Barcelona’s Tactics, formation and 3 men defense

What is the formation that is being used by most of the teams now a days or even in the worldcup 2010? The answer is without a doubt 4-5-1 [4-3-3/4-2-3-1]. Which shows that teams are now playing with single striker. This brings a new question into mind. When we play 4-4-2 we need two center backs to track both the strikers, why do we need 2 center backs when there is only one striker?

2 Center backs vs 1 striker

When this situation comes, one of the defenders will track the striker and other will be waiting to cover the first defender. The left and right backs will track the opposite teams 2 forwards. Which suggests the one of the Central defenders is always free. Also the second defender can push into midfield or initiate forward runs. Now another question, Why do we need 4 at the back always?

do we need 4 at the back ?

when the teams play 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1, as we saw above, one of the central defenders is free. So why can’t we manage the defense with 3 men and push one extra men into midfield? This idea is not a new one and in the past many team tried it. Most recent is Mexican team at the world cup. And now Barcelona started improvising this formation.

Barcelona’s Formation [vs Rubin]

Rubin vs Barcelona formations

OK. Here i marked defenders[yellow] Alves[2], Pique[3],Puyol[5], Maxwell[19] and  Midfield[orange] Xavi[6],Mascherano[14],Busquets[16] and Forwards[Pink] Villa[7], Iniesta[8],Pedro[17], as per the UEFA formation diagram.

The actual formation when they played was different. Both the left and right backs pushed forward. Mascherano moved to a position in between Pique and Puyol.

Barcelona's actual tactical formation

Now this is 3-4-3 formation. The forwards are very narrow, both Villa and Pedro likes cut in and attack.. this allows the left back and right backs who already pushed higher up the pitch to drive further up the pitch.

In general, the teams playing against Barcelona tends to sit deep and defend. When Barca has the wide defenders pushing forward and giving them the extra width to attack, that stretches the defense of the opposition. This is very much possible because all the men that Barca uses as wide players [pedro, messi, villa] likes to cut inside and play. This also makes the forward 3 of the Barca very narrow. The extra central defender will cover the space infront of the goal while the other two takes relatively wide positions to cover the space left by the full backs.

Barca played the same formation/tactics against Atletico Madrid. In this match they used Busquets as the extra central defender with Xavi and Iniesta in front of them covering the midfield.

Atletico vs Barcelona formations and Barcelona Tactical formations

Will this works always?

This will work every time the opposite team sits deep or just trying to defend. In case your opponent choose 4-4-2 to play against this 3-4-3 formation [like Atletico Madrid] you are leaving one of the central defenders free at all the time by deploying both strikers higher up the pitch. The best formation will be 4-4-2 with second striker playing behind the main striker or a false nine role. Another thing that can work against 3-4-3 is long diagonal balls to the strikers.

Different version of this approach by MUFC

Manchester United's tactical formation against Everton

Sir Alex used this formation in their game against Everton. He placed O’shea just in front of the central defenders. Both the full back for forwarded in that match. It all worked well for united but they didn’t defend well in the last few minutes of the match when everron took corners, so not much was written about this formation or use of the extra man in the central defense.

Netherlands vs Spain Review | FIFA World Cup 2010 Final – Tactics or Tackles ?

Yeah, Viva la Easpana! . Spain are the World Champions after beating Netherlands 1-0 in the final of FIFA world Cup 2010. They deserve it and they played the beautiful game in the dirty final.

The starting lineups are as expected in the preview. Which means, there is no place for Torres and Pedro takes his place. For Netherlands, they welcomed back van der Wiel and Nigel de Jong from suspension.

We must start the game review with this incident because thats the inspiration for Netherlands players in the first half. I gave the name dirty in the first paragraph because of the way Netherlands played.  See below, the security guy punching the intruder who tried to put his hands on the trophy before the teams gear up for the national anthems.

Once the game kicks off, the first 4mins are horrible. there are 3 fouls by Holland and are lucky to have Howard Webb as referee. We can understand this tactic for Holland as they looked to simulate the tactics of Chile to press and disturb the spains passing game. Also the Netherlands had maintained a high defense line in the first 30mins.  At the same time when Spain is not in position., they too pressed hard, inturn that didn’t allowed Netherlands to do any proper attack in the first half.

As you can see in above pic, Dutch maintained higher defensive line and the midfielders are not as tight as it expected or as they played in previous games. Because, they need to follow the Spain midfielders [Alonso and Busquets] when they have the ball. This two factors allowed spain to play some long balls to Villa who stayed up front. Almost few time he was through with those passes.

For Netherlands, the tactic is to disturb the spains passing game. So everyone is busy with that and Robben was the best player in that half as he tried to cut in and shoot but he always ran into the traffic. When spain found the Robben’s runs, one of them started covering the space between Capdevila and Iniesta [playing central]. Nigel de Jong should have gotten a red card from referee Howard Webb for his karate kick of Xabi Alonso, and Mark van Bommel could have drawn red as well for a challenge on Iniesta.

Second half:

The start of the second half is better than the first half but it looked overall the same. Netherlands are not able to press as high as they did in the first half. It is understandable that, after 5 booking, they can not simply press and get the red cards. But the turning point of this dirty game is Substitutions.

Width for Spain

first change is from Spain, they replaced Perdo who is playing inside and central with Navas. This gave spain what they have been missing. The width and opportunity to stretch the game. This gave more space for the Spain midfielders to play. Once this substitution was made, Iniesta started playing brilliantly as he has more space up front now. And he got 2 opportunities to seal the deal but Dutch keeper denied him.

Robben Chances

At 71’ min, Dutch replaced Kuyt with Elia…an attacking minded substitution and now they have a winger on the left. Now, Van Persie started to play towards left means the central defenders of the Spain need to move a bit towards left and track him. This allowed Robben to move freely from left to inside. We can see that effect of it, He missed a glarious change and was denied by Casillas twice. I still didn’t understand why didn’t Robben tried to Chip the ball first time and why didn’t he dive, the second time.

Introduction of Fabregas

now at 87’ min, Alonso was replaced by Fabregas for Spain. This is not a straight swap. Xavi moved to more deeper role infront of Busquets and Fabregas played in Xavi’s position.  Fabregas started running straight at goal from the midfield and his passing was also very good. He has a good chance in the first extra time to score in one-on-one situation but his shot doesn’t have power. Now spain has its midfielders in their best position and the positions where they play for their clubs. Result is Spain are back to their best passing game. And Iniesta was brilliant in the extra time.

Then Netherlands made an attacking minded substution by replacing De Jong with Van der Vaart but just after 10mins of that, they found themselves with 10men. A Deserving red card shown by referee considering the Dutch’s physical game. Heitinga’s second yellow came when he brought down Iniesta. Once he left the field, Iniesta has more space to exploit.

Golden Goal:

Finally, the goals came after the red card and Dutch were reduced to 10members. As indicated above, Iniesta was found in space. The passing started from Navas’s run, who gave the ball to Fabregas who is in advanced position and found Iniesta in space. This time there is not mistake from Iniesta….he found the net, and thats all.

A disappointing final…it had 47fouls, 13 yellow [8NED+5ESP] and 1 Red card. Spain had kept the position as expected but they failed to create chances and Netherlands preferred to disturb the Spain passing flow by adopting the physical game but they ended up with many yellow cards and 1 man down. Spain needed Netherlands to go down to 10 men to score the goal and win the Final.

Again the substutions made all the deference in the game, in terms of quality. The Euro champs are crowned as World Champions in an all European Final surely this is the Golden generation of Spain’s Football and will be termed as the greatest team.

Why Argentina failed? | FIFA World Cup 2010

Everyone thought Argentina is one of the favorites to win the World Cup irrespective of their show in the qualifiers. At lease people believed that their coach Diego Maradona can do something to get it right after that qualifiers. Even it looked OK in the group stages and they were comfortable in the round of 16 match against Mexico. Then came the the Germany… a real test for Argentina for the first time in the World Cup 2010. They failed and are out of WC 2010. Why did they failed all of a sudden ?

German coach explained it in single line – They didn’t have balance between defense and attack. I say, Maradona didn’t saw it coming right from the group stages and the it showed up clearly in the Mexico match.

Argentina played 4-3-3 formation through out the world cup. In other way it looks like 4-1-2-1-2.  Here is a diagram showing how Argentina lined up, in general.

Are you seeing any thing wrong, in this ? We cannot just say it really from this formation and play diagram but there is some hole here.  Now, see the Yellow line .. that is the Defense. Infront of them is the holding midfielder [red line] and then you got 2 more midfielders [blue] line who are kind of wingers or midfielders when not in position. Then you have the Key player of the Argentina Messi  [brown line] and 2 striker shown in pink line.

Look at the right side diagram, which shows the formation when they actually play. Look at the gap between midfield and Messi. Maxcherano[14] is the only holding midfielder and he was simply over loaded because other two midfielder are ahead of him when they loose position. Also there is no one to pass the ball to Messi, So messi has to drop deep and collect the ball.

The other formation/player combination Argentina tried is:

In this case, Mascherano got support from Veron in the midfield and Di Maria stayed on the left side. So Mascherano has someone to pass the ball from his holding role, which he missed in the previous formation. Now when ever Veron got the ball, he can send a diagonal cross to Di Maria who can work it on the left flank.  This one worked for Argentina, Look at the match against Nigeria and Korea.

Against Mexico, Argentina played the same formation. they were lucky enough to get two goals from unexpected sources. courtesy of an allowed offside goal and a gift from Mexico defense. But clearly it is visable that Mexico are able to break the Argentina defense so often. Isn’t that a signal for the things coming ??

Now, the last player combination Argentina tried is without Tevez. Yes, I know most of you like Tevez but tell me why was he picked so consistently for starting lineup ? I agree with you all that he give more than 100% and his work rate etc… But by putting him into the mix Maradona did some mistake. Take a look at this:

Here, Argentina played with 2 midfielder and 2 wingers. This is the best formation for Argentina to play against the team who can attack more and do a counter attack. Why is this the best?

• Two central midfielders and One will be there to pass the ball forward always
• Since, using two wingers/midfielders on the sides….you get width and then crosses. [blue lines]
• You can play crosses/long balls from midfield to the wingers. [shown in Brown lines]
• Your key player, Messi will get the space he needed to pickup the ball and work it out [yellow box]

The conclusion of this story is , Never try to fit all your star players into the starting lineup. Choose the best one for the role, you wanted to play. you need to know who is your best player and how to get best out of him. Surely Argentina has seen many signs in the group stages and against Mexico but they didn’t rectified them or many be Maradona didn’t noticed them as his team is progressing.

Leave you comments … if you have any question, feedback or argument 🙂

Argentina vs Korea Republic : FIFA World Cup 2010

Are Argentina set to play the below formation ? 4-1-4-1

Who is gonna start on the right flank?

Considering the last game, it could be either Gutierrez or Maxi and Tavez might come as a substitute for either Messi or Higuain. So expecting Argentina to play a 4-1-4-1 with Messi just behind the lone striker and playing a center forward role. Mascherano is holding midfielder infornt of the defese. Di Maria have the license to attack on the left with Heinze always staying in his defensive position. On the right side, [who ever starts] will need to take the defensive duties, as Otamendi will try to push from that side.

England’s World Cup Formations and Tactics

There is been a lot of talk in the English press after the last 2 international friendlies, where England went for lots of experiments. Do you think they lost a good chance to try what they are going to play in the world cup? What the best of the Englands formations out of all they tried? Initially Everyone is behind Rooney and saying he is the key and feared about his fitness etc..now its Barry’s turn to take that seat, why? What is Barry’s role and don’t we have another player to take up that role?

Yeah, now lets see some of the formations/Tactics England can adopt in the world cup.

 

[4-3-2-1]
——-———-Rio——Terry—————-
Johnson—————————ACole
——-—————–Barry———–——–
————Lampard———–Gerrard—-
Lennon————————-Rooney——
——–———–Crouch———————–

Here, we are using Rooney on the left and Crouch is the target man. So rooney should play behind Crouch and like the 2nd striker. You can’t get best out of Crouch if the wingers doesn’t supply the ball fast enough for crouch].in this case Barry is the holding mid fieler. This allows freedom for Gerrard and Lampard. If both moves upfront [4-4-2]then Gerrard is on left flank. Barry and Lampard take the position in front of the defense.
Wait a minute, aren’t we missing the rooney in his best position? Remember whole season for ManUtd he played upfront alone. Why to displace him ?

 

[4-3-2-1 with 2 wingers]
——-———-Rio——Terry—————-
Johnson——————–ACole
——-—————–Barry———–———-
—–——Lampard——Gerrard——-
Lennon————————–———J Cole
————Rooney—————

 

Almost like the earlier formation but here we have 2 wingers. This will work good when we play against some weaker/average teams. Now Gerrard and Lamprad can shwitch their roles when they want. Important thing is Rooney is alone up front and should stay in the box rather than trying work out the ball from the half like [of course he likes but that doesn’t work in this formation]

 

[4-4-1-1/4-4-2]
——-———-Rio——Terry—————-
Johnson—————————–ACole
——-—————–Barry———–———
—–——Lampard———–Gerrard—–
Lennon————————————
——————–Heskey—————-
——————rooney—————–

 

This could be the formation for latter stages of the world cup. This is simple 4-4-2 with 2 strikers upfront or one target man and second striker playing behind him. I don’t think Crouch will for in this formation [ as we discussed above, he needs wingers who can supply the crosses. I think he is a bit poor in link play] So chances are more for Heskey if england are trying 4-4-2 with Barry as holding mid fielder behind Lampard/Gerrard and in front of defense. when England are in position, Gerrard cuts in from left, and combine with Rooney/Heskey, Lennon has to take the position upfront and make room for attacking from other end. In this formation gerrard will also have defense duties as well to stop the right back of the opposition. This is the reason, the full english media is behind Barry’s fitness.

My guess is that, in the group stages we may see any of the first two formations by England and in later stages they switch to traditional 4-4-2.

Still i have few questions about this England team.

• 1. Will they play rooney upfront alone ?
• 2. Will they loose the best of Gerrard, if they play him on left?
• 3. What happens if Barry is not fit ? Can Carrick handle that role?
• 4. Is Heskey still the best to bring best out of Rooney and Gerrard with link up play?
• 5. If A.Cole is not fit?
• When they play against teams like Brazil/Spain/Argentina will they prefer attacking with 2 wingers or safe play of 4-42?