The death of the sweeper

The sweeper system and three/five man defensive systems are regularly mentioned on message boards in relation to Spurs (and England). Historically, as a means of solving squad deficiencies in the left midfield position. Recently, there's even been some discussion, amongst the curious band of people that like to study formations, that it is about to rise from the dead. I've never been a fan of the tactic, and quite often get drawn into discussions on it. This was the latest, in relation to why the sweeper system eventually disappeared after becoming a fairly ubiquitous post-Italia 90...

Was it just a fad? Fad formations certainly arise, but arguably all formations are 'fads' since they are subject to various shifts in the game that tend to make them redundant or requiring some kind of evolution. The 4-4-2 used by teams now, whilst nominally the same as the ones of previous eras, are surely not employed in the same way. How often, for example, do you see a 4-4-2 with two conventional wingers compared to twenty or so years ago? It is set up a different way, with players of a different skill set than before.

As for 5-3-2/sweeper, it died not because it was a fad, as such, but because of the way the game developed in the past twenty years. The increased focus on fullbacks as an attacking weapon is mainly what did for it, since it is a formation extremely vulnerable on the flanks, with defensive depth of only one man. The popularity of formations with only one forward also mean that a 'spare man' is more efficently deployed elsewhere than sweeper.

Another factor, I'd say, is that formations which focus on one key player (such as a sweeper or devoted playmaker) have fallen out of fashion as players across a team have become closer in relative ability (for a number of reasons, not least changing finance influencing the flow of players between clubs). How often do you see a team with a player vastly superior to his team mates these days? Not as often as you used to, I'd suggest. In light of that, building a team around one key player is a high risk or unnecessary strategy. The last team I can think of set up in that way was Villareal with Riquelme, and it was a high risk strategy, as shown when he was unavailable or simply having a bad game (the CL semi-final against Arsenal springs to mind). The team and system was built entirely around him (and justifiably so, because he was far and away their best player).

I can't really see another team at that level playing that way any time soon, and its the same sort of issue with a sweeper system. It requires a special kind of player to play in that position, and for it to be truly effective, a particularly gifted one - look at the names from the past who have occupied the role at the highest levels. Any team in a position to possess a player at that level, generally has the luxury of enough talent across the board not to require a single-focus system, these days.

So basically, I don't think the 5-3-2 sweeper is coming back any time soon, if at all. The trends in the game still seem to be moving evolving systems further and further away from it, and further weakening its practicality, in my opinion. That would preclude any single manager and team's success with it sparking a revival.