After setting the tactics for our team in the previous post, we’ll look how they are going to play out in a game situation. Our first friendly will give us a chance to see how our players will handle the tactics.

The First Friendly

Firstly, In this video we can see our main attacking weakness, at least in terms of formation and players positioning in phase attack. When the team is splitting and every player takes his position, according to how the team is shaped in phase attack, there is huge space between our main playmaker and the front four.

The negative of this is that our attacks becomes one-dimensional, at least in terms of vertical and horizontal angles and zones my player can occupy, not able to interplay and comunicate between our attacking players and the players behind them, and most importantly – our main playmaker.

In the video we can see that when the ball reached our main playmaker, and he is in his favourite position to dictate the play, ( ie little bit ahead of the centre circle and behind the our four attacking players, they is too are far away for him. There is no player playing in the hole, which is the natural task of our attacking midfielder. Instead of dropping deeper to create the 3-1 (AML,AMC,AMR,FC ) attacking shape, he push forward and is acting as second striker, or even as spearheading striker. This is due to his freedom to push forward everytime our team is with the ball. The reason behind such as behaviour is that opposition is playing with three central defenders in one line and two wing-backs.

In that particular video we can see that our inside forward is completely unmarked on the flank and it’s easy passing outlet for our main playmaker. Instead of this the playmaker decides to pass the ball to our right back.

In conclusion – our main weakness in our attacking shape is actually our strenghth, at least in that particular match, because the on-rushing attacking midfielders distracts the opposition to mark all four attacking players. The problem was that our main playmaker took the wrong decision where and when to continue our attack.

In that video the focus is on how badly positioned our inside-forward is. This is due to his lack of proper anticapation and off the ball movement in that situation. When our forward on the ball our inside-forward continued to hugging the line, instead of trying to bypass his personal marker and cuts inside to offera a different passing outlet and additional danger for the opposition’s defenders. Not doing this he completely burned my tactical ideas and approach for using him, because he is not doing the job I wanted from him.

In the next case we can see how good our attacking shape can be, moreso when the playmaker is behind our front four player and the attacking midfielder is little bit deeper than the others, offering another passing angle. But instead to combine with the attacking midfielder the playmaker choose to shoot from distance (he has such as PPM ) which completely destroy that decent chance for something really dangerous. In that case he can pass to the attacking midfielder, who, can try and search the channel ahead of him to unleash a killer ball towards the striker ; or just to recycle the possession passing to our right back or exchange passess with his defensive midfielder partner and change the direction/flank of our attack, waiting for another chance for something more dangerous.

In that case the playmaker again choose to try his luck from that distance instead of trying to recycle the possession becaue it’s obviously that all of our attacking players are marked well.

That video is proof/visualisation of my idea behind the specific tactical demanding from my fullbacks to cross from deep position. When the ball reached our right fullback the opposition’s defence is not so well positioned and our attacking midfielder managed to run away from his marker and go into the perfect channel where he can receive the ball via crossing. Unfortanely his lack of first touch skill prevented him to strike the ball immediately and forced him to try and control the ball with more touches and, logical, the whole situation passed away. That was the negative in this situation. But the positive is that the right back did want is required from him.

next, we can see proof for weakness of my whole tactical approach – we were outnumbered, easily, just because we are attacking with less number and less fluid movement. The only real possability was to stretch the ball into the wide areas and then crossed it, but my players are not so good in the air.

Here we can see the perfect proof of the positive to have deep-lying playmaker behind the front players. Yes, we were outnumbered, again, in that situation but the movement was not so bad from our front four players who managed to create a gap where our striker was trying to work his place, waiting for the pass from our main playmaker, who is in perfect place to spot it and pass to him. The problem was that the keeper anticipated very well the situation and prevent our striker to have a chance to shoot the ball clearly/easily.

And finally – the silly mistake of our whole defence that let the opposition to score the only goal, which won them the match. No matter the fact that we were in our defensive shape and we outnumbered them completely, the opposition player managed to score a goal via the most logical way they can do – by using the gap between our central defenders. The problem here is personal, not tactical, just because our team was in it’s defensive shape and there were not surprising movement from the opposition. The problem was that our central defender, who marked their goal-scorer, was slow, not agile and completely lacking anticapation and positioning sense. But that is, in fact, his main weakness as a player.

Here is proof for how deadly our team is in attacking sense, moreso when the ball is passing with speed and intelligence. We took away the ball, then with good short and one-touching passes exchanged the ball, giving time for our attacking players to take their usual attacking shape, waiting the perfect moment when one of our players, this time our defensive midfielder, to give a through ball to a player, who is pushing forward from deep position.

That situation was also a proof for my tactical idea behind the specific instructions to my defensive winger – ie to act as inside-forward when he is not with the ball and the attack is not coming through his flank.

Conclusions

Despite the fact we lost our first friendly match I’m equal satisfied and dissatisfied. We made some mistakes – both personal and tactical - but also we made some good things, both in terms of movements, timing of our passes, attacks and etc. With the time, and the fact that my players will start to understand with each other, the things will become even more brightly.

For more insight, follow the discussion with Cagiva and his tactics in our forums.