when Flamini was out, with Gilberto’s timing so not what it used to be, when Keane’s powers waned, so did his teams fortunes (yes Roman’s Roubles had something to do with that I accept, but Manchester United were not playing the same either way).

Even Bafana in their 1995-1998 peak (yes it was in this lifetime) employed the services of tireless retrievers in midfield, Eric Tinkler being their chief go-to guy when it came to midfield spadework. There was also that relic from gladiatorial times, Linda Buthelezi (who was the cause of national confusion when Clive Barker referred to him as his “Mercedes Benz”, though he may well have been referring to a Gelandewagen rather than a 300SL Gullwing), not to mention in later years, John Moeti. I will refrain from commenting on Macbeth Sibaya lest this piece descends into a vile lyrical orgy of profanity and accusations of treason and sabotage.

Some say this has made football cynical, that it’s stifling the life and creativity out of the game. I disagree. If sides like Spain, Arsenal, Inter and Roma can manage to find a balance that combines solidity and creativity the way they do, football is very much headed in the right direction, and at least our new generals go about their work intelligently, no more crunching bones, just textbook ball retrieval. A whole team of Makelele’s cannot do much about a Cesc Fabregas throughball that makes Emmanuel Adebayor look positionally aware, nor could they stop Leo Messi if he really wanted to score.

Above all, it gives hope to hackers like myself, who long having accepted that the closest we’ll get to executing a successful on-field step-over is against our three-year-old nephews, at least working on our tackling can make us useful to have around for playing, as opposed to humorous purposes.