Villa Boas talks tactics

[Rory Fitzgerald]

Andre Villas-Boas's footballing philosophy

 

There are more spaces in football than people think. Even if you play against a low block team, you immediately get half of the pitch.

 

And after that, in attacking midfield, you can provoke the opponent with the ball, provoke him to move forward or sideways and open up a space. But many players can’t understand the game.

 

They can’t think about or read the game. Things have become too easy for football players: high salaries, a good life, with a maximum of five hours work a day and so they can’t concentrate, can’t think about the game.

 

Barcelona’s players are completely the opposite. Their players are permanently thinking about the game, about their movement, about how to provoke their opponent with the position of the ball.

 

If you go find the top English teams pre-Arsene Wenger they tell you how to control a match in the opposite way without much ball possession, direct football, searching for the second ball.

 

Maybe now, controlling possession is the reference point for a top team

 

Rafa Benitez created a 4-4-2 much more dynamic than the usual English 4-4-2. Because he introduced speed in ball possession, he gave it variation between vertical and horizontal passes.

 

The usual classic English 4-4-2 is more basic: a penetrating midfielder and another one that stays in position; a winger who moves inside and another one who stays wide; a full back who overlaps and another one who covers the defence.

 

 

If you have midfielders like Frank Lampard or Steven Gerrard you don’t want your forwards to come and play between lines, because Lampard and Gerrard have a large field of action and very often move in to those spaces.

 

Lampard was often irritated with Didier Drogba because Drogba wanted to receive the ball there but then, amazingly, his first touch was poor, so he lost the ball and we were exposed to a transition from the opponent.

 

So we had to limit Drogba from going there and ask him to play deeper.

 

 

 

Something that used to happen a lot in England, when teams played 4-4-2, was that the central midfielders exchanged the ball between them in parallel passes so what we did with Lampard, or Liverpool did with Gerrard, was to try to cut into that space between the two midfielders with fast movement from Lampard.

 

If they got the ball there, there were already two opponents eliminated in the attacking transition

 

[Epic Swindle]

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[Rory Fitzgerald]

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[Benzo-13]

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[Rory Fitzgerald]

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[Epic Swindle]

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Edited August 14, 2011 by Epic Swindle