I've got the day off tomorrow so I just decided to re-watch the supercoppa - gonna write a short piece on my thoughts

First Half: The good

Many people were very scared of how the 3 man defense would fare for Inter, but it worked about as well as one could hope for in the first half. We've seen how successful the 3 man defense can be in Serie A with Napoli and Udinese last year...Napoli, for all their good qualities, is a team that probably did not have the talent to deserve finishing in 3rd place in the league last year, but their use of a 3 man backline was a tactically brilliant way to counter all the 4312's we see in Serie A...Here's a basic view of how the two systems match up, using the lineups from the milan game



There's the basic matchup between the two systems...Notice how this setup sees Inter with a 3v2 advantage at the back, and a 5v4 advantage in the midfield....Crucially, In this matchup the team playing the 4312 is utterly unable to properly deal with the wing backs of the opposing team - This leads to the type of situation in which Obi found himself in the first half of the supercoppa. Why was Obi able to get the best of Abate in the game? He didn't manage to transform into the new messi overnight, and Abate isn't a talentless player (well, not completely, anyway )...The reason Obi caused Milan so many problems was because this tactical matchup placed Abate in a very uncomfortable situation. Take the following scenario - the ball has passed across the midfield from Zanetti to Obi by way of Motta



Obi receives the ball with meters and meters of space in front of him (between him an Abate) now as a fullback, Abate can't just let Obi have free time on the ball, so he has to come out to meet him - however since Obi received the ball in such space, it becomes a situation where Obi is running with pace directly at Abate, who is coming right at him....This is a situation that ALWAYS favors the attacker (Its basically the same situation that caused Maicons thorough demolition at the hands of Bale)...The defender is isolated and being run directly at, not a situation any defender wants to find himself in...The right sided midfielder for the other team (in this case Gattuso) is behind the play and unable to provide quick help. The right sided centerback is also in a poor position - as Eto'o makes his run directly into the space Abate has vacated, the centerback cannot follow him very far, otherwise sneijder will be running free to goal - Eto'o drifting wide provides the wingback with an additional (possibly 1-2) passing option (if he hasn't already beaten the defender 1v1)....

Second Half: The bad

Now contrast this situation, which we were presented with in the first half, with the situation we found ourselves in during the second half:

Many people have been calling for the 4231 as the formation Inter need to use...But there are many problems with the 4231....First, the 4231 matches up quite poorly against the 4312 (which everyone and their mothers use in Serie A) - This diagram by Zonal Marking from last years Milan Derby illustrates the problem better than I ever could....The second half of the SuperCoppa was basically an extenuation of last years Milan Derby...a horrible tactical matchup between formations essentially handcuffed our team offensively and put extreme pressure on our defense, as you can see:



In this matchup unlike with the 3 man defense, we have a surplus of defenders along the back line (4 vs 2) and we are outnumbered in the center of midfield (4 vs 3)...Now while we have two attacking wingers in advanced areas, they are in positions that are favorable for the fullbacks to defend. In the 4231 vs 4312 matchup we have the exact opposite scenario as we had with the 3 man defense...Instead of Obi picking up the ball in oceans of space and being able to run directly at Abate (who is badly isolated from his teammates) now Samuel Eto'o picks up the ball immediately in front of Abate, and is unable to run at him with pace. In this scenario, Eto'o has probably less than 10 seconds to beat Abate before Gattuso arrives to double team him, and even if he skips past Abate with ease almost immediately...He only reward will be Nesta closing right down on top of him, since in this scenario Nesta does not have to worry about the striker running in behind him, since there is no space to exploit in the first place

The difference (imo, of course) in the halves of the supercoppa was in the types of positions our players found themselves in...In the first half we were able to get the ball to offensive players (either alvarez or obi) in very favorable positions where we placed Milan in uncomfortable situations....In the second half, the situations were flipped...Milan were defending against a situation they were very comfortable against, while our players were being placed in tough situations and basically being asked to pull magic out of their ass



Anyway, thats my slightly more than .02 cents about the supercoppa...Depending on how much time I have I'll try to do something similar to this for any interesting tactical matchups we find ourselves in...Personally I am extremely excited with the way Gasp's 3 man backline will match up against the all the 4312 teams of the league

Great post. I think 343 suits inter because with Maicon we find ourselves with 3 defenders a lot anyway or 4 with zanetti meaning one less midfielder.

i hope to see

——Ranocchia Samuel Lucio—
Maicon ———————Santon
———Zanetti ———Motta
—————-Sneijder
——Milito————— Pazzini

Im actually not worried about us conceding a lot anymore. Im more worried about us scoring. We need more creativity. At least with that extra cb maicon has less defensive responsibilities... meaning more crosses.... meaning more pazzo goals :p

Wow Bhends, you really out did youself here. Great post man, + 1.

In my opinion the Mid looks rather uh... less quality.

Stankovic needs to be gotten rid of...and we could probably do with montolivo or casemiro, but its not awful


we have enough quality to field a midfield thats good enough, if not perfect, to say the least

Great post, man. If you could make an analysis to why we couldn't get into their box with both formations would be appreciated.

InterMalia wrote:Great post, man. If you could make an analysis to why we couldn't get into their box with both formations would be appreciated.

I don't think I can make myself sit through a third viewing of us blowing a lead to Milan, lol, so im not gonna do a full writeup...but to make a long story short(ish)

Milan came at us with a lot of midfield runners...On the flip side, while we dominated the flanks in the first half, in the center of the field it was basically just Sneijder and Eto'o around their 18, and since (as I showed in the writeup) Eto'o was making diagonal runs to drag the centerbacks around....that basically left us with Sneijder hanging around the 18 by himself far too often....Love Sneijder to death but he is not a big goalscoring threat in open play

Motta is fantastic at making late runs from the midfield to overrun the defense, but in this game he was playing as the lone defensive midfielder (rather than Cambiasso) and so he made very little effort to join the offensive phase of the game...Stankovic, while we all know he can score a cracker from 30 yards....His link-up play has been in a coma for a couple years now....Alvarez linked up very well but he played better in space rather than tight areas

Also, Milan deserves credit...Nesta-Silva-Van Bommel are a truly world class defensive core, and on top of that Milan as a team do an excellent job of completely packing the middle of the field and forcing teams to make something happen from the wings...Now we were able to do that with Obi, but the problem was even when he found himself in great positions...He would be staring into an empty 18 - Eto'o was making in to out runs, and Sneijder was drifting around just outside - Wasn't anyone for him to cross to... I would've loved to see Pazzini in the first half - I really think he's in line for a monster year

I don't expect us to have the same problem creating chances vs the other teams in the league like we had vs Milan in the supercoppa - but if we do I'll be sure to do a more thorough analysis of it

Torture you lol. Allegri has trained in some awesome movements they tried on us that looked the same. Seedorf/Boateng gets the ball, he runs and passes it to Binho/ibra, who turns and makes a side pass, and then back to a running Boateng or Seedorf, voilà! they are in our box, simple. Diagonal runs making us leave our positions. We have to improve our movements of the ball, too static makes me frustrated. All in all though, i was pleased with what i saw. Played good football for long stretches without creating so much. With time we will get more synched, and like you i believe in Pazzo. 11 goals in 17 games says he wants to explode.

11 in 17 with a system that didn't do him any favors

With the amount of teams in Serie A that play 4312, were going to have the same type of advantage (with regard to wing play) that we had vs Milan in the first half in an awfullll lot of games....Now just imagine instead of Obi who has space and time with the ball, its Maicon....and instead of an empty box, Pazzini is stalking around waiting for a cross

Great great things coming from that combination this year, I can feel it

And that sort of play opens up other areas for us...Once Maicon starts crossing to Pazzo with regularity, teams are going to start having to really race out to close him down....which is exactly what we want, because that opens up plenty of space in behind for our players to run in to

Nagatomo is our fastest player right? He'll also thrive in this system.

Great post!

InterMalia wrote:Nagatomo is our fastest player right? He'll also thrive in this system.

Not only is he one of our fastest players, we saw a couple time last year that he has an absolute cracker of a shot

And even though he plays as a left back for us, he is still naturally a right footed player...So he is going to want to come inside on to his strong foot to both link up and shoot (in typical inverted wide-player fashion), so we will likely wind up with a reverse overlap situation on the left hand side...



Nagatomo - Our widest player cutting inside to his stronger foot from the left hand wing, and Alvarez, our left center midfielder making an outside overlap around the wingback on to his natural foot in his favored position....

What is an isolated fullback supposed to do against that? Does he follow Nagatomo inside and leave Alvarez completely free on the overlap? Does he follow Alvarez and pass Nagatomo off to Player XXX? If he does than Sneijder is open a mere 22 yards from goal (not to mention Sneijder/Nagatomo would be 2v1 vs the last midfielder)

Its a cliche that football is a simple game...but its also true - if you can outnumber your opponent in crucial areas of the field that puts you at a great advantage

Pazzini should find himself in a situation where he is receiving crosses from both Maicon on the right and Alvarez on the left, each coming on their strong foot in plenty of space....Thats potential feeding frenzy territory

I expect particular players to flourish in our system and others to fail. When I say others I mean old and slow players. Sorry Stank but if i were coach you would be deep on the bench.

If there are any players the situation doesn't fit...Sneijder might be one of them

Hes a great playmaker...but not enough of a scoring threat in open play

If we play 3511 like we did vs Milan....we need someone who is more likely to score goals than Sneijder playing behind Pazzini

Possible options...We move Sneijder deeper, or we play 3412

In order to avoid getting crushed on the counter I think were going to need a defensive core of at LEAST our 3 CB's and Cambiasso...(Personally I'd feel more comfortable with a second defensive midfielder as well)

By the way guys, Zonal Marking just put up their analysis of the game an hour ago, and in all likelihood it will definitely be better than mine (lulz) so enjoy:

http://www.zonalmarking.net/2011/08/10/milan-2-1-inter-super-cup-2011/