Lennon: World Cup emphasis on attack is refreshing

Brazil is the spiritual home of football and it has just treated us all to the best World Cup in many years.

The fairytale ending of the host nation lifting the trophy unfortunately didn’t come to pass but this competition will go down in history as one of the best ever.

We’ve been treated to an outstanding display of attacking football from almost every team in the tournament.

Sometimes we are perhaps guilty of paying too much attention to the tactical side of the game and looking to prevent other teams from playing rather than focusing on making sure our own team performs.

But massive credit must go to the coaches of the international teams involved who have thrown caution to the wind. It’s been great, it’s been refreshing and it has helped make this World Cup so special.

There have been matches where it has really been end-to-end. It’s been like two boxers standing toe-to-toe in the ring. That’s the way it should be at a World Cup. We all want to see teams attack, we all want to see the attacking players given the ball to show what they can do and that’s why there has been so many goals scored.

I’ve always tried my best to take something from every game I was involved in as both a player and a manager. You can’t afford to stop learning increasing your knowledge is vital in any profession.

Competing in the Champions League with Celtic and going up against the likes of Barcelona and Juventus trying to come up with a plan to stop Lionel Messi and Andrea Pirlo was such a challenge for me.

So when the opportunity came up for me to fly to Brazil and take in some of the competition I was determined to use it to my advantage.

I took in a number of games and made sure I studied the various systems the coaches deployed, the decisions they made during matches to try and combat problem areas and how they got the most out of the players they had at their disposal.

I believe I came away from Brazil more knowledgeable than when I went out, so it was really worthwhile.

But speaking as a football fan rather than a manager, it was just a great competition. The atmosphere was terrific and everyone in Brazil should be proud of the show.

Unfortunately, it’s back to reality for most of us and, dare I say it, we’ll need to hand the remote control for the TV back to our other halves.