I am happy to announce that this is my first ever blog and it is very meaningful as it symbolizes the start of the whole blog. I thank you for starting this journey together with me and invite you to jump into the world of tactics right now.
Before we start, I ask you to read this blog to the end, and if you like it, follow my blog, as it is free and I will be able to bring you the best tactical analysis to your Gmail.
This website is going to consist of 4 blogs, that explore tactics on four different levels. Today we will explore the 3 most commonly used formations, we will look at what tactics are implemented in these formations, and lastly, we will discover how these tactics are used in the real world by looking at real-life game footage.
P.S.: In this blog, it is important to realize that formations and tactics aren’t the same. For example, a 4-3-3 can have many different variations depending on the tactics. In this blog, we will explore the general formations and the general tactics behind them. We will explore the common area of the formations
4-3-3:
During my research for this blog, I found out that the ‘4-3-3’ is the most used formation in the modern game. The first question that popped into my head when I found this out, and I’m sure you are thinking about it right now, is ‘Why?’. The 4-3-3 is a tactic that is very wide. This means that it relies on creating width, it relies on playing near the outs of the pitch. It leads to the wingers either crossing into the box or going inside to shoot.
Defense:
Let’s start from the back. In our defense there is 1 goalkeeper and 4 defenders, but how do they work together? Let me explain this to you in the video below.
Through the wingback going up, we are able to have an attacking formation and an overload on the left and right sides. An overload is when you have more players in an area than another team in the same area. The overloads that this tactic produces are one of its biggest advantages and part of the answer to our question - ‘Why?’.
Midfield:
As we go further up the field, we will see the heart of this formation, its center, its mind, without it this formation would be ineffective - the midfield. In a 4-3-3 there are 3 midfielders. A BWM, a CAM, and a CM. The midfield is explained in the video below, its pros and cons, and how it drives this formation forward:
The midfield in this tactic allows the defense and the attack to work together. It allows for the ball to progress from your team’s half to the opponent’s half of the pitch. It allows for attacks to happen. Furthermore, it also creates overloads, as it has two advanced midfielders which means that it is much harder to get on your team’s half. At this point, many of you might have a question - “Why doesn’t everyone use this tactic?”. This question is viable, but the answer to it is very simple. To answer this question, we have to ask ourselves another question - “What happens when the other team gets past our advanced midfielders?”. And the answer to that is that your team is in trouble. We can see that after the two advanced midfielders, you only have 1 more midfielder left. This would create an overload against your team, which would mean that your opponent will have a goalscoring chance.
Attack:
Last but not least there are the 3 attackers. The two wingers, who further create width, and the one forward, whose only job is to score. In the video below, I explain in-depth the last line of this formation:
In-Game Analysis:
By now we have learned what the 4-3-3 formation is, its strengths and weaknesses, its pros and cons. The 4-3-3 formation is so popular due to its width and its overloads, it works perfectly against teams who are trying to defend. And a perfect example of this is the 2019 Champions League Semifinal between Barcelona and Liverpool. In the first leg of the tie, Barcelona won 3-0 and all they had to do is defend their lead. In the 2nd leg, Klopp had to risk it all to win, and due to this he went with the 4-3-3 formation and beat Barcelona 4-0 to go through to the final. Let’s see how the formation that he used impacted the score.
This is the line-up that Liverpool used for this match. Even on paper, we can see that this is a 4-3-3 formation. Liverpool’s two wing-backs are very attacking in real-life, which is why in this match, they were instrumental. This match is considered one of the best tactical displays of the 4-3-3 formation and here is why:
Let’s start with analyzing the defense of Liverpool. The 4 Liverpool defenders are circled in red. As we can see the wing-backs are very wider and the Right Wing-Back is already ready to run in the attack. 4 seconds before this photo the Right Center-Back had the ball and he passed it to the Left Wing-Back as we can see in this photo. This left Barcelona’s player’s centered and allows Liverpool to progress the ball up through the flanks. The Center Defensive Mid highlighted in blue, is another option to progress the attack. This one play already shows us how keeping your players wide and creating width, can create several options to progress the ball.
In this situation, the progression of going to attack from the defense already happened. We can see that the players highlighted in red are Liverpool’s two Wing-Backs who overlapped with the Wingers and are ready to help the attack. No one is marking them due to an overload that happened through the midfield. The two midfielders highlighted in blue are the Advanced Midfielders that we talked about. As we can see one of them, is high up - the Center Attacking Midfielder. There are 3 players around him, and 1 more who is anticipating his run into the box. This allows the Advanced Forward to make a curved run around the defender and be open for a cross from the Wing-Back.
The last example from this match, that we will look at is how this formation works defensively. During the analysis of the 4-3-3 formation we focused on its attacking benefits, despite this we have to focus on the defensive side, as it is as vital to not concede as it is to score. Here the 4 defenders, which are highlighted in red, are very narrow to stop the Barcelona striker from getting through on goal. As we can see that the Barcelona striker could go past the defense through the path of the red arrow, but then he will encounter a situation of 3 vs 1, therefore we can see that through this situation Liverpool created another overload. The two wingers highlighted by the green and blue arrows are marking two more Barcelona midfielders and The 3 Liverpool mids are creating a midfield overload. This leaves only the yellow player free. He can’t do anything alone, which leads to a breakdown of the attack. We can see that with this formation, during both the attacking and the defensive transitions, overloads are vital and the key to this formation.
At the start, we asked ourselves, the question “Why?”. The answer is simple. This tactic is so popular because it is so hard to counter it, and if you are a talented, smart coach you will know how to use these overloads, to the best of the player’s ability. This tactic implements the fundamentals of football all in one - passing, pressing, scoring. This tactic is powerful, but no tactic is foolproof. Next up we will analyze 4-4-2 - a tactic that focuses on not conceding and the 4-4-2 Diamond - contrastingly the tactic that looks to outscore your opponent, furthermore they are frequently used to counter the 4-3-3.
4-4-2:
The 4-4-2 - a formation commonly referred to as the English formation. This is a defensive, low-block formation that was used as one of the main formations in England up until recent years. It is mostly used by defensive managers such as Steve Bruce and Sean Dyche. It lines up with 4 defenders, 4 midfielders, and 2 attackers who all work together to produce a good defensive performance each match. It is a great counter to the 4-3-3 as due to its setup, players are unable to create midfield overloads, we will go more in-depth about this later.
Defense:
In the backline, we have 1 goalkeeper and 4 defenders. The right defender and the left defender in this formation are called the fullbacks. This means that they do not go and help the attack, but only defend and sit back to not leave open spaces behind them. The 2 center-backs act as center-backs who sometimes go up a bit further into the midfield but for the most part act as traditional center-backs. I will further explain how the defense works in this video:
In this video, we learned that unlike in the previous formation we talked about, here the full-backs act as a cover for the wingers and do not have as vital of a role in the team as the wing-backs in the 4-3-3. One of the center-backs during the time that their team has the ball goes up into the midfield to create a 3-1-4-2 formation which works well as it allows better midfield depth and therefore more options during the attacks.
Midfield:
The midfield, just like the 4-3-3 formation is the most important part of the tactic. WIthout the roles of the midfield players, the attack and the midfield would not connect, therefore the goals won’t come. The midfield is made up of two central midfielders and 2 wingers, therefore creating the midfield of 4. The two center midfielders act in different roles as one pushes down and therefore stays there during the time the team doesn’t have the ball, while one goes up into the attack or to press, depending on if the team is in possession or not. The wingers in this formation will provide width and crosses into the box which will allow the strikers to score headers. This is further explained in this video:
Attack:
The attack consists of only 2 players, therefore making up the last 2 players of the formation. These 2 forwards work as a target man and a finisher who get their goals, not from build-up play like in the 4-3-3 but from the crosses that the wingers provide. I did not make a video on this part of the formation as it is very straightforward and it does not play a great role in the formation.
In-Game Analysis:
For the in-game analysis of the 4-4-2, I have decided to use the match between Atletico Madrid and Liverpool, which ended 3-2 to Liverpool. Nevertheless, it was a great showing by both teams and throughout the match, Atletico used the 4-4-2 formation. In this match, we will be able to see the strengths and weaknesses of the 4-4-2 which will hopefully allow you to understand how the 4-4-2 works and if it is a formation that you would use
In this game, Atletico lined up in a clear 4-4-2 formation on paper, while in real life during their defending phase they switched to a 5-3-2, because of one of the midfielders pushing back as we talked about earlier. In attack they worked in a 4-4-2, relying on counter-attacks which the wingers were supposed to create, as we will see later in this analysis. But first of all, let’s see how Atletico defended throughout the match.
Let’s analyze what we can see in this picture because for now, I understand that it all looks very confusing, with all of the arrows and circles. Let’s start with the defense. In this picture, we can see that while Liverpool are in attack Atletico line up with 5 defenders, which are circled in red. This allows them to cancel out all passing options, except for one. This passing option is displayed by blue arrows. Despite this when the ball gets to the other side of the pitch the full-back will move out onto the player. We can see that the 4-4-2 is very solid defensively because it closes down all passing options. We can see that the 3 midfield players are man-marking their opponents, which therefore discards Liverpool of all of its passing options
Here the player that just passed the ball, intercepted it 5 seconds ago. This is a perfect showing of how to start a counter-attack as using the 4-4-2, Atletico’s 4 midfielders colored in red pushed up to help the attack in case the player who intercepted the ball would want to play it back. The player in orange is the winger, who is out of position due to the fact that he was pressuring the ball beforehand which led him to stay in midfield, nevertheless, he is also a passing option, which can continue the attack. In this play the two strikers in blue combine to create a goalscoring chance. In this photo, we can see that the 4-4-2 allows a lot of passing options in the counter-attack and creates overloads, which makes it hard for the defense of the other team to stop the attacks
The 4-4-2 is a very ‘heavy’ tactic, as it does not focus on the delicate focus on the delicate and beautiful aspects of football, such as passing a lot, creating beautiful plays through triangles, and e.t.c, no it focuses on the dirty work of a football player. In defense, it focuses on defending as a team and not pressing but rather sitting back. In attack, it focuses on crosses and long balls. Nevertheless, it is one of the most essential football tactics as it encompasses another important footballing aspect except for beauty - results. We, therefore, come to the conundrum that every football fan comes to at one point - ‘What is more important: beauty or results?’. I can not help answer you this but my advice would be to appreciate both and find compromises between the two.
4-4-2 Diamond:
This formation is very similar to the 4-4-2 - its backline acts in exactly the same way, its forwards are there to only score and the only difference between the forward line of the 4-4-2 and of the 4-4-2 diamond is that in the latter the strikers don’t have to be able to score as many headers. The two formations counter a traditional 4-3-3 by canceling the overloads, additionally creating them themselves. Therefore, a question stands before us - “What is the difference between the two formations?”. The answer is found in the one thing I didn’t mention above - The Midfield. The midfield in a 4-4-2 diamond separates it from many of the other formations as it cancels out the idea of wingers and subsequently creates an idea of midfield domination. In the 3rd and final section of this article we will explore and focus on only the midfield of this formation as every other aspect we already explored in the previous section: 4-4-2.
Midfield:
In our two previous sections, we described the midfield as the heart and brain of the team, in this formation, it is more than that. It is what makes this formation unique, it is what makes it unique. It consists of 4 midfielders, with one of them being at the bottom, the second one at the top, and two on the sides. Therefore creating the diamond name. The bottom midfielder either acts as a deep-lying playmaker or a half-back. The two midfielders act as wingers and midfielders as they help pass the ball out to back to the defense or up the field but they also have to defend both in the middle and on the wing. This means that the two central midfielders have to run a lot. The final midfielder is the central attacking midfielder who helps with the attack and acts almost as a third striker, the only difference being that he helps with the defense.
I have decided not to make an in-game analysis as I have explained everything in the previous paragraph and the analysis will look a lot like the 4-4-2 analysis. The important thing to recognize about the 4-4-2 diamond is that, unlike the previous formation, it defends through zonal marking rather than man-marking. This is one of the main differences except for the midfield between the 2 formations.
Conclusion:
In this article, we explored the idea of formations and the traditional tactical components they present. Despite this, we have to understand that we didn’t explore several aspects such as pressing or triangles and e.t.c. Furthermore, as I stated previously no formation is used for the purposes of only one tactic and that is essential to understand for our further articles. Throughout history, football evolved and that means that the formations that we see in everyday football matches were not always there. Throughout these 4 blogs, I will present to you the main idea of football tactics and this article was the basics of tactics and formations. In the next article, we will understand the history of football tactics as that will give us an insight into why formations are used in football.
Thank you for reading my first ever blog and I look forward to sharing the experience of exploring the world of football tactics together!
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