Transcription
One of the reasons why we bring the fullback inside is to avoid transition and to defend better at the moment that we lose the ball. First of all, for instance, in this case, as you can see, the shape is 4-3-3. With the teams that play 4-3-3 most of the time, when they are attacking, they just defend with three players. That means the two center defenders and the old midfielder because the fullback is higher. Sometimes teams play with the winger inside to attack the midfielder and the striker. So, as you can see, they defend the transition with three players.
With a team that is 4-3-3, for instance, with a team that is 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2, it doesn't matter; more or less, the same thing happens. They bring both fullbacks higher, they attack with the wingers inside, and the two fullbacks. As you can see, they defend with four players. So, the reason why we bring the fullback inside, for instance, if we are in the way we try to play, is that we have three and two, and then we have two wingers, two attacking midfielders, and a number nine. So, as you can see in this case, we defend the transition with five players.
One of the reasons why we try to bring the fullback inside is defensively because, at the moment that we lose the ball, we have five players defending the transition. Not the main reason, but one of the reasons why we bring the fullback inside is to avoid transition and to defend better at the moment that we lose the ball.
Then, there are many reasons why we bring the fullback inside when we have the ball. The idea is to have an overload in the middle, an extra player in the middle, and always try to have an extra man in the middle. We try to create one, two, three, and four players against three, so we have an extra man in the middle, and this allows us to control the game better. We try to use the fullback inside, and the main target is to have an extra player in the middle. As you can see against 4-3-3, in this case, we have four against three in the middle, and we have one extra player that gives us more control.
How the opponent can do 4v4, jumping with one of the center defenders, so in this case, he can come here, he can come here, and he can come here, and we are five against five in the middle. But this is also a benefit for us because, first of all, we are moving one center defender out from his position. Also, because we are, as you can see, man-to-man, that for the opponent is good because they can be more aggressive. But at the same time, for us, it can be good because we have one-v-one wingers on both sides, we have one-v-one with the number nine, and we have four against four in the middle, bringing the center defender out of his position, which is never easy for a center defender.
So, this is, as we said, not only a reason why we bring the fullback inside to defend better, but it's also to attack, to try to attack better. Against 4-4-2, for instance, it's more or less the same concept. As you can see now in the middle, we have four against two. They have two midfielders, and we have four players; it's four against two. What happens most of the time, and has happened this year already many times, is that to try to match the four against two in the middle, the opponent drops the number nine and number ten. So they do like this, and like this, four against four in the middle.
That becomes more difficult for us because there is no space that we can exploit here. Probably the only one, and this is the reason why sometimes we drop our nine, is also to create this five against four when this situation happens. But if we don't drop our nine, in any case, when the opponent tries to match this situation with nine and ten, that means that because they drop number nine and number ten with our old midfielder, we are in complete control of the game. That means that the three players here are without any pressure, and we can play to the opposite side. But at the same time, at least it means that they are dropping on their side, and we can control the game.
One solution when this happens is we try to drop our nine to create this five against four. That is the same situation; they can jump with the center defender, and it becomes five against five. But it's the same situation; we have big space between the fullback and center defender for the attacking midfielder or for the winger. The same thing on the other side. For instance, when we face teams that are 4-2-3-1, it's the same situation. We have four against three in the middle, we have two against one here against their number ten, so there is a situation of two against one here. We are two against two, but overall, we are four against three.
So, at the moment that they decide, for instance, to jump with this player to this player because the other one is here, this becomes free. The same thing on the other side; if they decide to have number ten go with him, all the midfielders jump with him, this guy is free. That is similar to the other situation, how we can match the situation by jumping with the center defender. But we have man-to-man, and we can attack better when the fullback goes inside.
We behave like we are playing three at the back, so they have to occupy the space all the width they need to occupy. Probably the main player in this case becomes the center defender because he has to recognize what is going on here in terms of if they are man-to-man. If these two players are free and they can play, then when we try to play here and they are a little bit more aggressive, we need to come back with the keeper to start again.
In this case, we are here with the ball, and the opposite tries to press us; we use the keeper. So, in this case, if this player drops here, the keeper is dropping in the opposite side. Or if this player is dropping on this side, the keeper just makes it to the opposite side, and we become four at the back with the keeper. But, as we said, at the moment that we become three at the back, we need to occupy the right space and understand where the solution is.
In this case, as we said against 4-4-2, probably the nine dropping gives us the chance to connect with him and to set the ball with the central midfielder. Or if he's dropping too much, we can play with him and set the ball with the attacking midfielder ready to attack. It depends a little bit on how the opponent behaves.
One of the qualities that you need is to be able to move yourself in small spaces. We used to say to move in the traffic because, for instance, in our case, we are four at the back, and we bring this player inside, who in this moment is Ricardo Pereira. For this player, you're going to be in the traffic; around you, there are more players than being here. So, first of all, you have to be able to move in small spaces.
As we said, Ricardo is doing that fantastically because he has good quality. Yes, his quality is good in small spaces, and he is improving a lot. So, probably one of the qualities for sure that he has is to be technically able to play in the traffic. These two players, one of the old midfielders and the fullback, behaving the right way and being in the right position, probably allow one of these two guys in the pocket to receive the ball with more time and more space.
When you are here and you can receive the ball without any opponent trying to press you, it's much better because you can cause problems. So, for sure, one of the reasons is that you can allow players in front, like wingers, attacking midfielders, and number nines, to receive with more space and more time. As we said, if this guy decides to jump here, so this guy is the one that becomes free, and he can receive. At the moment that he receives the ball, he can receive this ball with more space and more time.
Even when we already have our fullback inside and we lose the ball, immediately we try to maintain the same shape. I mean, the fullback stays inside until we recover the ball. Now, if the opponent is able to give four, five, six passes in a row, the fullback comes back to his position, and we become a line of four with the fullback. But the main idea is that at the moment we are attacking and we lose the ball, we don't drop our fullback; we maintain the same shape, and we try to be aggressive with all players forward.
We had, this year, probably between 65 and 75 percent possession in some games, even more. They drop and defend; they try to defend on this side and don't give us space. They give us the ball, waiting for our mistake to go in transition. But since we started using this solution, it's giving us, for sure, control of the game. For sure, we have more players inside, so we can create more danger.
As we said, in our case, at this moment, Ricardo Pereira is the player that is going inside. He has already given this year many assists and goal chances, including penalties. Because these two guys, most of the time, when they decide to drop players with quality like Ari, Winks, and Ricardo, in this moment, they are giving us the solution. Probably the best team doing this is Pep's Manchester City. Even if now they bring the fullback inside the central defender, more or less, the target or the concept is the same. So, no doubt that Manchester City...