The 4-3-3 Idea

Problem is, ozil plays too high. being a center midfielder isnt that easy, specially when you have no experience being one. He has the skills to do it, but you cant say he is better there because he never played that position.

it certainly isnt gonna be a traditional shape of the 433 the way to conceive. If anything the midfield will be rather flat, with khedira making surges forward.

spain actually plays a variation of the 433, only, their shapes isnt traditional. it may look like a 4231 at times when xavi goes up but he likes to stay deep as well. Villa as punta, iniesta is SS on the left, Silva on the right and they have xavi and co in support. if not silva, it can be a true CF and iniesta goes right and villa left.

you can change shape. Barca used to have a CF, now they have messi as false 9.

I heard he played CM sometimes with his old clubs.

Ozil? never heard that to be honest. He started with bremen on the left wing if i remember, because of diego as main AM, and took over after him.

Funnily enough, our players might fit spain formation more

Probably at Schalke maybe.

Then it's a good sign, he is even more versatile. I do think he should be tested there before hand tho.

Why fix something if it's not broken, we steam rolled past most teams with the 4-2-3-1, why change for 4-3-3 and start a whole new experiment all over again, playing players in unnatural positions etc.

I still believe we will play the offensive 4-2-3-1 with 4 forwards and a defensive 4-3-3 in tough away fixtures and el clasico's just like it happened last season.

I would rather play 4231 and 433 for classicos.

we streamrolled weak teams with our system, and some pretty good ones as well. But the 4231 offers you limited control, the way we play it.

it's a system better suited for counter, and we need to develop more build up. Teams are not gonna want to play open against us because of the threat on counter.

Say we play Man utd in CL, they will just sit deep and wait to counter. Unless we work at breaking teams apart and controlling the pace of the football to exert more control, we might run into some troubles.

we played the counter against Valencia and thx to some bad defending from their part, we scored 6, yet they were mouting a come back towards the end simply because we relinquished the ball, and they were outplaying us.

Same with Villarreal, we scared them first half, scored, etc.. but as soon as they took over the ball, the started dominating us.

Things arent dramatic, but we need to evolve as well, and become more dominant the ball, it's going to help us against barca as well, moving the ball around better, with quick and sharp touches.

I just don't like the idea of dropping one of Di maria/Ozil and playing Ozil wide.

nothing wrong with it, but comes down to persinal preference i guess. he will keep doing what he does since Ozil isnt exactly sticking to the center when he plays, he is often left or right, same with the NT.

That's the point of having potentially two attacking wing backs to provide width, a rather flat midfield, and an athletic back line to cover ground fast and press high.

play 4-4-3 against barca and drop ozil for di magia. he was fantastic against them

I think he will use both formations depending upon opponent and form of players. It's obvious that he is going to have to rotate some players. You've got Di maria, Ozil, Sahin, Khedira, perhaps Alonso, likely still Kaka, Higgy and Benz / Aquero that all are more than capable of starting yet some will have to be sub from time to time. In addition this year it seems like we have very capable reserves /role players.

One formation that I have thought of is what I think is the likely line-up against Barcelona.

-----------------------------------Casillas-----------------------------------------------
------------------Ramos----------Pepe----------------Carvalho---------------------
Coentrao----------------------------------------------------------------------Marcelo
-------------------Sahin------------Khedira------------Alonso------------------------
Di Maria (or Aquero or Ozil)----------------------------------------------C. Ronaldo

This line-up is similar to the defensive line-up he used against them last year, but with double speed on both flanks, he not only shuts down their fullbacks and wingers, it's more offensive for us plus we have much better passing / control capabilities in midfield. In other words it is still strong defensively, frustrating them where their normal strengths are yet we have much more offensive capabilities than before.

no love for 4-2-2-2?

ZsG7 wrote:no love for 4-2-2-2?

¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿who has said anything of 4-2-2-2?????????????

too difficult of a system to implement anyway

the main loser here is di maria.

but he may just be mourinho's favorite player.

im sure di maria wont get affected too much.

St_Nick09_of_Goal wrote:Zidane isnt a side midfielder, yet he used to play on the left of the midfield but was cutting inside all the time to be behind the strikers. you can hardly tell he was behaving like nani...

In the very same way, Ozil wont act like a traditional winger, there is no need to worry about that.

thats what mostly everyone worries about, but you are right.

either way the 433 kinda limits many players.

specially the strikers imo

I'd say, we'll use both formations, 4-2-3-1 and 4-3-3. 4-3-3 makes sense in away games and against possession freaks like Farca, Villareal, Malaga etc.
4-2-3-1 could do quick job with bus parkers or teams that aren't as dominant in midfield as the ones I mentioned

In away games or tough games:


Against Farca:

No Alonso in the middle and no CR7 on the wing...

In some tactical games or rotation the diamond version:


I guess you're familiar with 4-2-3-1 already, I won't go into detail with them. The difference is that we'll rotate Alonso and Sahin with one of the Khedira/Lass together and that Higgy is more suitable for it as striker than Kun* or Benz :lol!:

rather use pepe than lass and bring carvalho i at cb against barca.

The Madrid One wrote:rather use pepe than lass and bring carvalho i at cb against barca.

Pepe doesn't know what to do with the ball once he has it.Carvalho is slow against them, I don't want us to defend deep= recipe for disaster Also, attackers aren't restricted by 4-3-3 like you said, the fullback support gets important and that's it

The Madrid One wrote:rather use pepe than lass and bring carvalho i at cb against barca.

if Lass does what he did at the camp nou then I would play him.

Lass is leaving, you guys should count him out already, likely gonna be altintop his replacement if no one comes.

I don't think we should be worrying about 'away' games and 'tough games'. We are the top dogs so the opposition should be worrying about facing us.

mtfootball wrote:I don't think we should be worrying about 'away' games and 'tough games'. We are the top dogs so the opposition should be worrying about facing us.

We'll be dominant either way. It's like chosing how to K.O. an opponent, with a kick to the chin (4-2-3-1) or with a straight (4-3-3)

we obviously have to find a playing style and progress with it, with a definate formation.

last year we would have different formations almost each classico, not really consistencty, and thats shows that we didnt really have a game plan other tha counter attack or park the bus.

we need to evolutionize and a sign of that will be us finding a frequent formation against barcelona.


sorry if i sound a bit arrogant but we can beat anyone in the world, with particular ease except for barca imo.

The Madrid One wrote:we obviously have to find a playing style and progress with it, with a definate formation.

last year we would have different formations almost each classico, not really consistencty, and thats shows that we didnt really have a game plan other tha counter attack or park the bus.

we need to evolutionize and a sign of that will be us finding a frequent formation against barcelona.


sorry if i sound a bit arrogant but we can beat anyone in the world, with particular ease except for barca imo.

I agree. and against Barca, I still say this is the formation with which we can beat them.

-----------------------------------Casillas-----------------------------------------------
------------------Ramos----------Pepe----------------Carvalho---------------------
Coentrao----------------------------------------------------------------------Marcelo
-------------------Sahin------------Khedira------------Alonso------------------------
Di Maria (or Aquero or Ozil)----------------------------------------------C. Ronaldo