Well, today I had the unexpected opportunity to ketch of all games, Kyrgyzstan v Cambodia. The match featured 7 goals. Several very good goals. However, one of the observations I made concerned this very topic.
The Cambodians were committed to running with the ball at their feet or in support of an attack. However, they were horrendous at getting into a sound defensive posture. The Kyrgyz were a bit better but, in both instances, it stood out that a key ingredient contributing to the lack of physicality was this lack of running/movement. On several occasions a simple commitment by a player of 2, 3 or 4 strides to achieve better positioning relative to the ball and the opponent, or to protect/retrieve the ball by making the strides and pushing a physical effort seemed to go wanting.
So, aside from the skill on display, the game looked ordinary and lacking in definition although entertaining. In great part I chalked this up to the focus of this topic. That stated, I don't find the reason for it completely resting in a lack of match fitness. Part of it seemed to rest in the players' education and perhaps in what they assumed they could get away with, but for the most part their approach seemed to suggest habit rather than playing circumstance.
I appreciated viewing this game because witnessing the lesser quality placed the higher quality ball we're accustomed to into very sharp perspective. In many respects games such as these are equally useful learning tools as games with high levels of execution.
Yet, I believe either of these teams would present competitive challenges for our U-23s or a national team with a heavily local bias. For some reason I'm imposing a value on our physicality still being neutralised by other approaches employed by the Kyrgyz, such that I can't say definitively we'd blow them away. Versus Cambodia I'm more optimistic. Their movement of the ball was neither sufficiently fast nor decisive, but on set plays we would have to be cautious against them.
Finally, I think we have to be cautious when evaluating yesterday and today versus speed of play, quantum of movement and general physical conditions etc. At the end of the day football is always going to be about reacting to imposed demands or about imposing demands. IMV, as understanding of the game has grown so has its sophistication so that the game is more refined in expectation, but I don't subscribe to what I suspect may be an implicit suggestion in this thread that faster necessarily equals better.
For me, teams that consistently and dominantly impose a philosophy of constant, persistent movement tend to attain heights during battle, but they don't always win the wars. Enter Argentina. I think they are excellent exponents of what this topic is about.