Effectiveness
The long ball strategy has often been criticized as a method that has held back the England national football team. Hughes became the head of coaching at the FA in the 1990s, and used this position to promote his theory of long ball, which followed on from the work of Reep. Hughes and those who defend the tactic claim that time and time again, teams playing direct play have more success. At the 1994 FIFA World Cup, for example, the winning Brazil team scored the most goals from three or fewer passes, while the team to score from a move involving the most passes - the Republic of Ireland - were eliminated in the second round. While multi-pass moves such as those by Brazil against Italy in the 1970 FIFA World Cup Final or Argentina versus Serbia and Montenegro at the 2006 FIFA World Cup are widely lauded as brilliant examples of football, it is partially the rareness of success for such long moves that results in their appreciation and makes them ineffective tactics to attempt to replicate.
It is however used by teams desperate to score a goal before the end of a match, though this is probably as much due to the lack of time for a gradual build-up as it is for its perceived effectiveness. The long ball technique is also effective in lower level football matches since players lack skill to work as a team and pass the ball accurately up the field. A long ball is a quick counterattack move and with a fast striker may produce multiple goals.
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