Tactical analysis: Montella’s Catania – a chaotic high tempo
Vincenzo Montella experienced his first taste of Serie A management last season when he took charge of Roma after the downfall of Claudio Ranieri, things didn’t quite go to plan though. His record at the club was just about positive, but not enough to convince the new ownership of the former youth coach’s credentials and he was left looking for a new flame in June.
u Liotru: the symbol of Catania
Montella turned up at Catania with positive ideas and, despite his experience being called into question before he’d had a chance to do anything, he has had a relatively positive start to the season so far. However, at one point it looked like the side may have had the carpet swept from beneath their feet before they could even start the season. A disagreement between president Nino Pulvirenti and sporting director Pietro Lo Monaco saw the talent finder, Lo Monaco, attempt to resign before being persuaded to return.
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Lazio fans hoping for fewer struggles in 2010/11
The transfer window is at it’s midway point and Lazio fans have seen their club banded about with some of Europe’s biggest names in the papers. Sadly for biancoceleste fans the talk has revolved around the exit of star left back Aleksander Kolarov, long gone are the glory days under Sergio Cragnotti. Lazio were top of Serie A for the first 3 weeks of Serie A last season but following the exclusion of Cristian Ledesma and Goran Pandev the biancocelesti went into free fall.
Fans this season will look to Croatian coach Edy Reja to build upon their survival last season. Reja has suggested that he will take Lazio into European competition next season, a bold claim considering their past few season’s performances. They were involved in Europa League football last season, but only because of their Italian Cup win against Sampdoria.
Problems last season
Under Reja Lazio played a 3-4-1-2/3-4-2-1, Dias and Radu proved to be a terrific centre back pairing and Kolarov together with Lichsteiner terrorised sides with their attacks down the wings. Up front a combination of Zarate, Rocchi, Cruz and Floccari were able to sustain some form of attacking threat over the course of the season despite the problems in midfield.
The link between attack and defence has been Lazio’s problem over the past campaign, the club possess few quality midfielders capable of opening up opposition defences. Reja has stated that the priorities for the transfer window are to find a replacement for Kolarov, who is all but gone, and to buy in some decent midfielders. Lazio will also need a striker, possibly a season-long loan, after Rocchi picked up a long term injury in a friendly yesterday.
Replacements
Starting from the back, the replacement for Kolarov appears to be Luca Antonelli. This transfer has been all but completed it would seem, as soon as Kolarov departs the Parma man will step into his place. It will be interesting to see, should Antonelli sign for Lazio, if he will be able to adapt to the wing back role he is likely to be placed in.
Next up on the shopping list will be a holding midfielder, the responsibilities were shared last season between Brocchi, Baronio and to a much lesser extent Hitzlsperger. This simply will not do for a side who expect to be pushing for a top half finish. Hitzlsperger has moved to West Ham after a pointless 6 month spell in Rome, Baronio has been released after spending 14 years playing second fiddle to a multitude of midfielders and Brocchi is now 34 years of age. However there have been few signs of this type of signing over the past month, with the only concrete signing made so far is the Australian midfielder Mark Bresciano.
Hernanes of Sao Paolo has been linked with the club and both clubs have been discussing terms, varied prices have been banded about between €13m and €30m. It is difficult to see how he has fallen below the radar if he is truly valued at such a high price, at the same time he is held in very high esteem by a number of good sources in South America. He would replace Rocchi very well.
Despite the many promises that signings are in the bag and players are on their way, the roman club have had a terrible window thus far. The majority of the transfers which appear to have been done have fallen through at the last minute. The latest example is the season long loan of Robert Aquafresca from Genoa, the striker has snubbed Lazio favouring a move back to Cagliari instead.
Blockers
Lotito’s foul treatment of Ledesma and Pandev last August appears to have done irrevocable damage to the already suspect reputation of the club. Players do not want to be treated with such contempt, certainly not after having given good performances consistently. The Ledesma saga is still going on now, the player was retreived from his confinement by Reja in February and was instrumental in helping secure Lazio’s Serie A status. Now the club will not meet his wage demands, they are offering €1 million but the Brazilian wants double that.
Another problem for Lazio is the new ruling put in place by the Figc following Italy’s disastrous World Cup campaign. The Italian FA have restricted clubs to signing just one non-EU player per season (down from 2 players), this has put a number of transfers on hold. Pablo Pintos, Alvaro Gonzalez and Hernanes are three players who have been linked heavily with the club but are yet to commit. The ruling is also causing Lazio to mistreat some of it’s current non-EU players, Christian Manfredini for one, in an attempt to convince them to leave. This is because they can sign extra non-EU players if they are replacing players moving abroad.
Conclusion
While there is still a month left in the transfer window I am very concerned with the reputation that the club now holds and how this will affect player’s decision making with regards to signing for Lazio. There are still many items to cross off the shopping list before the squad can be considered complete and the first XI is still an unknown. As it stands then Lazio require 1 Left back/Left wing back, 1 Defensive midfielder, 1 trequartista, 2 strikers (one on loan preferably).
Schoolboy mistakes from Italian managers
The 2nd round of group games have been concluded now in the World Cup and the two games which I saw the most of this weekend featured two Italian managers, Capello and Lippi. Both of whom carry a great deal of experience on their shoulders and yet they both made a shocking tactical faux pas against their respective oppositions, while it was not the only reason that they failed to take the points it was certainly a major contributing factor.
Taking a look at England first, they took on an Algeria side noted for being one of the few sides at the World Cup who would be playing a 3-5-2 formation. England had prepared for this prospect, or so we thought, by playing a friendly against Egypt in March. On Friday night however, it appeared that Fabio Capello had been struck down by a severe bout of amnesia. The lessons that were learnt in the first half against Egypt were jettisoned by the England management and put out the side that had taken them through qualification, he had decided to play 2 out and out strikers in Heskey and Rooney against a 3 man defence.
Marcello Lippi also decided to start with a 4-4-2, he had announced this the day before his game against New Zealand. Lippi had some reason to pursue this route with the players ending the game very much on the front foot against Paraguay using this formation. They appeared to be a far more comfortable side but going into the game I felt that too much importance was being placed on individual battles being won, particularly in the midfield where the players would be matched man for man.
A problem of numbers
The problem with playing 2 out and out strikers against a 3 man defence is that the strikers are constantly out numbered. The defenders are able to man mark each striker while keeping a man free to sweep up and knock ons and second balls, if any of the strikers is able to lose their marker they would be faced with another defender to get past. A good explanation of 3 man defences can be found here at Zonal Marking. It is fine to play 2 strikers if they provide plenty of movement and are able to pull the defence out of shape by dropping deep and making runs into the channels.
England fans may be thinking that this was fine because Wayne Rooney has always been the type of striker who likes to drop deep and link up with the midfield but with the English midfield not wanting to play in this way Rooney was left short of options. England resorted to sending long passes up towards Heskey and trying to get Rooney and Gerrard to try and pick up any knock ons.
Italy’s two strikers were Vincenzo Iaquinta and Alberto Gilardino, neither of which are noted for their link up play nor are they particularly good in the air which meant that any balls that were delivered to the 2 front men were swept up with ease by Ryan Nelsen who put in a man of the match performance. Italy have been stereotyped as the tacticians of the modern game, however on Sunday afternoon they were thoroughly out thought.
Conclusion
While it is important to try and play your players in the positions you think will suit them best, there has to be some consideration for the shape and style of play that the opposition will bring. The deployment of these formations smacks in some sense of pure arrogance from managers who should’ve had enough experience to think through this decision. Hopefully both sides can learn from this experience and take more care in preparing a side that will be able to maximise it’s strengths against other opposition.
I must point out that I realise there were many many other points that could be made about both games, I just found it very surprising that both managers had made this very basic mistake at the pinnacle of International football.
Tactics: The 3 man defence
Over the past decade the 3-man defence has led the life of an endangered species, slowly dying out. The decline has had much to do with the increase in popularity of single point attacks and correlates well with fewer and fewer 2 man attacks. When I began following football at a tactical level the 4-4-2 was the formation of choice and anything other than this was seen as some exotic monster from the continent.
“What are these ‘wing backs’ and ‘trequartistas’?” screamed the plebs “Give us our long ball up to the front man, flick it on, knock it in, repeat! Give it to us!” Perhaps this is a slight over reaction but the subtlety of playing three at the back is being lost as it erodes away, leaving us with nothing more than a memory of Germany triumphing at Italia ‘90 with the 3-5-2 and Euro ‘96 with the 3-4-1-2.
Last week in Serie A 4 teams played with 3 at the back. It has not quite had it’s last showing but it is certainly not favoured. Even in it’s heyday there were a number of teams who used a centre back in midfield as their defensive midfielder and ask him to drop into a back four when the opposition had the ball in their half. Roy Hodgson explains how England used this sort of system at Euro ‘96 here.
So when is a good time to play an extra centre back or a libero? The simple answer is against any 2 pronged attack. Two of your centre backs, usually the left and right centre back, take a man each and man-mark him. The libero will play in between making sure to mop up after the first challenge. The first challenge may not be won by your centre back but your libero will be expected to do his best to win the second ball.
3-5-2
This is the most popular use of a three man defence, it manifests itself under a number of different guises such as the 3-4-1-2. This is a good system to use against a team playing 4-4-2 with 2 quick strikers and 2 skilful central midfielders who are bossing the midfield. This formation will give you lots of width and allow you to outnumber your opponents in the middle of the pitch. You can then take the bull by its horns and play simple passes around them to try and create scoring chances.
3-4-3
When playing against a team who are looking to park the bus and play 8 very defensive players and 2 fast strikers, a team that will look to win the ball and play direct passes up to their 2 front men to try and score on the counter, the 3-4-3 is an good choice of formation. You can look after the 2 strikers with cover at the back but also have as many players as possible attacking the opposition goal.
The front 3 can move wide to try and stretch the opposition back line or cut inside to allow the right and left midfielders to overlap and get in behind the opposing team. Your central striker will have to be very versatile, looking to drop off when the wingers cut in but also good in the air when they push wide to put in cross.
This formation is very attacking and requires all of the players on your team to be very skilful, comfortable on the ball so they don’t panic when under pressure. There isn’t as much cover for mistakes in attacking areas as the team is stretched across the whole pitch.
This can also be seen as a 3-6-1 if the two wide players are of the attacking 3 are placed more centrally creating a sort of 3-4-2-1. Australia used this formation at the 2006 World Cup but it is has not had much of an airing following their progression to the 2nd round.
1-4-3-2 ( 5-3-2 with sweeper)
The rarest incarnation of the 3 man defence, it is also the most defensively minded. All of the 
width in this formation has to come from the full backs, if you have defensive full backs it won’t work. At the same time if your full backs are too attack minded from the Dani Alves school of attack you will leave yourself open to being countered with balls into the channels. This formation can work well when you are under lots of pressure.
How to beat a 3 man defence
The best way to beat such a defence is to avoid playing 2 strikers, playing 1 spearhead with very wide wingers or 3 strikers who are able to push wide and pull the centre backs out of place is most effective.
The most recent Rome derby illustrated both the best and worst ways to play against three central defenders. In the first half Rome played with 3 strikers but all of them very centrally placed, the centre backs dealt with this superbly. At half time Roma changed to a wider 4-2-3-1 and pulled Lazio out of position. They scored 2 goals to come from behind and win comfortably.
Related Links
http://coachmarino.com/Coaches/Chalktalk/343/343.htm
http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/03/24/three-man-defence-in-football-soccer/