The decline of the classical defender

This past summer, as Antonio Conte looked to bring about some changes to a tattered Chelsea squad that embarrassed itself in their title defence last season. The area that needed improvement was glaringly obvious-- Defence!  Jose Mourinho, the man at the helm of the aforementioned title defence,  now in the bright red of Manchester United, wasted no time in buying a new spine for his new club. Marquee signings like Paul Pogba, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Zlatan Ibrahimovic were made to beef up an insipid attack. A defender was all that was left. The ex-Chelsea boss spent £30 million-odd of Eric Bailly from Villareal, a huge price for someone so relatively untested. Across the town, Pep Guardiola looked to stamp his authority in City’s defence, shipping off Joe Hart and buying John Stones for £50 million.

There’s been a common theme in this and the past few windows- Defenders. Everyone wants them. A recurring narrative in the past few transfer windows has been some exorbitant amounts paid for defenders. Never before has the market for defenders been so inflated, and all of a sudden there’s a massive scramble to find quality center halves. So what has driven the sudden demand for defenders? How have clubs agreed to shell out big money for quality at the back?

To answer that, we have to see how football itself has changed over the decades. The days of the Italian Catenaccio are long gone. The rugged, no-nonsense defending that was the hallmark of several English teams, too, has evaporated. Modern football is more reliant on the technical skills, even from the defenders. Cruyffian principles of total football, though modified, are the fad. Teams like Bournemouth, whose main aim is about Premier League survival, play eye-catching football based on solid shape and ball retention. Defenders are now expected to pass it out of the back, be able to glide past people, ping accurate passes, and be unflustered under pressure from the opposition. The days of "giving the ol pigskin a good ruddy hoof" are history. Defenders spend a lot of time working on the on-ball skills, which naturally leaves far less time to focus on defending.

Another reason for the dearth of defenders could be the simple fact that defenders are an underappreciated, heavily-criticized lot. There’s no glory in being a defender. An excellent tackle or a goal-line clearance is no match for a goal, or an assist. Defenders are like janitors, they’re often cleaning up messes. If your loo is clean, you aren’t going to laud the janitor. On the other hand, if it isn’t, the janitor’s getting an earful the next day! Individual awards, too, are almost always swept by attackers. The only instance of the World Payer of the Year/Ballon d’Or was in 2006, with Fabio Cannavaro winning it after captaining Italy to the World Cup that year. There’s simply no glory in being a defender. Kids grow up wanting to be Messi and Ronaldo. Very few want to be a John Terry, or Sergio Ramos. Full backs, too, they shuttle up and down tirelessly and are rarely given the credit they deserve, unless they provide a vital assist or whip in a quality cross at the attacking end. It is a thankless task, is defending, and there aren’t just too many takers out there for the job.