by Adam Maycock

Created on: August 06, 2007   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Success is what matters, style is just the icing on the cake. This is what the majority of any fan, player, manager, chairman, or anyone connected with a football club, will tell you. Success brings the real rewards; style makes those rewards all the sweeter but it is no substitute for success.

History records those who have achieved success, not those who played with style but failed. Who won the 1966 World Cup? England. Who played with the most style in the 1966 World Cup? Errm, can't remember - Brazil? But where did they finish? Nowhere.

It's not that style isn't important. But it should not get in the way of success. You can afford to develop a more stylish approach to the game when you have a successful base on which to build. Trying to do things the other way round can be an expensive mistake, however idealistic the intention. A run of success breeds confidence, which breeds more success, and so on. Style can arise from this confidence, but as soon as the successful trend is broken, it should be back to basics; the result is all that matters.

All evidence points to the fact that success is oh so important. Take a local derby, say Manchester United versus Manchester City. Manchester United play fizzing, flowing football, their forwards run rings round City's defence. They look like the best team in Europe, but City dig in. Every United shot is charged down or blocked. Every City tackle is hard but fair, not pretty but it does the job. As the game goes on, it's only a matter of time before United score, But somehow, when United have committed so many forward, a break. One City player suddenly alone with only the keeper to beat. He does, game over. City fans ecstatic, who cares about their lack of style? United fans gutted, they'd have taken a ground-out 1-0 win any day.

The bottom line in most sports, and football is no exception, is the result. Team A pitched against Team B. The contest, the battle, and ultimately who puts the ball in the back of the net. So long as it's within the rules and the spirit of the game, the method by which victory is achieved will be irrelevant after the event. Yes, it's nice to do it in style, but the pain of failure will hardly be any less if the style is not converted into results. The terraces are packed with fans who will give their right arm for bragging rights over the rival.

My home town team were recently involved in a big (for them) match, a play-off where the prize was a promotion to a higher level. At 2-1 in the dying minutes, the game became a throwback to schoolboy football, as one team resorted to any old tactic to draw level, and the other resorted to any old tactic to stop them. Shouts of "chop him down", "hoof it out", and various other similar pieces of advice, could be heard. Nobody was shouting for the players to "bring it under control and look for the incisive pass through the midfield". Success was what was required, style can wait for another day..

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