Systems football began In 1963 (On the hallowed turf at Wembley) With the impact of a cynical foul By Gino Pivatelli. At that moment in the European Cup final, when the hard-working Milan forward, brought in to combat Benfica’s Mário Coluna, caught the great playmaker, football of the individual came to an end. The foul not only checked a promising break, but broke a bone in Coluna’s foot.
Without substitutes, he hobbled on, diminished, and Milan won 2-1 to lift the trophy and register the first victory for a team that prioritised the system over the individual. Modern football was born. There are degrees, of course.
The success of Zinedine Zidane’s Real Madrid was far more predicated on individuals than that of, say, Thomas Tuchel’s Chelsea or Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City. But, fundamentally, since that first success for catenaccio, football has been resolutely a team game. Which is what always makes individual awards in the game such an oddity.
Even in successful teams there is often a tension between the individual and the collective. That can be productive – sparks of friction are often creative. In sides that disappoint, though, the issue, whether the result of his own ego or the shortcomings of his teammates, is often an overreliance on one individual.
When the Ballon d’Or launched in 1956, that paradox was less pronounced. If the decision back then was less contentious than Monday’s award will assuredly be, though, it can only have been because there was no social media on which the furious could vent. That the Hungarian vote was split between Ferenc Puskás, József Bozsik and Sándor Kocsis immediately highlighted a problem that successful teams still face, although given the award was made a month after the uprising was crushed by and Soviet tanks entering Budapest, with two of the three players in the process of defecting, it was probably just as well for the magazine France Football that none of the Hungarians did triumph.
Still, the choice of Stanley Matthews, from today’s perspective, looks odd. While it is true Blackpool had finished second in the First Division in 1956, but they were 11 points behind Manchester United and had gone out of the FA Cup in the third round. Was there not a case for Duncan Edwards or Tommy Taylor?
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