Watching the Williams sisters, listening to Pep Guardiola, remembering Bob Paisley, contemplating Jack Grealish: a quartet strung together by thoughts of technique, concepts of tempo and how a coach can dictate the former more often than the latter. It’s a loose arrangement.
The film King Richard is about Venus and Serena Williams and how they were moulded by their father, Richard — and mother, Oracene — into tennis immortals despite coming from the broken and most un-tennis streets of Compton in Los Angeles.
The society in which the Williams family live is a frame around the tennis drama; but notable, especially given production of the film involved Venus and Serena, is the amount of technical comment included. There is a clip where Oracene instructs on how to serve; there are repeated references to “open stance” by Richard.
Venus and Serena clearly appreciate how these approaches to ball-striking challenged coaching orthodoxy and shaped their game. When explaining Serena’s enduring excellence some years ago, ESPN offered the “open-stance two-handed backhand” as evidence, saying “it would have been considered an unthinkable departure from proper technique as little as a decade or so ago”.
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Innovation and practice run alongside a moving human story of two small black girls entering the rich white world that is tennis. Ultimately the Williams sisters’ fabulous ability enabled them to not just get inside tennis, but to conquer it. But without technique, all the tough love in the world would not have enabled them to cope with the amphitheatre of a professional tennis court.
Venus loses the match but triumphs in the long run. Talent, and an open stance, pushed her and Serena through their new environment
The scene where Venus (14) takes on Arantxa Sanchez Vicario (22) reveals the ground-up view of the stands, towering and full of fans, the volume and the atmosphere. The scale is intimidating for an adult, never mind a 14-year-old.
Venus loses the match but triumphs in the long run. Talent, and an open stance, pushed her and Serena through their new environment. The white noise they first met gradually became supportive noise.
As unlikely as it sounds, this came to mind during Newcastle United versus Manchester City a fortnight ago. Here was an early-season epic. It ended 3-3, brimmed with intensity, drama, speed — and noise. St James’s Park has towering stands and on days like these possesses the quality of an avalanche. At its end, Guardiola appeared in front of the press smiling, shaking himself down, semi-bewildered.
But the great manager was already processing the nuts and bolts. It was tempting to ask about the cacophony and whether it inserted itself into the unrelenting proceedings — it felt like it did. There was a time when managers, often Scottish, would facetiously say they had never seen a fan score a goal; but it feels like we have an understanding now that crowds can spark the atmosphere which sets a tempo and, from there, goals.
Instead, though, Guardiola was off talking about Phil Foden and the absent Grealish.
Foden’s determination to attack at pace seemingly every time he got the ball was part of an engrossing spectacle. But it did not give City control, the hallmark of a Guardiola team.
The coach was willing to accept Foden’s attitude, but only if it brought a goal. If it resulted in the loss of possession, Guardiola was less impressed. “If you don’t finish, you don’t control Saint-Maximin and Almiron,” Guardiola said, referring to Newcastle’s twin breakaway engines.
Resisting the temptation to sprint in such a setting, when everything screams loud and fast, is not easy. Guardiola accepts this is part of Foden’s instinct, plus Foden now has Erling Haaland alongside, which would make you run.
Then without prompting, Guardiola referenced Grealish and what he does for City. In short, he slows the tempo.
For many observers, this is a problem. For Guardiola, it’s a solution.
But what Grealish gives when he takes possession, turns and knocks the ball backwards, is time
The outlandish £100 million fee has done Grealish no favours. It carries a level of expectation Grealish is unlikely to fulfil. He does not play where he did at Aston Villa, nor is he the talisman in a team of substantially greater components.
But what Grealish gives when he takes possession, turns and knocks the ball backwards, is time. Guardiola appreciates this — in Barcelona it is called “pausa”. (In Belfast it’s “stall-the-ball”.)
Not only does pausa bring thinking time, it compresses the play, which is what City want when they’re in the opposition half. As Guardiola said at Newcastle: “We should spend more time in the final third, give more passes in that moment, but it’s difficult because Erling is going, Phil has this aggression to go. If Jack plays there, or Riyad [Mahrez] or Berbardo [Silva] play on the right, they are more calm and they help us to be all together; and when we lose the ball, we are there and they [the opponents] cannot run.”
It’s attack as a form of preventative defence.
Today Grealish, if fit, will return to Villa Park in this new role — he got three minutes there last season. He is no longer the dynamic creative leader he was at his boyhood club. Will Guardiola select him ahead of Foden?
If Guardiola wished, he could look back to Paisley. Even though Craig Johnston was Liverpool’s record transfer, it did not stop Paisley from substituting Johnston because he was “too lively”.
It was March 1982 and Liverpool had just been eliminated from the European Cup at CSKA Sofia. In their next game, at Anfield three days later, Liverpool were winning 1-0 and Johnston was “causing chaos”, as we say. But in Paisley’s view, it was Liverpool on the receiving end.
Top of the league, Paisley was still concerned by the loss in Sofia. As he said: “Craig was the liveliest player on the field, but knowing the mental state of the rest of our lads, that was a threat in itself.”
Anfield howled its derision at Paisley’s decision. Liverpool won 1-0 and the league.
A man who had fought in the second World War, Paisley reached for a naval analogy: “It’s like being at sea in a fog. The convoy must keep together so that no vessel becomes isolated or exposed. A football team is just the same.”
It sounds a bit like how Guardiola views Foden and why he values Grealish. Like Paisley, Guardiola prefers controlled rhythm over speed. Crowds don’t, crowds roar at players running; and players run because crowds roar.
It’s a way of seeing. Guardiola has it, Richard Williams had it, Paisley had it — he told Ronnie Whelan to tackle Ipswich’s brilliant Dutchman, Frans Thijssen, in a particular manner due to how Thijssen shaped his body to receive a pass.
Intuitive intelligence. It’s a stance Williams and Guardiola would surely appreciate.
