Shadowing Practice: Why Argentina are different from every other big team - Learn English Speaking with Video

Obviously Lionel Messi became the World Cup's joint highest goalscorer of all time last night, scoring a hat-trick against Algeria.

But you've noticed something a bit different about Argentina, John, haven't you?

You think they are different to all of the other big teams.

Why is that?

Well, you may remember yesterday, on yesterday's stream, we talked a little bit about this being the World Cup of mid-blocks,

a lot of teams not wanting to overcommit forward when they're defending and actually sitting in these sort of nice, rigid defensive structures.

We talked a lot about how some teams try and pull these structures apart through using, we call them tensions, or using the position of their players to pull them apart.

So a nice example might be if you have touchline-hugging wingers to pull the opposition back line apart,

and then you're creating these tensions because does your centre-back come across onto the eight here, or does your full-back come across onto the eight?

Using your structure to do that.

But what we're seeing from Argentina is quite different

because what we're seeing from them is actually overloading in the centre of the field

when they're coming up against these blocks and creating tensions in a very different way.

And I've got a few screenshots to show you what that looks like.

Show me, I want to see them.

So this is the game against Algeria yesterday.

And what I've done here is I've shown the Algerian block.

So you can see they're in a 4-2-4 shape.

So we're talking mid-block here.

They're allowing Argentina to have the ball and build up from the back.

What we can see here is that rather than doing what we did on the board before, showing touchline hugging wingers, actually in this instance there is a wide player,

but on this side of the pitch you can see all of the Argentine players are overloading in the centre here.

So you've got the ball carrier here who's Romero the centre-back

and then you have a number of different Argentine players in that channel in front of the ball carrier.

And what they're going to do is they're going to overload in the centre

and they're going to try and create tensions in lots of different ways.

When they're in those positions you would describe them as being inside the block, right?

That's right.

As opposed to playing around the block.

Yeah.

They're inside it.

So when we looked at Netherlands versus Japan, what a lot of teams are doing, the bigger teams, is they're trying to work the ball around the side of the block and then maybe find ways in.

What we're going to see from Argentina is actually just punching through the block.

So having their players in that channel, in front of the ball carrier, is going to help them find ways of doing that.

So you can see here, I've just drawn the lines on just to show how narrow the forward players are here.

And what's going to happen then is, rather than trying to pull the block apart, they're going to try and compact that block and create tensions from within the block.

And what I've done here is I've drawn the players' body positions on

because I think it's really interesting here about how the players are constantly rearranging themselves

and making sure that they've got a number of different options available to them.

So you've got Alexis McAllister here facing back down the field

so if he receives the ball he can maybe play a bounce pass back to the receiver.

We've got Messi in that same sort of orientation as well

but then Lautaro Martinez is looking for a lot more open body position

so he can make that run in behind or he could receive the ball from Messi if it's played into his feet.

And the same from, I think this is Rodrigo de Paul here.

And what we're going to see then is, and I think we should emphasize the tempo shift here, so we look at Romero on the ball, very slow, he's just holding the ball, he's not under any pressure,

so he's just going to take his time until the right situation arises in front of him.

But what we can see is Messi making that run in behind.

Again, we're already talking about these little tensions that you're creating within the block.

Does the back line go with him, open out a little bit of space, which can maybe then be accessed and he's going to run out like

that whereas again we've got other players ready to either receive

or receive on the turn now Messi comes back in

and again I've highlighted the players body positions because they've shifted around again

so you've got DePaul heading backwards now Alexis McAllister facing up the field Messi dropping into

that space and Lautaro ready to receive as well

and just to be clear those little shapes that's their vision

that's the way they're facing it's not an arrow pointing in the direction they're moving yeah sorry

So what I've done is it's more to look at their body position.

So when they receive the ball, you know, if...

That's the way they're facing.

Yeah, exactly.

So if you receive the ball into your feet like that, there's only so much you can really do with it.

And so if you're making sure that you've got your body positioning sorted to start off with, then it will allow you to do other things.

And the point to make here is

that all of these players are constantly reassessing

which way their body is positioned so that they have options to go backwards and receive the ball, options to receive on the turn, or maybe options to run in behind as well,

just to make sure they've got plenty of different possibilities there.

So Messi has been on that runoff and is now coming back in.

And that is the moment where Argentina decide to have this tempo shift.

So the ball is now going to go into Messi.

And again, we can see that we've got two options here who are ready to receive.

De Paul can come inside.

Lautaro Martinez can go in behind as well.

And so, yeah, here we are when the ball comes in.

Messi can receive it.

Because Alexis McAllister is now coming down the field, he can receive into his body position.

And now you have lots of different options for where they can go.

Actually, what he ends up doing is playing the ball back to Lionel Messi.

But I think what's really interesting now is if we think in terms of what the block looked like before, where it was really rigid, you had your four, your two and your four.

Now what's happened is

that they've created this overload in the centre of the pitch where you've got Messi

and McAllister with a number of Algeria players around them.

They've pulled that block really, really close together.

So rather than trying to spread the block apart, what they're trying to do is overload in the middle and then create opportunities to find free players.

So, you know, we've got De Paul over here, we've got the fullback over here.

I think this is Armada here as well.

And then what we can see from this is once the breakdown happens, Messi receives the ball, he can play it to the free player here outside of that overloaded block.

And now there's plenty of opportunities for them to get through that block here.

So again, in this situation, 2v5, free players all around, the defensive structure is completely collapsed.

It's a very different way of approaching pulling a block apart to what we with some of the other sides.

So they're almost like they're sucking in the opposition players

and then relying on the fact

that they maybe have like higher technical players who are able to then pass the ball out of

that danger and make space elsewhere.

Exactly.

But it's a very different way from what a lot of the other big teams, a lot of them are European teams, where they're trying to pull those blocks apart.

Actually, this is relying around almost creating centers of gravity, sucking it all together and then, yeah, expanding from there.

It's almost like, forgive me, but it's almost stereotypical of of South American players.

I know that's the stereotype that we like to imagine of, you know, players from Brazil, players from Argentina, you know,

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playing football in tight spaces and being incredibly skillful with the ball at their feet.

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Is that what's happening or am I reading into it?

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No, that's absolutely it.

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And again, the idea is to try and get the most out of the situations that you have your players in.

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If you have tight space players, then find them in those areas.

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If you can manage those situations well, then you'll find ways of working your way through the block.

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And, you know it's a very risky way of playing right

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because what you're doing essentially is in this scenario here we're

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playing the ball into an overloaded area the reason why a

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lot of other teams are going to play around the block is

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because if you lose the ball you can be in a huge amount of trouble

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but again there's a almost inbuilt fail safe here which is

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that you're playing into an overloaded area which means

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if you do lose the ball you actually have really nice

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counter pressing access um to be able to win it back as well now obviously

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if your counter press fails then the structure of your team

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may be uh in a bit of a worse shape yeah

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but the idea is is that you're playing this sort of high-risk football.

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It should be able to help you find ways through blocks without having to spread your players out.

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It should allow you to have a much better counter-pressing structure as well.

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What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing Practice: Why Argentina are different from every other big team - Learn English Speaking with Video

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