EURO 2020 Tactical Bites (June 13): England's Throw-Ins; Alaba's Role; The Good & Bad of the Netherlands
Welcome to the first of what will be a very regularly occurring column on EURO 2020, where I quickly touch on the most interesting schemes, tactical trends, and player performances.
Those on the free email list will get one of these a week; subscribers will get 2-3 per week.
England 1-0 Croatia
For all the emphasis on England’s turn to possession football, it’s not super clear that they’re very good at it. They can sometimes look painfully slow building out from the back and worlds away from the swift patterns and rotations that tend to typify the most incisive ball-playing units in the modern game.
Instead, it has been their set-piece proficiency that has driven their best results under Gareth Southgate.
These markers of England’s approach were on display in their 1-0 victory over Croatia in matchday 1 of Group D. In this sequence, it takes England about thirty seconds to reach the halfway line against rather lax resistance from Croatia.
Any dynamism England were able to generate seemed to come from tempo-changing combinations and individual actions from Raheem Sterling, Mason Mount, Kalvin Phillips, their intense counterpress, and, of course, set-pieces.
The seemingly nonchalant nature of the players’ movements prior to the burst into the gap seems intentional, and making Sterling the runner is an appropriate use of his acceleration and off-ball intelligence. This is a simple, yet, clever routine.
Throw-ins are mostly treated as an afterthought in football, which is a shame, since they provides rare opportunities for coaches to assume full control over the structure of their team.
This edge is heightened in international football, where there is far less time to build sophisticated offensive systems. From Southgate’s perspective (or what I imagine to be his perspective), training set-pieces are a better use of England’s precious seconds because they are easy to understand and practice. Possession needn’t be used to generate goals as much as slow the game down, keeping England in control and allowing them to grind away close results.
Austria 3-1 North Macedonia
Austria manager Franco Foda made the rather curious decision to depart from his usual 4-2-3-1 formation for a 3-5-2/3-4-3 shape. Instead of David Alaba playing as a left-sided attacker and Marcel Sabitzer as a #10, the former operated as the centermost center-back and the latter flitted between a #8 and inside forward role.
There was much speculation as to the thinking behind Alaba’s relocation — much of which focused on the former Bayern man’s ball-playing ability. But Foda’s reasons were apparently more conservative in nature.
It’s not a totally idiotic idea. Alaba’s primary defensive strengths lie in his ability to cover space, but it took far too much away from his offensive influence to be justified.
Central center-backs are generally the least involved in build-up out of those in the back line, as they lack the angles to play tons of forward passes. Thus, progression largely falls on the shoulders of the wide CB’s, who are also tasked with carrying the ball should immediate outlets be closed off.
Unless that centermost CB is playing tons of switches (like Sergio Ramos), their contributions in possession will be limited to playing basic passes to their more adventurous partners on either side of them.
Alaba isn’t one of those types of defenders.
As a result, Austria’s final third creation was heavily one-dimensional, relying on Sabitzer to serve up all the magic, which he did on a couple of occasions in the first half.
But the creation soon dried up and North Macedonia’s equalizer off of a series of mistakes meant that Austria needed another goal. Foda did react by bringing on Michael Gregoritsch and Marko Arnautović, though the real impact came when Alaba decided to start playing on the left around the 65th minute.
He experimented with some forays forward before making the shift permanent in the 75th, swapping with Martin Hinteregger.
The effect was immediately visible. Alaba was freed to gallop forward and initiate moves that put Austria inside Macedonia’s 5-3-2 block. Oh, yeah, he also ended up assisting the winning goal.
The video has been DMCA’ed, so here’s an alternate link.
Playing Alaba as an LCB might not be the solution going forward. As I was reminded on twitter, Hinteregger is a very capable progressor in that position and you don’t want to benefit one player by hindering another.
Nevertheless, something needs to be done. In a side without top class attacking talent (outside Sabitzer), Austria cannot afford to blunt Alaba’s abilities simply to get some extra security in transition. Perhaps a return to the 4-2-3-1 is in order.
Netherlands 3-2 Ukraine
Netherland’s 3-2 win over Ukraine was the most exciting game of the tournament so far, and I highly recommend watching it if you haven’t already.
However, because I am a nerd, I spent most of the ninety minutes seething at Marten de Roon’s bizarre positioning in build-up.
He kept dropping off to create an utterly redundant back four in possession, pulling Georginio Wijnaldum and Frenkie de Jong over to compensate.
This is partly reflected in de Jong’s and Wijnaldum’s average positions in the above passmap, though de Roon’s location is flatteringly high, as his teammates mostly ignored him when he dropped off because, well, he became utterly useless in those situations.
I asked Dutch national team experts Erik Elias and Alex what they thought of it and they were just as baffled as me. Kees van Hemmen pointed out that it was being done to allow Daley Blind to push up higher on the left, but disagreed that this was necessary.
I also disagree. As we saw in the Alaba examples, one of the advantages of a back three is that it allows the wide CB’s to push up aggressively! You don’t need de Roon moving deep to accomplish this! In fact, you never need a line of four in build-up, especially when the opposition mostly declines to press! What the hell is this! What are you doing Frank de Boer!
It’s also possible that de Roon is making these movements off of his own volition, as he is quite used to rotating into the back line to cover for the bombarding runs of Atalanta’s center-backs. Needless to say, the Netherlands aren’t Atalanta and de Boer isn’t Gian Piero Gasperini.
We did see Jurriën Timber start to step up into midfield starting in the 80th minute, though this seemed to be more of an adjustment to what de Roon was doing, and it’s difficult to argue that the 19-year-old is best utilized there.
Regardless, the Dutch worked around this glaring inefficiency thanks to some inspired performances from de Jong, Wijnaldum, Memphis Depay, and the controversial Denzel Dumfries.
Dumfries has been maligned for his lack of quality on the ball — a trait that has become more and more critical for fullbacks in the modern game — which may be why de Boer has shifted from a 4-3-3 to a 5-3-2/3-5-2 system of late. By placing the Eindhoven defender further up the pitch, his build-up duties are reduced and he’s in a better position to take advantage of his threatening off-ball movement.
It remains to be seen whether optimizing for Dumfries is beneficial for the collective in the long run, but his explosive overlaps and untracked runs into the box ended up winning the day for the Dutch.
I am offering two-week free trials for anyone who wants them.
Check out this link to get a student discount (70% off).
EURO 2020 discount: