In a game utterly obsessed with the worship of attacking talent, here’s a celebration of some of the greatest defenders and defences of the past 25 years.
AC Milan 1989-95
Sebastiano Rossi
Mauro Tassotti Franco Baresi Alessandro Costacurta Paolo Maldini
(Other notable players: Filippo Galli, Christian Panucci)
Still the only side to successfully defend their European crown after defeating Steaua Bucharest and Benfica 4-0 and 1-0 respectively in 1989 and 1990. This incredible Milan side slowed down not one iota after the departure of manager Arrigo Sacchi.
Between 1991 and 1995, AC Milan won three consecutive scudetti - in 1991/92 they did it without losing a game - and reached three consecutive UEFA Champions League finals (a feat emulated by compatriots Juventus between 1995 and 1998).
Though Fabio Capello’s men won just one of these, a famous 4-0 victory over Johan Cruyff’s Barcelona ‘dream team’, their domination of Italian and European football at this time was based on a water-tight defence.
In the 1993/94 season, which culminated in that demolition of favourites Barcelona in Athens, Milan managed to win the Italian Serie A title despite scoring just 36 goals in 34 games. How? They conceded just 15.
Milan opened their domestic league season with a run of 7 consecutive clean sheets. From week 16, they strung together 9 more consecutive clean sheets. In total, they stopped the opposition from scoring in 22 of their 34 league games that year.
In the Champions League, they progressed to the group stages with 1-0 and 7-0 aggregate wins over Swiss side FC Aurau and Danish champions FC Copenhagen respectively. As said, they went on to win the trophy with a resounding 4-0 win over Barcelona. But En route, they kept clean sheets in 4 of their 6 group matches, as well as recording a 3-0 victory over AS Monaco in the semi-final. In total, they conceded just 2 goals in 12 games.
Capello was derided in Spain during his second spell with Real Madrid, despite delivering the club’s 30th La Liga title and its first in 4 years. In England, Capello’s tenure as head coach of the national side is widely considered a failure on account of the side’s 4-1 capitulation to Germany in the second round of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. But his side qualified for that tournament with a 90% win rate, helped in no small part by conceding just 6 goals in 10 games. Capello’s England reign ended with a 0.83 goals-conceded-per-game ratio (42 games).
Arsenal 1997-99
David Seaman
Lee Dixon Tony Adams Martin Keown Nigel Winterburn
(Other notable players: Steve Bould, Alex Manninger)
Arsenal’s famous back five has become synonymous with the offside trap, the image of Tony Adams with his hand raised in appeal now somewhat iconic. Mention the ‘famous back five’ and most Arsenal fans would think of George Graham’s sides of the early 90s, when Messrs Seaman, Dixon, Adams, Bould and Winterburn laid the foundation for a period of relative success that would culminate in the 1997/98 double-winning side under Arsène Wenger.
And it is true that Arsenal’s successes in the early Wenger years were due in large part to the solid defensive foundations laid by his predecessors. But though the double-winning season of 1997/98 sticks in the memory, it was the following season that proved most impressive defensively. It was also the season in which Martin Keown replaced Steve Bould at the heart of the defence alongside Tony Adams.
Arsenal finished second in the 1998/99 FA Premier League season, missing out on a successful defence of their title by just 1 point to Manchester United’s phenomenal treble-winning side. They failed to qualify from the group stage of the Champions League, perhaps an indictment of the decision to play their home games at Wembley Stadium, and finished the season trophy-less. However, their defensive record in the league should not be overlooked.
In 38 games played, Wenger’s men conceded just 17 goals. Remarkably, in 19 games at Highbury, where they went the entire season unbeaten, Arsenal conceded just 5 times. They kept 23 clean sheets, a feat not bettered until Jose Mourinho’s title-winning Chelsea side of 2004/05.
“I realised when I joined Arsenal that the back four were all university graduates in the art of defending and Tony Adams was the doctor of defence.” Arsène Wenger
France 1997-2000
Fabien Barthez
Lilian Thuram Laurent Blanc Marcel Desailly Bixente Lizarazu
(Other notable players: Franck Lebouf, Vincent Candela)
It’s difficult to judge an international defence against those of club sides, when they play so rarely in comparison. But Aimé Jacquet and Roger Lemerre’s World Cup and European Championship winning side owed as much of its success to these five men as it did to the attacking brilliance of players such as Zinedine Zidane, David Trezeguet and Thierry Henry.
Fabien Barthez, Lilian Thuram and Marcel Desailly were named in the team of the tournament for the 1998 World Cup, while Barthez also collected the Yashin Award for best goalkeeper. At Euro 2000, the same 4 players were again selected in UEFA’s team of the tournament and there was also a place for Laurent Blanc.
They won the 98 World Cup on home soil with a goal difference of +13, having conceded just 2 goals over 7 games.
Chelsea 2004/05
Petr Čech
Paulo Ferreira John Terry Ricardo Carvalho William Gallas
(Other notable players: Wayne Bridge, Glen Johnson, Robert Huth)
Unquestionably the best defensive unit of the Premier League era. In the 2004/05 season, Chelsea set Premiership records for fewest goals conceded (15) and most clean sheets kept (25). After conceding two goals away to eventual runners up Arsenal on 12 December, José Mourinho’s side didn’t concede again in the league until 11 March: a run of 10 consecutive clean sheets.
Their achievements become even more impressive when you consider that Mourinho, Čech (£7m), Ferreira (£13.2m) and Carvalho (£19.85m) had only arrived at the club in the summer of 2004. Mourinho, Carvalho and Ferreira had just won the Primera Liga and Champions League double with FC Porto, keeping 17 clean sheets in the league and 5 in the Champions League in the process.
“The moral of the story is not to listen to those who tell you not to play the violin but stick to the tambourine.” José Mourinho, in response to critics of his so-called ‘defensive’ style