From positional play to nowadays non-systemic soccer

FROM POSITIONAL PLAY TO NOWADAYS

NON-SYSTEMIC SOCCER

A tactical and historical review and an eye to the future

TACTICS

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THE AUTHORS

YouCoach staff can count on a technical team made up of coaches, athletic trainers, goalkeeper trainers, psychologists and managers who work for major and non-professional leagues. Thanks to these diverse experiences we can be familiar with different points of view and provide practical advices along with theoretical considerations, in order to share a certain way of thinking. We hope we can contribute to new soccer training methodologies development and evolution.

Our perspective includes both young and adult soccer players, in order to link technical and tactical aspects to the psychological ones, considering the athlete as a whole.

YouCoach staff is constantly evolving; thanks to the participation of our readers we can grow and spread new ideas, providing you a better service that can meet your needs on the training field.

Cross experiences, open debate and an open mind are our guiding principles, as we want to look ahead while studying present and past currents of thoughts of this beautiful sport.

ARE POSITIONAL PLAY PRINCIPLES OUTDATED NOWADAYS?

The idea for this book was born after reading an interesting article1 written by Antonio Gagliardi for “l’Ultimo Uomo”, an Italian online magazine, one of the best followed in Italy. Furthermore, Antonio Gagliardi is a Uefa Pro licensed coach and a match analyst of the Italian National team; for this reason, let us tell you what this book is not.

The aim is not to reply to the topics of the article; this book is made of thoughts about the tactical evolution in soccer which were born reading that article, and it’s not absolutely to agree or not agree with such a high leveled person in the Italian soccer.

Pep Guardiola has included Erling Haaland in his Manchester City, and, let’s say it together, he has shaped the team and the style of play around him; Erling Haaland is the focus of the Citizens’ style of play. What else could it be, when a coach can deploy such a center striker? A coach could do nothing but

what Guardiola has done since last

August 2022.

The crucial point is that Guardiola has evolved the style of play because of a new player; the coach who used to think that the center striker was the space, and who found issues deploying Zlatan Ibrahimović beside Lionel Messi at Barcelona, has now built up a team and a style of play to deploy a

1. Gagliardi A., Sta finendo l’era del Gioco di posizione?, “l’Ultimo Uomo”, March 2023, www.ultimouomo.com/gioco-di-posizione-finita-era-funzioni-relazioni-guardiola.

center striker and a classic goal scorer at his best. What is happening to positional play? What is happening in soccer tactics? Are we experiencing a revolution, as Antonio Gagliardi thinks? Or is this an evolution? Is this a break point from the recent past, an end of an era? What is “liquid and fluid football”, what do we see today?

This sport seems to be made of relations, connections, and momentarily players’ cooperation based on each situation of play; does it mean that positional play wasn’t made of relations, connections, and cooperation? Or were the players related, and connected, and did they cooperate in different ways? On the other side, all these questions make sense after considering a previous step, before this point: how about defensive low and compact blocks to counter the principles of positional play? The history of soccer is made of tactical trends and countertrends to fight back the tactical news. So, a logical thread must include the tactical trends which fought back against positional play. The kind of soccer that we see at the highest level can’t be directly linked to positional play, or at least, there are floating topics between them.

Has Pep Guardiola been forced to deploy a center striker to try to win the Champions League again somewhere else from Barcelona? Let’s don’t forget that Manchester City achieved the final at the end of the 2020-2021 season, just a couple of years ago. A timetable could be reductive, but it could help to create a point to point connection in time flowing to have an idea of how soccer is now what it is.

Is including Total Football too much back in time? We don’t think so. Everything started then, Johan Cruijff had a great influence on Arrigo Sacchi’s AC Milan through the ’80s and ’90s Barcelona and Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona, Bayern Munich, and Manchester City, and it has to be included, as it is a crucial part of what this book aims to talk about.

After all, Johan Cruijff himself recalled the Total Football throughout the time he was in charge as a head coach at Barcelona (1988-1996); we all should remember that he has been the mastermind of La Masia, the Blaugrana’s academy which would have “produced” players like Xavi Hernan-

dez, Andres Iniesta, and Sergio Busquets, and has grown up Lionel Messi from the age of thirteen.

Rondos, small-sided games, positional play games, and many training tools that everybody provides in the field from grassroots to senior teams were designed by Johan Cruijff at La Masia. For this reason, yes, Total Football is the starting point of Soccer as we see it nowadays.

• West Germany and Gerd Müller demonstrated that Total Football wasn’t unbeatable, as they won the 1974 World Cup final.

• Maybe, Arrigo Sacchi’s AC Milan wouldn’t have won the first European Cup in 1989 without Belgrade’s fog which forced the referee to postpone the last 8-second leg to the day after, when Milan was down 1-0 to Red Star Belgrade.

• Johan Cruijff’s Barcelona won many trophies, but Milan won the 1994 Champions League final 4-0.

• José Mourinho was able to win as Real Madrid’s head coach (2011-2014) during Guardiola’s Barcelona golden seasons, and the Catalan coach has never won the UCL again far from Barcelona.

Picture 1 - How the game and the style of play build players’ relationships.

addition, the speed of play is always very fluctuated from a low buildup rhythm, as in this sequence, to high-speed penetration and finishing phases.

4. Pass or drive the ball through the pressure and send it to the front four, as the opponents push up to apply pressure. Simple passes between the lines and ball drives to the final third, speeding up the rhythm of play (picture 50).

5. The center forward and the advanced center midfielder often take part in the consolidation and progression phases, creating a 6 v 4 or 5 duel along the center channel (picture 51). If the opponents press as a unit, and to progress the ball through the center channel is difficult, the full-

Picture 48 - Brighton & Hove Albion build-up shape.

Picture 49 - Brighton & Hove Albion average positions in the field with the team in possession.

5. GUARDIOLA’S AND POSITIONAL PLAY’S EFFECT ON COACHES: DE ZERBI CASE AND KLOPP STUDIES

backs are usually free to receive wide and move the ball higher, thanks to previous congestion of the center channel. The idea of a vertical play style is always transferred toward and along the wide channels.

In this quick sequence, the two higher players of the six ones’ box in the center played out of the opposition’s pressure by setting the ball slightly back (picture 52), and then attempting to cut off a line of pressure with a diagonal through pass from the center to the right full-back, who had space to receive on the run along the flank. In this attacking sequence, Brighton creates a 3 v 3 duel inside the opposition’s half, progressing the ball higher up (picture 53).

Picture 50 - Brighton & Hove Albion average positions in the field with the team in possession.

Picture 51 - Brighton & Hove Albion shape a six-player box in the center to invite pressure and force the opponents to condense the space in numbers.

holding midfielders (Fernandinho and later Rodri). Klopp decided to deploy Robertson and Alexander-Arnold as attacking full-backs and as wide players of the “inverted pyramid’s front line”. Their 2018-2019 seasonal heat map (picture 72) proves the attacking tendency throughout the EPL and UCL campaigns. Table 5 data about assists’ increase are not occasional; they are the outcome of a “positional play idea” of the team’s shape. Wide and attacking full-backs positional idea implies different positions and tasks for those players who should be considered as wingers in a 1-4-

SeaSon PaSSeS Per match (ePL) SeaSonaL PoSSeSSion %

Table 7 - Liverpool’s average amount of passes and possession percentage from Klopp’s first full season. Source: wyscout.com.

Picture 72 - 2018-2019 Robertson’s and Arnold’s heat maps (All competitions). Source: wyscout. com.

5. GUARDIOLA’S AND POSITIONAL PLAY’S EFFECT ON COACHES: DE ZERBI CASE AND KLOPP STUDIES

3-3. Mohamed Salah scored 22 goals (19 np.G) playing as an inverted right winger, and Sadio Mané also scored 22 goals as an inverted right winger (all np.G). Regarding the successful UCL season, which ended with the winning final against Tottenham in Madrid, Salah scored five times (including the opener from penalty in the final), and Mané four. Their seasonal heat map confirm their positions as wide strikers rather than wingers (picture 73).

The role of Roberto Firmino as a “false nine” or “advanced pivot” was crucial for this shape to work and be effective; the highlights of his seasonal heat map show that his territory included Zones 13, 14 and 15 (picture 74); he acted as attacking support all around the area that many coaches consider as a “penetration one”.

To consider Firmino a “false nine” would be reductive, as his dropping-off movements often took him to receive much deeper inside the middle third than a false nine as we know the role (picture 75).

Robertson had the ball in this situation, and he passed it to Firmino, who dropped back, shifting out wide. Firmino kept the possession in a 3 v 1 numerical inferiority situation and provoked a wrong position of the opposition’s

Picture 73 - 2018-2019 Mané’s and Salah’s heat maps (All competitions). Source: wyscout. com.