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De Zerbi's possession principles
Over the last few years, Italian coach Roberto De Zerbi has turned into a superstar among football nerds and hipsters. De Zerbi's Sassuolo team became one of the most tactically exciting sides in Italian football, showing intricate attacking mechanisms in possession, most notably when they played out of the back.
Sassuolo were impeccably coached, and they exhibited many of the mechanisms and principles you would expect of great possession sides.
- Inviting the press: Sassuolo frequently passed the ball across their defensive line to attract opposition pressing, forcing the opponents to commit more players forward and leave larger spaces behind their pressing line.
- Wall passes: Let's say player A wants to pass the ball to player B but can't do so because an opponent is pressing. A cannot pass the ball directly to B, but he can pass the ball to a player C who is in a more convenient position and can then get the ball to B. This is known as a "wall pass". Sassuolo center backs often did this when under pressure, using the holding midfielders as the wall when they needed to pass the ball to the other center back. The first half of the video below shows how Sassuolo invited Inter's pressing and used wall passes to break through it.
Sassuolo's deep build-up in a 3v2 to attract the press and wall-pass to access the free-man (LCB). Pass to furthest player (dropping CF) to open the left half-space and lay-off for the 3rd man's run (LCM). pic.twitter.com/cW4wR1vJ6G
— Kareem Bianchi (@PositiespeI) August 20, 2018
- Overload to isolate: One of Pep Guardiola's most famous sound bites summarizes this principle easily. "Move the opponent, not the ball. Invite the opponent to press. You have the ball on one side, to finish on the other." Sassuolo were very good at keeping the ball on one side of the pitch, attracting opponents toward them, and quickly moving to the other side, where their attackers now had more space to operate against displace and isolated opponents. This is useful to break the opposition press and to disorder compact, deep defensive blocks.
Switching Play pic.twitter.com/2xNiaAFG6P
— Eric Laurie (@EricLaurie) October 10, 2021
- Keeper involvement: De Zerbi's Sassuolo often involved keeper Andrea Consigli in the buildup phase. He could exchange short passes with his teammates to invite the opposition press or deliver good long passes to bypass the opposition press entirely.
Atalanta had a high men oriented press to stop Sassuolo's buildup from the back. So Consigli, would step out from the box and provided long vertical passes to Sassuolo forwards. This way within seconds, they had the advantage to capitalize and nullify the press pic.twitter.com/yeTPmTLgAG
— Sahil Dani (@cdsahildani) June 22, 2020
De Zerbi's possession structures in Sassuolo and Shakhtar feature an interesting quirk: unlike most possession-based teams using 4-3-3, he usually goes for a 4-2-3-1. The fullbacks take rather conservative roles in possession and remain closer to the center backs, while the wingers stay wide to provide width in the attacking structure. The double-pivot play unusually close together to maximize their ability to find each other through safe passes and keep the ball. Meanwhile, the striker and number ten roles usually do not participate much in the buildup, looking more to hit the box from deep positions rather than holding the ball up and linking up with teammates.
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De Zerbi's Shakhtar Adventure
This summer, De Zerbi ended his tenure with Sassuolo and joined Shakhtar Donetsk's ever-fascinating sporting project. For the last two decades, Shakhtar has developed an excellent academy and scouting system that helps them find, develop, and sell talent from their own region and Brazil. Then, they pair up this player talent with stimulating managers like Paulo Fonseca or De Zerbi, who espouse more aggressive and attacking football ideas.
However, both Rome and great possession structures were not built in a day. Shakhtar still has a way to go before adapting to their new coach's style, which shows in their performances and results. In the Champions League preliminary stages, Monaco was noticeably superior to them in the second leg game (24 shots from Monaco vs. 7 from Shakhtar). Still, Shakhtar made it through due to a comical but unfortunate Monaco own goal during extra time.
@ChampionsLeague group stage battling figures!
— FC SHAKHTAR ENGLISH (@FCShakhtar_eng) August 26, 2021
Statistics of the #ShakhtarASM match from Panini Digital.#Shakhtar #UCL pic.twitter.com/s251ODnpGr
Shakhtar struggled to play out of the back due to Monaco's pressing, and they were frequently forced to give up on short passes and try long passes to their forwards instead. Their midfield rotations to disorder the Monaco defense were also slow, with the players still needing more time to develop more chemistry among them.
De Zerbi's Shakhtar got a few chances vs Monaco, & they make sure to make full use of it with:
— Quan Tran Tue (@QuanTue) August 18, 2021
Off ball movements to create space/pull markers away
Triangle in half space to get through blocks
Players close enough for one touch combination pic.twitter.com/OKdRVubyem
To boot, Shakhtar now has a striker problem since both Junior Moraes and new signing Lassina Traoré are injured—the latter with a long-term injury. Against Real Madrid, De Zerbi will likely use one of his wingers—Pedrinho or Tetê—in the striker role, although midfielder Alan Patrick has also played the striker role in a couple of recent games. This issue makes it harder for Shakhtar to score even when their possession play manages to dominate games.
Despite the issues in Europe, Shakhtar has managed to impose De Zerbi's possession principles against their Ukrainian league opponents. To give a very punctual example, here's a neat buildup sequence from their recent game against Zorya Luhansk that showcases some of the principles we mentioned before, such as inviting the press, overloading to isolate, and using the keeper to bypass the press.
Saídas curtas para atrair, distanciar o adversário e progredir com espaços para acelerar. Shakhtar Donetsk de Roberto De Zerbi. pic.twitter.com/UWqLgDVNLC
— Higor Santos (@HigorSantos_10) October 16, 2021
Alaba and Militão to the rescue
If Real Madrid continues to press as poorly as they have in the last two months, this Shakhtar game could end up looking very similar to the one against Villarreal last month. Time after time, Villarreal players could easily pass their way through the disorganized press from Los Blancos. Emery's Villarreal used the same possession principles that De Zerbi loves to implement in his teams, such as inviting the press, wall passes and overloading one side of the pitch to isolate opponents on the other side.
Visto el Real Madrid vs Villarreal de anoche, voy con un par de apuntes.
— Albert Blaya Sensat (@Blayasensat) September 26, 2021
La presión de los de Ancelotti no es que sea mala, es que es anticompetitiva. Lo viene siendo desde agosto, pero ayer como vs Inter, se topó con una gran salida de balón. Aquí explico qué fallaba. pic.twitter.com/p2pU3OhS1M
Fortunately for Real, Villarreal's attack lacked enough punch to capitalize on all the open spaces left behind Real's pressing line while Eder Militão and David Alaba stepped up with one of their best performances in a Real Madrid shirt. The center-back pair consistently managed to abort many of Villlareal's attacks, either with good interceptions outside the box or last-ditch interventions inside the box. If Ancelotti's men do not improve their pressing significantly this time around, the pair will have to put out fires across the pitch once again.
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However, this time around, they will also receive help from Ferland Mendy, who is finally back with the squad and will likely start this game to improve his match fitness ahead of the upcoming Clásico. While the French left-back cannot single-handedly solve the team's defensive structure problems, his recovery pace and an outstanding ability to win individual duels will be extremely valuable to compensate for the deficiencies in Real's pressing.
Ultimately, however, Real should not be relying on their defensive line's ability to put out fires. The only way for the team to defend consistently well is to find a compact defensive structure that does not give away acres of space to opposition attackers. If Ancelotti's men continue to struggle so much with the pressing mechanisms, there is no shame in returning to the deeper block defending that Carlo's teams have usually implemented in the past.
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