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With his finger on the modern game, Ted still finds he is challenging what goes on in the game at the highest level. "My pet hate is this high line on free kicks. I just don't understand it. Because if you ask any forward. Say, you have a free kick out here and now there making a line on the edge of the D. They are holding that line on the D. Well, ask any forward, would you rather be running towards the goal or away from the goal? It's a no brainer because I'm going to go on that D, and the ball's trajectory is gonna come over that first man," said Ted. "And if it's going to be whipped in, to around the penalty spot, the goal keeper can't come for it, and we are all going to be running back on top of the goalkeeper! All of us, like 15 players, it's ridiculous!"
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| Give up on defending free kicks? Try something new argues Ted. |
Ted said he asked that question when Harry Reknapp was at Tottenham. "Joe Jordan was there, Kevin Bond was there – Gareth Bale was playing and Luka Modric was playing – a good team playing in Europe, the Champions League – and I said I'm not trying to be Billy Bigwhats, but I asked them all why do you try and hold this high line like this? And do you know what they said? – I don't know, everybody else does." Ted said, "is that it?"
"In my time when you were offside you were offside, but now you are not if you aren't interfering with play.," Ted added. "Now in amateur football especially you are at the discretion of a 14-year-old on the line who says that's what I saw. I can't argue with that. It's what he saw.
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"There's the other thing with this free kick - how to stop Ronaldo? Same thing again, all lined up on the D. Free kick for us outside the D onside. About 25-30 yards out and they hit it over the wall and it's in the top corner. You see it nearly every week, a goal like that," insists Ted. "And managers and coaches have gone there's nothing I can do about it, which I think is bad – you are now giving up on it! There's nothing you can do about this?" he asks.
Ted certainly has a passion about free kicks. I should have given him my pad. I could see he was itching to draw some arrows and circles to indicate players and their movement. "So I got a free kick for Eddie to do,: said Ted. "Because I couldn't do it with kids who didn't have the ability to do it. I told him about that free kick, about four years ago. I told him and you still never did it!" he said disappointingly to Eddie Howe.
Another one I saw recently, because I watch Mexican football was club America. They are the side that play in yellow. And they are a big club and they did a free kick that was really, really interesting. You know how they do zonal marking for corner kicks? They did zonal for a free kick. They had just three in the wall, 10 yards away. They had another three, back here, the other side of the penalty spot and then behind them on the six yard box they have four marking the zone.
"Now footballers, who are basically thick are going to look at that and will go – oh, I haven't seen this before. What are they doing, here? if I put it over the wall? They have then got players who are going to push in here, right? There's a million bodies in there, but you can't get it up and over because there is basically nothing to get it up and over. They took the fee kick and it worked for them. I just thought it was interesting. That's what I like about the game, when it evolves," said Ted.
If you would like to read more about Ted MacDougall's career and his amazing football tales make sure you pick up a copy of Neil Vacher's Ted MacDougoal! from Pitch Publishing, with its new Reflections chapter.
If you would like to read more about Ted MacDougall's career and his amazing football tales make sure you pick up a copy of Ted MacDougoal with its new Reflections chapter.
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