Player profile – Goran Pandev

Lazio’s forward, “Il grande Macedone” – Goran Pandev with his brilliant appearances lately, has promoted himself as one of the best forwards in Serie A and beyond.
He is only 23 and he has already fascinated major European clubs with his physical strength and goalscoring abilities alongside his maturity display.
Goran Pandev was born in Strumica on July 27, 1983.
He made his first football steps in the youth academy of FK Belasica and in 2000 he made his debut for the first team when he was only 17.
His career turned upstairs when he and his teammate from Belasica, Ace Stojkov got offer from FC Inter.
In 2001 Pandev moved to Milano and joined the youth squad of Inter. He kept developing there but he hasn’t got a chance for first team appearance. He spent 2002/03 on a loan to Spezia, and the next 2003/04 in Ancona. Scoring few goals in about 40 matches is not much of a success, but knowing the age of the striker, it wasn’t such a bad achievement.
Pandev experienced playing in Italian lower leagues and improved his physical and technical abilities. Then the real challenge came.

In 2004 Goran Pandev was transferred from Inter to Lazio as a part of Stankovic’s transfer of to Inter. Very quickly, Goran Pandev became popular among the Lazio fans, and also among the fans of Macedonian NT. With his 25 goals in 3 seasons at Lazio he turned himself into the one of the best Lazio players nowadays. Pandev is playing another brilliant season at Lazio (2007/08) and he has chances to finish the season with more than 20 goals in every competition.

Goran Pandev is not a classic forward. His position in Lazio is right behind the full striker (Rocchi). In Macedonia he has free role and plays something like attacking midfield. This speaks about his contribution in connecting the midfield and the attack.
Pandev is a hard player with great body balance and it’s almost impossible for opponent defenders to beat him in physical duel. He is cleaver enough and can be stopped only with foul. The ball is secure in his legs.
Other great qualities are dribbling and passing. I can never forget the mach against Juventus and Pandev’s magic while Buffone, Canavarro, Thuram and Zebina were out of their shoes, and many other fantastic moves.
And at last, I think that his biggest quality is the shoot accuracy. He strikes precisely and steady and a lot of goalkeepers are helpless in that situation.
His speed and stamina are not his biggest strengths, but he can handle with them.

Take a look at some of his goals:





Goran Pandev has a great career in front of him. Major European clubs like Bayern, Arsenal and Real Madrid are interested in his services.

How to win a football match

“The goal is to score a goal!”

The team who scores more goals – wins. If it is a cup competition, the winner continues in further matches and the loser is out of the competition. In a league match format, the winner takes 3 points, the loser nothing. Draw is also possible here with the two of the teams getting by one point.

So, how to beat the opponent is the subject of this post. There are few waypoints:

1. Ball possession
We all remember the glory days of the two Spanish giants and their eras of dominating the European stage. Real Madrid (1998-2002) and Barcelona (2005-06). And guess what they had in common? Yes, the ball possession.
When the team has the ball for most of the time, it is more possible to create chances for the forwards. That is why strong midfield is required.
The midfield can be organized in various ways, with 2 or 3 playmakers in the core of the midfield. The most important thing of quality midfield display is having defensive midfield with strong playmaking and passing skills and also strong shooting skill is welcomed (Cecs Fabregas, Andrea Pirlo, Steven Gerard…)
And the most important thing is mutual correlation and communication between the players.

2. Turning chances into a goal
Once the ball possession is gained, your team needs to convert the chances into goals. Having quality strikers is the best way to turn a chance into a goal. For bigger chances to score, the teams need higher frequency of shots. If you don’t take a shot, you won’t score.
Teams play with one or two forwards depending on a tactic. When playing 2 forwards, very often used tactic by the managers is one centre forward and one supporting forward. One of the most successful managers, Capello used this “hole” striker role when coaching Real Madrid, Juventus and Roma. Recognizable players on this position are Raul, Del Piero, Totti etc.
Some teams play with 3 forwards (Barcelona). But it is not possible to play with all 3 centre forwards (for example neither manager will put Van Nistelrooy, Drogba and Luca Toni together). And that’s why these teams play with one CF and 2 supporting (defensive) forwards. Barcelona’s squad during the past 3-4 seasons was always using this tactic with Eto’o as a CF and Ronaldinho and Messi as supporting forwards. The main role of these players is to connect the midfield with the attack.

3. Prevent opponents to score
Rock solid defense prevents opponent team to score. Decades ago, teams used to play man-to-man defense which requires running all over the field after the marked player. Today, most common defensive style of play is zonal marking which means that defenders have their assigned zones of the field to cover (not exact player).
The most of the teams today play with 4 defenders in a line. Defensive line is very important part of the team defense and demands high level of teamwork between those players.
Some managers use a “sweeper” – player behind the def. line who is assigned for correcting the possible mistakes by the DL.
In front of the DL there is always one or two defensive midfielders playing the role of “destructor” (Gatuso, Emerson, Makalele, Vieira etc.) and their main job is to strangle the opponent’s attack before it’s really created.
When praising the importance of DL, SW and DM positions I must declare that major importance of the team defense overall has the goalkeeper. Managers who have keepers like Casillas, Buffon of Cech between the posts can breathe easier during the match.

4. Teamwork
The best way to win the match is to have perfect teamwork of the players. We have been witnesses of F.C. Porto winning the CL in 2004 with average players but extremely high level of teamwork. The team had no such big names but Mourinho packed compatible lineup and faced the best teams in the Europe successfully.
On the other hand, see what happened with teams who had the best players all over the globe but didn’t manage so win even a title (Inter over the past 10 years; Real Madrid in the “Galactico” era and Barcelona in the past 2 seasons).