Joachim Low, in order to tackle Antonio Conte’s almost unbeatable 3-5-2 formation, decided to change his preferred 4-2-3-1 formation to 3-5-2. Germany took the lead through Mesut Ozil and Italy equalized through Leonardo Bonucci’s penalty. In the penalty shootout after the extra-time, 7 kicks failed to end up in the back of the net. Finally, it was Germany that managed to sneak through to the semi-finals of Euro 2016 just like Jonas Hector’s shot slipped under Gianluigi Buffon in the ultimate and decisive kick of the match. Here’s my tactical analysis of the game.
Germany (3-5-2): Manuel Neuer; Joshua Kimmich, Benedikt Howedes, Jerome Boateng, Mats Hummels, Jonas Hector; Sami Khedira/Bastian Schweinsteiger, Toni Kroos, Mesut Ozil; Thomas Muller, Mario Gomez.
Italy (3-5-2): Gianluigi Buffon; Alessandro Florenzi, Andrea Barzagli, Leonardo Bonucci, Giorgio Chiellini, Mattia De Sciglio; Marco Parolo, Stefano Sturaro, Emanuele Giaccherini; Eder, Graziano Pelle.
Teams after Khedira’s substitution.
Although Germany and Italy were playing the same formations, both the teams had different approached when it came to actually executing their plans within those formations. Italy, while attacking was direct and tried to get the ball to the higher middle third in only three or four passes. Germany, on the other hand, waited and opened space to carry out the attacks.
Germany’s defending – High press, cover shadows and man-marking deep in the half. Italy’s attacking – beating the pressing frontline, bad shape, space opening by central midfielders
Germany high pressed Italy. There were a few man-oriented players in the German midfield and back line. The man-orientation and high pressing coupled with wide movements of Italy’s central midfielders was allowing space in the middle for the Italian attack. Germany, apart from man-marking and a few high press failures, were good at defending – especially with the use of cover shadows to push Italian players to take up bad positions.
Germany was pressing Italian goalkeeper, Buffon, while defending in the attacking third. Muller and Ozil were putting pressure on the wide center backs – Chiellini and Barzagli respectively, by positioning in the half-spaces. Striker Gomez was trying to disrupt Buffon’s short central passing options to Sturaro and Bonucci. To beat this frontline pressing by Germany, Italy was changing its shape as it has done a lot of times in this tournament. The central midfielders – Parolo and Giaccherini were spreading out wide to the wings while the wingbacks –De Sciglio and Florenzi were pushing higher up the pitch.
This article was originally published on outsideoftheboot.com. To read more about Germany’s defending, the use of cover shadows, Italy’s stretching of German midfield, Germany’s change in shape and Italy’s narrow and compactly layered structure, click here.
I was busy last week publishing some tactical analysis on Outsideoftheboot.com website. For this reason, I have not been able to publish anything on my blog.
But no need to worry. I have linked all the three articles written by me for OOTB. Read, share and comment. If you have any opinions, counter arguments to what I have written in the articles, then please feel completely free to discuss with me.
Before going over to the article links, thanks for following me and reading my articles.
Here I have focused on the defensive flaws of Chile that were exposed by the directness of Colombia. I have mentioned how Chile, with the use of two wingbacks on the right wing, confused Colombia.
Portugal’s 4-4-2 diamond and defending intrigued me, especially the way Luka Modric was contained. Croatia’s lack of creativity and improper usage of players in the playing system has also been discussed.
Juan Carlos Osorio had a pretty bad day as his Mexico team, which was unbeaten for the last 364 days and in 22 consecutive matches, lost to Chile by an embarrassing margin of seven goals in the Quarterfinals of Copa America 2016. For Juan Antonio Pizzi, this was a win much needed to shut his doubters and instill some sort of belief and inspire his team that had lost to both Mexico and Argentina just a fortnight ago.
Here’s an analysis of the match from the tactical point of view.
Teams:
Mexico (4-3-3): Guillermo Ochoa; Paul Aguilar, Nestor Araujo, Hector Moreno, Miguel Layun; Jesus Duenas, Hector Herrera, Andres Guardado; Hirving Lozano, Javier Hernandez, Jorge Torres.
Chile (4-3-3): Claudio Bravo; Jose Fuenzalida, Gary Medel, Gonzalo Jara, Jean Beausejour; Marcelo Diaz, Charles Aranguiz, Arturo Vidal; Alexis Sanchez, Eduardo Vargas, Edson Puch.
Starting line-ups.
Chile pressed high and didn’t give Mexico the time to settle:
In the game against Uruguay, Mexico was quite comfortable when in possession of the ball. In the first 25 minutes or so, Mexico had created ample opportunities thanks to Uruguay’s passivity. But as Uruguay tried to get back into the game by adopting some good midfield pressing and vertical passing, Mexico had a tough time coping with them. Pizzi, having observed this weakness of Mexico, decided to go all out against them.
Here’s a video that I prepared which shows Mexico’s attacking build-ups against Uruguay:
From the first minute itself, Chile began to press aggressively in the final third and the forwards were well supported by Vidal, Aranguiz, and Diaz – who were marking the three central midfielders of Mexico. This was forcing Ochoa to kick the ball high into the air in the hopes of reaching out to the forwards.
Mexico never had the chance to play the ball out of the defence in a smooth fashion. While Vargas was pressing the ball carrier, the other two forwards were engaging with the other opponents in the Mexican half.
Chile pressing high – situation 1.Chile high press – situation 2.
Here’s a video that I prepared which shows how Chile’s aggressive high pressing that resulted in a goal:
Mexico man-marked Chile, had no compactness in defensive phase, and were caught dearly by Chile:
Mexico at times were man-marking Chilean midfield trio and the wingers. While in high-press too, Mexico was too much man-oriented leaving small gaps for Chile to play through. Once, Sanchez dropped deep to shrug off his marker Aguilar and was successful in doing so and quickly attacked the space made free. Layun too, marking Puch, took advanced positions and was lost in transitions as Chile attacked.
Mexico’s man-marking was hurting its defensive shape. While there were holes being created in the middle, it was the flanks where Chile found more open spaces to attack. through.
One of the other serious issues with Mexico was its compactness while in the defensive phase. Mexico’s problems in space occupation while in transition – mainly its man-marking was leading to irregular defensive shapes with poor compactness. Chile was able to pass freely during the counter attacks. Herrera’s high positioning coupled with open spaces in the middle and man-marking was troubling Mexico.
Noncompact Mexico while defending.
Even during Chile’s initiation of attacks from the back, Mexico was noncompact with loads of space between the three lines of their formation.
Chile positionally dynamic – switched between various shapes in the match, Mexico man-oriented while defending:
Since Puch was playing on the right, in the beginning, it looked as if Chile was playing with a 4-4-2, which was quite astonishing and rare for a team with such talented midfielders. But as the game progressed, Sanchez started to drift out towards the wide spaces on the left and Puch advanced to join alongside Vargas on the right. Chile was playing a 4-3-3 system with Aranguiz and Vidal at central midfield in front of Diaz. Vidal and Aranguiz were regularly swapping their positions in order to stay away from and confuse their markers.
In the later stages of the game Chile, in order to beat the high pressing Mexicans and make way for smooth ball progression from the back, began to alter its shape. The presence of crafty midfielder and defenders who are good at playing the ball made the transition of Chile from one shape to another very easy.
Chile tried to keep at least two players in the near side half-space so as to provide diagonal and vertical options for the players. It also helped the players in escaping the pressure put on by Mexico and move the ball to the free players. With their half-space orientation, while attacking, the Chilean players opened up space in the central regions, thanks to the man-marking done by Guardado and Herrera on Vidal and Aranguiz. There were a lot of vertical passes played through the centre.
Half-space orientation of players as Chile changed their attacking shape.
Sometimes, while having ball possession, Chile had three players in the half-spaces, which just added quality to the already existent attacking structure. Chile was able to exploit spaces and create openings. When pressed, each Chile player had at least three passing options. The dotted lines in the diagram show the possible vertical passes. Chile players at the back used such vertical passing lanes excellently. Two situations that I clearly remember are –
when Medel was in Aranguiz’s place he spotted Puch and Vargas in a 2v2 situation against Mexican defenders and quickly played a vertical pass to create a scoring chance.
again Medel played a similar pass to free Sanchez and this move ended as a goal.
Sometimes, Chile had three players in the half-spaces, which just improved the structure.
The advanced positioning that the Chilean wingbacks Beausejour and Fuenzalida were taking during the attacking phase helped Sanchez and Puch in moving closer to Vargas and narrowing down the defensive line of Mexico. Unlike what Italy did the other day against Sweden, the central midfielders didn’t move out to wider positions and stuck to their central roles. This was forcing Mexico to maintain numbers in the middle in order to deny Chile the chance to progress the passing sequence through the middle. This, in turn, was putting Mexican wingers in a limbo so as to follow the advancing opposition wingbacks or to tuck into the midfield to provide numerical superiority and force out Chile from the region. Chile players were able to numerically match Mexico upfront and wait for passes to arrive at them to create havoc.
Chile overloading the Mexican defensive line.
Chile, observing Mexican tendency to man-mark, tried to play a lot of their attacks in the half-spaces. This forced Mexico to move after the Chileans. By overloading one half-space and region around it, Chile was able to open spaces in the far-side wing for the wingback to attack. Narrow at the back due to overloading by Puch, Sanchez and Vargas, Mexican defenders found it tough stop the exploits of Chilean midfielders.
Concentrating the play on half-space and opening acres of space on the wings.
Mexico too much dependent on crosses:
One of the features of this team of Osorio was it’s dependence on crosses to create scoring chances. Against Uruguay, Mexico’s first goal was created from the wings after Guardado and Corona had managed to confuse Maxi Rodriguez.
Against Chile too, even Mexico’s Guardado and Herrera were having ball possession in the half-spaces, they were not looking for inward passing options towards the centre or the penalty box. But instead, the focus was on passing to the man on the wing. If the man on the wing was engaged by Chile’s wide players, then the intention was to somehow free him so as to send in crosses for the forwards.
Passing the ball to the wings is moving the ball away from the goal and into a position where the angle is too tight. From there, in order to beat a compact defense, crossing is the only viable option. Ha! Crossing is also the least effective way of scoring.
Which pass is better?
Chile overloaded the ball-near wing:
As Mexico tried to claw back into the game, when the game was still 1-0, there were a few moments when Chile stopped pressing high and allowed Mexico to have ball progression from the back. But since Chile players had the idea about Mexico’ attacking pattern, they overloaded the wing where the ball was played. This was Chile was pushing Mexico back to the middle third and was pressing the player receiving the reverse pass.
Chile overloading the ball near wing.
Conclusion:
Mexico’s, playing expansive football, didn’t have a proper plan to counter-press to stop Chile from attacking on the break. Osorio’s non-existent Plan-B hurt his side the most. Mexico pressed high but couldn’t stop Chile from overrunning them at the back by playing vertical passes.
Chile on the other hand are coming back to form at the right stage of the tournament. It was a really cracking game. For every Mexican playing feature which could’ve been a problem to them, Chile had a solution in hand – build-up from the back (check), blocking central access (check), not allowing free player in the wings (check), exploiting their weakness to verticality (check). Chile was destructive. Chile was ruthless. Chile was once again like the Chile under Sampaoli.
Chile was destructive. Chile was ruthless. Chile was once again like the Chile under Sampaoli. Chile was HEAVY METAL FOOTBALL.
Just when it was looking as if the game was going to end as a goalless draw, Italy’s Eder popped up and scored a late winner and helped his team to three points. The win propelled Italy to the next round. Sweden, on the other hand, now have to defeat Belgium to keep their hopes alive.
Squads:
Italy: Gianluigi Buffon; Giorgio Chiellini, Leonardo Bonucci, Andrea Barzagli; Alessandro Florenzi, Emmanuele Giaccherini, Daniele De Rossi, Marco Parolo, Antonio Candreva; Eder, Graziano Pelle.
Sweden: Andreas Isaksson; Martin Olsson, Andreas Granqvist, Victor Lindelof, Erik Johansson; Emil Forsberg, Kim Kallstrom, Albin Ekdal, Sebastian Larsson; Zlatan Ibrahimovic, John Guidetti.
Starting line-ups.
Italy’s defending forces Sweden to attack from the wings:
Antonio Conte’s Italy defended with a 2-5-3 when the ball was in the centre with Sweden’s centre backs, Lindelof and Granqvist, during the attacking build-up. Eder and Pelle were shadowing Sweden’s central midfielders – Ekdal and Kallstrom and were preventing ball progression to them.
When the ball was being passed to the wingbacks of Sweden, Italy was changing to lopsided situational front three. One of Giaccherini or Parolo was joining the centre forwards and pressing the space around the wingback. As a result, the diagonal passing option of the wingback was being blocked and he was being forced to pass the ball back to the centre backs or go over the top.
Italy defending in unison.
Italy’s Giaccherini and Parolo were positioning themselves in the half-spaces during defending making it easier for them to defend the diagonal balls and to have quick access to the centre and wings if either of the regions was getting overloaded by Swedish players.
This pattern was very comparable to what Italy did against Belgium the other night.
#Ita 2-3-5 defending with the ball on the left flank, right flank, and the center. Very organized against #Bel. pic.twitter.com/CvWujrmMiu
Erik Harmen’s team was unable to break down Italy’s defensive shape through the middle and were forced to go over the opposition’s shape and thus rely on long balls.
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But there were three or four situations in the match when one of the wingers, Larsson and Forsberg, of Sweden tucked in towards the centre and offered a passing option during the build-ups.
Italy’s problems during build-ups:
Italy played with a 3-5-2 ish formation during the attacking phase. The wingbacks – Candreva and Florenzi – were moving to advanced positions during the attacking phase and the formation was changing to 3-3-4. But Italy was never able to really utilise the potential of having players in the half-spaces except while in the defensive phase.
During the build-up from the back, there were two major concerns for Italy according to me.
One was, the wing orientation of one of the central midfielders – Giaccherini was moving to the left wing when the ball was on the left side of the field and Parolo to the right when the ball was on the right side. This outward movement was leaving a big gap in the near side half-space but the forwards were quite far from it so as to exploit. Since the far side winger of Sweden was tucking in, Sweden was able to maintain numbers in the middle. Additionally, Pelle and Eder were poor on the ball.
Where Giaccherini should’ve been (light blue) and where he actually was (dark blue).
Italy could’ve gained massively if the near side central midfielder had stayed around half-space. Italy could’ve exploited the space there and could’ve achieved a numerical advantage in the central zones with the help of Eder or Pelle.
Moreover, Italy would’ve been more dynamic positionally. Against Sweden, Conte’s players had a pattern to their attacking build-up. Positional dynamism could’ve helped them in being unpredictable to some degree.
Looking at this from another angle, if Italian players had lost the ball to the Swedish central midfielders in the middle third then De Rossi would’ve been the only player to confront the attacking Swedish players. It would’ve been tough to handle such a situation because of the wide positioning of Giaccherini and Parolo.
The other problem was when Giaccherini and Parolo were remaining narrow, they were positioning higher up the pitch and behind Sweden’s midfield line. This was creating a disjointed shape as Italy were trying to attack. Apart from De Rossi or the wingers, there were no forward passing options for Chiellini, Bonucci, and Barzagli.
Long balls by Italian central defenders.
When Guidetti and The Zlatan started to track and mark De Rossi, the defensive trio was left with no other option but to go for a long ball and try to test the defensive line of Sweden, which was getting overloaded by Italian players.
Italy had problems in conducting the play through the middle. Here’s one such scenario. De Rossi has no forward passing option.
Moreover, this was leaving Italian players in such a state of limbo that their positioning was not helping them in conducting midfield recovery press. Sweden, as a testimony to this fact, attacked a few times in the game through the wings as Italy was losing the ball in the midfield. Occupying central positions during the attacks helps in providing depth and helps to press and transition properly after losing the ball.
Sweden’s defending:
While Italy’s defensive movements were ball oriented and zonal, it’s wingbacks were position oriented while defending deep – marking either the winger or the wingback, whoever was deeper in the attacking half.
Sweden, on the other hand, followed zonal marking. The Swedes were moving sideways in order to deny access to the centre. Kallstrom and Ekdal mainly focussed on cover shadowing Eder and Pelle to deny them the long balls from the centre backs of Italy. Whenever an opponent had the ball in the center midfield position, Kallstrom and Ekdal were pressing them to force them to wide positions. Forsberg and Larsson had their movements oriented to the half-space since it was allowing them to attack the channels or move centrally as soon as the ball was won back.
Conclusion:
Sweden had a tough time trying to find a gap in Italy’s tight defending from the very first line itself. They had to depend on long balls and base their scoring chances on crosses. But Italy had three tough and physically imposing defenders to deal with these. Sweden need to find a way to play through the middle either by using a three man midfield or by converting to situation midfield three – which happened very rarely in the game against Italy. Hamren has to do a lot of tweaking.
Defensively, Italy are very strong and are from no angle are defensively weak. Conte has a good defensive plan and is executing it well. The only areas of concern are their transitions during opposition’s counter attacks and the fact that they don’t counter press. The wide space occupation of the central midfielders is a real concern as it makes Italy prone to counter attacks through the middle.
Another issue is Italy’s attacks. During the attacking phase, the players should be occupying key spaces and positions so as to keep their attacks oriented on the vertical axis. Italy depended heavily on the build-up through the wings, cutbacks and crosses to create scoring chances.
Wales kicked off their Euro 2016 campaign with a win against Slovakia and went to the top of the table as England dropped two valuable points against Russia in the second game of Group B. Gareth Bale scored with a free kick early on in the match. Slovakia equalised through Ondrej Duda. But the parity achieved was ephemeral as Hal Robson-Kanu scored to put Wales in the driver’s seat once again.
Wales, featuring in a major football competition for the first time since 1958, stuck to its manager Chris Coleman’s favoured 5-4-1 formation. Gareth bale started as the striker and was supported by Aaron Ramsey and Jonathan Williams on either side. Joe Allen and David Edwards formed the central midfield pair for Wales. The backline consisted of wingbacks Neil Taylor and Chris Gunter with Ashely Williams, Ben Davies and James Chester in the middle. Danny Ward started in the goal in the absence of Wayne Hennessey.
For Slovakia, manager Jan Kozak preferred a 4-3-3 formation with Matus Kozakic between the sticks. Peter Pekarik, Martin Skrtel, Jan Durica and Dusan Svento formed the defensive four. At the base of the midfield triangle was Patrik Hrosovsky who was supported by Marek Hamsik and Juraj Kucka. Robert Mak and Vladimir Weiss were the wingers and Michal Duris was the striker.
Starting line-ups of Wales and Slovakia.
The 5-4-1 of Wales
Coleman sought to bring the best out of his team using the 5-4-1 formation. With Bale up front, the main aim was to feed him with good deliveries – a mixture of both passes through the middle and crosses from the wings.
The 5-4-1 provided Wales with a lot of advantages during the game mainly because of the occupation of the half-spaces by Williams and Ramsey. The importance of this positioning of the two Welshmen needs to be explored in detail and you can find more below.
Half-space orientation of Ramsey and Williams and Wales attack.
The midfield line of Wales in the 5-4-1 formation was not flat and spread out. Instead, it was boat shaped because of the positioning of Williams and Ramsey in the half-spaces.
Half-space oriented players of Wales – Ramsey, Williams, Chester and Davies.
This positioning helped both the players while attacking since they were able to pass the ball out to all the parts of the field from their respective positions – out to the wings for the wingbacks to cross, in towards the centre for Bale or other advancing Wales players to have a go at the goal or create a goal scoring chance.
Passing options for Williams and Ramsey while attacking higher up the pitch.
Not just Ramsey and Williams but right centre back, Chester and left centre back, Davies were also in the half-space. Although they were deep inside Wales half, their positioning helped in circulating the ball well during the build-ups.
For different scenarios, the positioning in the half-space provided different passes – a back pass to Williams when pressed by Slovakia, a square pass to Chester to shift the play from left to right, a diagonal long ball to Gunter to exploit the space on the far side, short pass build-ups with Allen and Taylor and vertical passes through the half-space to Williams to mount a direct attack on Slovakian defence. There were a few vertical passes played by the CBs through the half-space during build-ups in order to evade the pressing of Slovakian players and bypass them.
Passing options for the LCB in the half-space.Passing options for Chester in the half-space. He chose to pass the ball to Ramsey through the half-space.
Wales players exploited the space on their far side by making diagonal passes to their wingbacks. The wingbacks of Wales were occupying positions high up in Slovakian half. Since Wales were drawing nearly all of the Slovakian players to the side of action, Gunter and Taylor were usually finding acres of space in front of them.
The main reasons why Wales were able to create overloads on one side were – one, Slovakia was narrow while defending. Two, Wales had a player in half-space who was drawing a couple of extra Slovakian players while in possession of the ball.
Gunter free.
Again, Gunter free.
Wales defending
The wingbacks of Wales were reverting back to their original positions and changing to back five when Slovakia was in possession. The wingbacks of Wales were moving out of their zones to press Slovakian players. But they never followed the opposition wingers Mak and Weiss inwards towards the centre since they were wary of the Slovakian wingbacks who were in favourable positions to overlap and double up on the Wales wingbacks.
Wales defending with a 5-4-1.
Wales players were pressing high during Slovakian build-ups but were happy in settling back in their 5-4-1 shape to deal with the threat when Slovakia was approaching closer towards final third. Wales were happy to lure Slovakia into traps and press. In the early stages of the game, Slovakia found it hard to maintain possession in the middle mainly because of the involvement of Welsh midfielders in blocking the passing lanes. The midfield line of Wales was narrow in comparison to the defensive line mainly to deny their opponents the access to the central regions.
The positioning of Ramsey and Williams helped Wales in pressing high up the pitch and at the same time not opening up any space in the midfield. Many teams press the entire defensive line of the opponents and use their wingers to provide width resulting in the creation of gaps in the central zones for the opposition players to pass into. But Wales used Williams and Ramsey in the half-space and along with Bale put pressure on the central areas and cut the link between Slovakian defenders and their central midfielders. Slovakia was forced to go around Wales’ midfield in order to mount their attacks.
Blocking of Skrtel’s passing options by Welsh forwards.Top view of Wales’ pressing.
Since from the half-space, both the wings and centre are equidistant, it is easy for the players who are pressing to move to either the wings or the centre. Also, it becomes quite easy for the whole chain of players to move from one side to another. The four-man midfield chain of Wales was benefited from this.
The value of positioning in half-space: Same distance to the wing and the centre.Williams moving from half-space to the wing, the whole chain shifted easily.
Here’s a video:
Slovakia’s defending.
Slovakia rarely pressed high and from the beginning, they were happy in moving back to the original positions to regain their shape and wait for Wales to move into the middle third. Their shape while defending was 4-5-1. The wingers Mak and Weiss followed the wingbacks of Wales till the final third and were passing on the marking duties to the wingbacks. The Slovakian wingbacks never rushed out stop Gunter or Taylor in the middle third. Slovakia generally maintained a narrow shape in the final third.
Slovakia’s attacks
The way Wales defended gave Slovakia very little to gain from during their build-ups. Skrtel and Durica had their passing lanes through the centre blocked by Wales forwards. So, for the first thirty odd minutes, when Slovakian attacks were being thwarted in the middle, Wales controlled the game.
However, as Hamsik, Kucka and Hrosovsky started to move more towards the outside, the centre backs started to find some options to pass to. This was supported by the Mak and Weiss, who started to move towards the centre. With this, Slovakia was temporarily forming a crude rhombus but failed to utilise it properly.
Slovakia attacking shape.
Conclusion
Wales had a plan and executed it very well. They showed how well a 5-4-1 with half-space oriented players in the midfield line instead of wingers can be used to frustrate opposition teams from having easy build-ups and equally well while attacking. The way Slovakia struggled to adjust themselves for Wales’ shape took time and is a testimonial to how tactically prepared Wales team was.
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