The Bulldozer

Genius is an infinite capacity for taking life by the scruff of the neck. Eleven Bullets was in need of a genius rather than an ordinary human being as their manager. However, as folklore always says, ‘Everyone is born with genius, but most people only keep it a few minutes’. I had to use these few minutes to turn up with something that would radically transform my Eleven Idiots into true Eleven Bullets.

However, ‘Genius begins great works; labor alone finishes them’. So, the success of my plans was entirely dependant on how my team would take up the challenge and perform subsequently. I decided to bring up a completely new strategy which my team would follow in their game. I had utmost belief that if the Bullets could maintain their true discipline and stick to the plans then these methodologies would enhance their collective strengths and make them less vulnerable to their current weaknesses. If successfully implemented, this had the potential of eventually becoming the most effective and innovative strategy. The strategy would prove to be as effective defensively as the renowned Cataneccio and would also provide enough room for fast counter attack based football. I named my master plan as ‘The Bulldozer’………… The name by which I was called throughout my career as a player.

The playing style was loosely based on the Dutch system of ‘Total Football’. I wanted to utilize the high fitness quotient of my eleven stallions. The basic formation was one which had never been used before ……… a 3-3-3-1 formation. Three players would play in defense; two midfielders would play along the flanks while one would act like a defensive screen. Two wingers, an attacking playmaker and a target man as striker would complete the formation. The players along the flanks would constantly move up and down to support the defense as well as increase pressure through quick counter attacks. This would always enable the team to have enough players in defensive and offensive positions when and as required. However the main criterion was about choosing the right players. Clay would be the lone striker as he was quite good playing as a target man. The defensive midfielder role would go to Luke who was solid as ever. Fitting in the rest of the players would surely be a problem.

To understand the capability of each player and ultimately decide in which position to play them, I organized few training matches against the local university team. After all the matches, we finally decided on our first team. The players more or less retained their preferred positions. However the only big surprise for everyone was my decision to play Alex as the attacking playmaker. Alex had never played beyond the role of a centre half throughout his career. However I could just sense his tendency of regularly moving up the midfield during attacks and failing to return to defensive formations when needed. So, I believed that he would be better off playing as the attacking midfielder feeding balls to Clay and also supporting him as an extra attacker while the entire team closely held our Fort Knox.

Although initially Alex was skeptical about his new role, as days progressed he realized how good he was in his new position. I made the team train intensively for improving their strengths and passing abilities. As for the defenders and Luke I held special sessions simulating situations that may occur in real game and prepared them well such that the defense never falters.

The most interesting thing that I introduced in our game play was a war cry. The players while trying to retrieve the ball from the opponents would go for the ball with a loud war cry. This would enable the opponents to know that our players were charging in for the ball. In order to maintain possession they would try to pass the ball around quickly and would surely make mistakes time and often thus cheaply giving away possession.

Just like a Bulldozer with its roaring engines, crushes down anything that comes in its way and moves forward, the Eleven Bullets would grind down the opposition and move forward with their game, killing off any resistance that would come in its way.