This Saturday, May 16, a Bundesliga player will make his way into the history of football. On the occasion of the resumption of the German championship (and the five meetings scheduled at 3.30 p.m.), he will become the first fifth substitute for his team: a small revolution in a sport accustomed to its rule of three – changes – since 1992.
The International Football Federation (FIFA), through its venerable International Board, guarantor of the rules, has decided to amend "Temporarily Act 3", by allowing five replacements (six in the event of an extension) to protect players who are a little cold after weeks of confinement and contactless training. With the new provisional rules, the five player changes will have to be made in a maximum of three waves (including half-time).
But in football, the provisional often turns into the definitive, and this exception is like a test ball. Some coaches, like Thomas Tuchel, have been advocating for this development for a while. "I've been saying this for several years, I think there should be more possibilities for change, launched the Paris-Saint-Germain (PSG) coach in December 2019, during a press conference. This is absolutely necessary, to better manage the minutes, to chain the matches, and allow the players to be in the best possible intensity. "
If the German puts forward the argument of health, he would also like to have more influence on the course of events through this art which has become as studied and criticized as that of passing or dribbling, namely coaching. Some newspapers even assign ratings to coaches. The difference between a 5 or a 7 owes a lot to the way the substitutes influenced (or not) the fate of the match.
This evolution makes Daniel Jeandupeux smile. Today retired, the Swiss directed the clubs of Toulouse, Caen, Strasbourg and Le Mans between 1983 and 2012. " Through his changes, we judge the coach on performance and not on everything he sought to put in place during the week. In a replacement, there is also a bit of chance. We all have examples of a player who had to be brought out and who scored just before. "
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Replacement, a recent concept for football
The days when the coach almost became a spectator like any other at the start of the match seem to be over. Until the early 1990s, physical distancing was easy to apply on the sidelines, often with only two players present. Guy Roux was known to take out one of his men only if he was unable to stand up. The Auxerrois was nothing exceptional, according to Daniel Jeandupeux:
“When I arrived in Bordeaux as a player in 1976, there were only twelve of us on the match sheet. In Switzerland, we were already sixteen. In the locker room, before the first match, I asked if we hadn't forgotten the others. But no. The replacement covered all positions, even that of goalkeeper. When I became a coach, I made very few changes, like many of my colleagues at the time. "
We forgot it a little, but replacement is a recent concept for a sport born in the middle of the XIXe century. In 1958, it did not yet exist in the World Cup, and too bad for France beaten almost ten against eleven by Brazil in the semi-finals (5-2).
Victim of a double tibia-fibula fracture after thirty minutes, defender Robert Jonquet has to help out at the left wing as " appearing brave ", in the words of Jacques de Ryswick in The team.
The following year, replacement is authorized in the event of serious injury in the first half, a condition valid until 1967. The second change will wait another three years.
The precedent of rugby
If FIFA finally approves this reform, will football take the road to rugby? The XV is no longer so aptly named and its coaches repeat that a match is now won at 22. At the time of play, the traffic on the sidelines is close to that of the toll at Saint-Arnoult (Yvelines) a weekend of great departure on vacation. To avoid such a time-consuming ballet, in football, the five changes will have to be made in three waves maximum (including half-time), announced FIFA.
Still, in rugby this profusion has partly changed the nature of the game. Thus, a pillar pushes for forty-five or fifty minutes before giving way to its lining. What grieves Jean-Pierre Garuet, nostalgic for his 1980s " where you could work your opponent in melee before pushing him late in the game ".
Gustavo Poyet may not know much about the work of the former pillar of the XV of France, but the ex-coach of Bordeaux also fears that this reform distorts his sport. "You cannot give this very physical team a chance, with intense pressing, having five replacements while other teams have other styles, based more on possession and may not need to '' use five replacements ", observes the Uruguayan technician in an interview at the Stats Perform site.
Another question: with the possibility of changing almost half of the team, will the coaches adopt scheduled shifts like in rugby? For positions requiring a lot of energy (like on the sides), it would be easy to imagine a first player performing a half-time at full capacity before giving up his place to another.
"Why not, but here we think like football is just racing, Daniel Jeandupeux cut. If the former holds, it is because he is better than his replacement. There is too much unexpected in football to foresee all the changes. The coach also responds to the present situation. In the French rugby team, Fabien Galthié had his executives finish the games when they left on time for play. Because, even when tired, they have an impact on their team, on the opponent. "
On another scale, this is why Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo almost never go out. Talent cannot be replaced.
Change of tactics
While coaches almost always make all three changes and make the first shift on average shortly before playtime, some are more aggressive in coaching. In France, Frédéric Hantz was already, in the 2000s, a specialist in tactical replacements in the first half. Former Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino also belongs to this school. In the case of the Argentinian, it is a question of changing the men but also his tactical system at the same time.
" This is usually the last thing we want to do, because we trained another system ", conversely defended Jürgen Klopp in an interview with Daily Mirror in May 2018. The manager of Liverpool, while admitting that it can sometimes be resolved, starts from the good old principle that we do not change a winning team, or not immediately.
But at the edge of the Mersey, certain tactical moves also belong to the history of the club. In 2005, the English took the water against AC Milan in the Champions League final. For Rafael Benitez, then manager of Liverpool FC, it is urgent to change during the break. The logic would be to take out a defender to launch another attacker, but Benitez opted for defensive midfielder Dietmar Hamann, in order to better stabilize his team. We know the rest (victory on penalties). The crazy rise of the Reds started with a simple change.
With three or – soon – five rounds, coaching should continue to rely on the intuition of a coach and the talent of a player.
