Talking Tactics: Where did Spain lose the plot?

Let me first congratulate Italy for being spot on with the libero formation. De Rossi was near perfect in the role of libero. Although he did commit an error, which led to the goal, he was clearly one of the best performers on the pitch. Playing as the last defender, he intercepted crucial passes & closed out the empty spaces. He hustled the Spanish forwards when they found room. In addition, he was also helpful in initiating Italian counter attacks.

Now getting down to business, Del Bosque drew flak for his tactics; most notably, for not starting with Torres. But here, we look at some of the less obvious ones that Del Bosque might have to reconsider:

Asking Busquets to mark deep-lying playmaker is recipe for disaster

Busquets(16) playing higher up on the field than Alonso(14)

The usually sublime Busquets had an off-day yesterday. The main reason was that he was responsible for marking Italy’s playmaker Andrea Pirlo. As Pirlo directs his play from deep in the midfield, Busquets had to move higher up the field to man-mark him. In fact on many occasions, Busquets was so higher up the field that Alonso had to play the role of a defensive midfielder. The result was, Busquets was caught off-guard on many a times when Italy counter attacked. Whenever the Italians played the long ball to the wings, one of Spain’s center-backs had to move to the flanks to chase the Italian forward, to whom the ball was delivered. This opened up the space in the heart of Spain’s defence. On other occasions, these spaces are fittingly filled by the tireless Busquets (which he always does at Barcelona). Yesterday, however, Sergio had to cover a lot of distance to fill that space than on normal occasions as he played much higher up on the field. Even if he did cover, he did not have enough time to aptly position himself. This handicap was smartly exploited by Italy; a free header by Motta in the first half was a great example.

Sergio caught off-guard; Motta with a free header

You might wonder why Alonso didn’t take over the defensive role from Sergio? Yes, at a face value, Alonso might look like a great defensive midfielder. But he is not. Alonso lacks the defensive positional sense that Busquets possess; the quality which sets apart defensive midfielders from the rest.

No Striker & No Winger is a complete No-No!

Yesterday, I discussed about the various formations that Spain could experiment with; one of them involved playing Silva and Fabregas in False 9 and False 10 roles. Del Bosque opted for a similar formation, only he did not start with Jesus Navas. Instead, he opted for a reliable three-man center midfield. As you would have realized, that tactic went for a toss as Spain was toothless for most part of the match. No, I am not against Del Bosuqe for not starting with a striker. Given the options ahead of him, playing an extra midfielder for a striker is a sensible thing to do. But I am very much against doing that without deploying a winger.

The reason is self evident. Right-back Arbeola is not a player who would take on defenders, dribble past them and cut in the ball for the likes of Silva and Fabregas to score. What he can do is put in some decent crosses in to the six yard box; crosses which will be meaningless if they are meant for 5-feet forwards. So Arbeola was reluctant to come forward but instead, he was content with his defensive duties (during the match, Xavi actually shouted at Arbeola to press higher up the pitch). This situation meant Spain had no attacking options on the right hand side. Hence, Italy had to only worry about the threat from the center. The defenisve task for Italy was simple and they did it efficiently by using the libero-formation.

Navas racing past the defender

On the other hand, Navas, with his pace, can take on the defenders. And when he does dribble past them, he totally disturbs the opposition’s defence-formation. So if he crosses the ball in the air, the Spanish forwards have a greater chance of getting onto end of that cross than when the defense formation is intact. In addition, because crosses from wingers spend less time in the air than crosses from full backs, opposition defenders do not have enough room to reposition themselves to clear-head the ball. And a winger also has another option of pulling back the ball for players at the edge of the box.