Game One
As demonstrated in the second half of this article, the job of Aimar in this Copa America is to pressure Roman, force Roman to play well at Enganche.
What we saw today was a clear demonstration of this strategy adapted by Basile. And it proved to be extremely effective. The Albicelestes looked like half asleep up until Aimar came on, and Roman's performance improved immediately after the substitution. That was Basile's warning sign, saying "hey Riquelme, start playing or Aimar is taking over."
The first goal in second half was not cooperation between Roman and Aimar, but it was due to the pressure Basile put on Roman by putting Aimar on the field. VAMOS BASILE, VAMOS ARGENTINA. With this demonstration of Basile's wiz, I'm even more confident now that we'll do very well in this Copa America.
Other observations and thoughts:
1. Heinze had pushed up alot more than I thought he would, to provide width for the formation. But by doing this he forced our outside midfielders to a more defensive position and therefore not helping the offense as result. It could be partly why our offense seemed paralyzed for a while. Plus having Messi mostly on the right side rendered most of Heinze's push meaningless. Since we have already Zanetti pushing on the right, perhaps we should just play a more offensive midfield pair and have Heinze stay at home more to relieve pressure on Milito and Mascherano?
2. Having Aimar at the outside still isn't a first rated choice. Hopefully Riquelme wouldn't need this type of encouragement in the long run, and we could use a more dedicated outside midfielder to pair with Veron.
3. Messi wasn't utlizing his lateral freedom efficiently. Nor was Veron. These 2 really need to do more lateral channeling. Especially Messi. We need him to lose markers and open himself up, that's why he's on the field. If he could not improve on this then we are better off starting Carlito. I'm sorry for saying this since Messi is such a nice and prospecting kid, but he's too used to his right wing position on Barca and not doing exactly the right thing with his enganche. Unless Basile started to play 4-3-3, or Messi started to improve at the right front of 4-3-1-2, I think we'll be seeing Tevez more, especially since he's got a stomach full of rage ready to release right now. I would say, UNLEASH THE FURY!
4. Last thing I want to mention is Basile's last sub to switch the team into a boxy 4-2-2-2 and lock down the midfield. Obviously a time wasting strategy. But things like this should be done by moving onfield players around, instead of relying on substitution. What if we already used 3 subs? Learn from the 93' Copa team, that was a time wasting machine!
Here you can check out all the actions in this game on youTube.
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Here's how I would score their performances:
Messi 7
no lateral movements till 2nd half. due to that he didn't work actively enough with riquelme and could not help out the left when they got the ball upfield.
he improved drastically 2nd half. Basile probably put in Carlito to show Messi how it's done right, cuz Tevez obviously better at that job. so Messi went from a 5 score to a 7 imo.
Crespo 8.5
running all over the place, doing his job and helping out offensive on both sides. Crespo's efforts was above 9 but since the team wasn't supporting him accordingly his overall performance only get a 8+.
Tevez 10
If Messi failed to change and Basile insist on playing 4-3-1-2, then he better be starting Tevez ahead of Messi.
Riquelme 7.5
He put in good effort through out the game. But wasn't playing very intelligently in the first half. He let US took control of the tempo and let them overload to our left, forced us into a position we didn't want to play at. Haven said that, Roman's performance in 2nd half more than made up for it, and averaging a first half 6 and 2nd half 9, he gets 7.5 in my book.
Cambiasso 7
Cambiasso's job is to do what roman tells him to do. he did just that. Nothing creative from cuchu though, while his defensive efforts weren't remarkable. For example, when Heinze pushed, why wasn't cuchu with him? Why no one was with him. I DONT ********ING UNDERSTAND THIS CRAP.
he could of done better than getting an 7.
Veron 4-
his shot on goal was the onlything helped him not getting an EGG. bad passes to messi, ************ lobs right onto Crespo when 2 defenders are on him, no lateral movements and therefore no support to the left field. Veron's current performance does not meet requirements for our outside midfielders.
Aimar 9
excellent performance. Aimar not getting 10 only because when he first came onto the pitch he almost went into the left defensive vicious cycle. IMO he could of started pushing a little earlier.
Mascherano 8
Did his job and did it fairly well. We weren't expecting to see good ball distribution from mascher, so his bad pass didn't hurt his scoring too much. His positioning and tackling were excellent, in mascher we trust.
Gago ~
unnesscary sub to waste time
Ayala 7
Ayala and milito were constantly checking eddie johnson. Then towards 90th minute EJ checked ayala in their end of the pitch, something was going on between those guys.
Having such a hard time against this 2nd rated runner doesn't say much on their resume. However, the cooperation between Ayala and Milito was way better than in the friendlies. They controlled the spacing between backline and midfield very well, and that's why only few of the US counter attacks successfully developed, and only 1 scored. However, that's still too many setplays to give up against an overachieving USMNT, so captaino gets 7 althought he probably deserved alittle more.
Milito 6
Milito's performance should of bought him a 5 at the most. but he didn't show alot of efforts also partly because Twillman sucked.
DIsagreeing from many of you guys, I think Milito's positioning when in box defense was good, that's where he get 1 more point from me.
Heinze 9.5
Heinze pushing for width was because the inactivity of Zanetti and Veron. The right side looked so dead I thought it was towards the end when I tuned in for the game. For someone that doesn't push, I'm totally impressed with Heinze! I take back all the crap i said about him earlier this year. And he was right there locking down his corner and defending the box when US was on offense. The left wing was highlight of the game and Heinze was crucial part of it.
Zanetti 6
He gets a 6 for doing nothing. Nothing good, nothing bad.
Pato 8
he made a save. Well, his positioning was good so he was right infront of the long shot from Feilhaber. He also positioned himself well to take out one on the right, and he punted the balls out like he always do. Pato has pretty good control over the box, just not extrodinary defending the goal.
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P.S
There's a great comment here from an Argentine supporter. It brought foward some excellent points and is definitely worth reading.
7 comments:
Quick comment: I'm not entirely happy with this team. The problem with Coco's choices is the lack of any real outside midfielders to add speed on the outside (think Boca) which defeats the whole point of the classic 4-3-1-2. His reliance on the outside attacking defenders (Zanetti and Heinze) could not be sustained and in the end (with the inclusion of Aimar) we had a group of 5s and 10s trying to outplay each other in the center (a 4-2-2-2). But was this the result of a tactical decision by Coco or the natural result of him amassing a group of 5's (Cambiasso, Veron, Gago, Masche) and 10's(Roman, Aimar and Messi, according to his own words)? Did Coco bring any outside midfielders? Ah yes, Lucho. That's it! I will never forget the sight of Veron and Mascherano each each trying to outdo the other in circulating the ball as every 5 must do. The farce continued with Gago's entry! And Riquelme seemed to be on the field to do throw ins on the left. This is the kind of madness "Loco" Bielsa did. He'd choose players then put them in positions they never played in. Coco's done the same. Did anyone ever thing Veron would stay on the left? No wonder Riquelme was there. A bunch of 5s and 10s. This is not a good start.
Ricardo
You got some excellent points there.
Roman leaning too much to the left was very noticable. The reasons behind this is probably quite complex.
Roman for one has the tendency to lean left, but you rarely see him went that much to the edge. I think that's partly because he had to go there to provide lateral support for Heinze.
But we weren't supposed to rely on Heinze to provide width, the other side with Zanetti was supposed to do that. Heinze pushing up was forced by the inactivity on the right, and it threw the team into a kind of vicious cycle.
Besides not being active enough on the right, Messi and Veron also failed to channel laterally to help out the left where Americans were attempting to overload. In the second half we saw some Messi's efforts to correct this, saw him ran to the left edge and eventually provided a killer pass for our second goal from left center midfield (more left than roman).
But veron, he remained where he was till he was taken out. No one was around him and he insisted standing there like he was the enganche and everyone else supposed to roam around him. Veron's poor efforts through out the game did not help the team, and he really should be benched next game.
But then we came back to your point, who do we have to replace veron as an offensive outside midfielder? besides Aimar whose natural position is more towards the center, we only have Lucho.
Lucho was such a bad choice for 4-3-1-2. He will be another person not able to utlize the lateral freedom of the formation. If the opponent played our way and stay mostly on our right wing, then Lucho would of been ok. But if they choose to reverse the field we shouldn't expect to be seeing much help from this right winger.
But I don't blame Basile. He had Maxi and Lucho to pick, and Maxi just came off injury. With Gonzalo Javier Rodríguez's painful experience, I think we're better off letting Maxi rest and hope he'll be healthy when next tournament comes around.
As for Mascherano. I don't think we should expect him to distribute the ball or initiate attacks. It would of been better if he could do those, but he's too 1 track minded holding midfielder, and he's there simply because he could tackle from behind better than alot of people do it from infront. If we needed the attack initiation from the DM position, then Gago should go in, but obviously at some sacrifice of overal defense, because mascher down to the bottom is a better tackler than Gago.
Again, in the classic formation, the outside attacking defenders are there to fill in the gaps left by the outside midfielders OR overlap the outside midfielders as the midfielders zero in towards the penalty area (Ibarra and Clemente are perfect examples). As you see with this team, all the outside duties are on the shoulders of old Zanetti and Heinze. They can't be responsible for all the attack and the result was a narrowing of the field in the 2nd half when they became exhausted. This reliance on the defenders to do all the midfield work reminds me of another insanity that was the faunt of "Loco" Bielsa. During the last Copa America, Bielsa played against Ecuador (I think) a 2-4-2-2!!! Why? Because with D'Alessandro and Aimar he found he could sacrifice one forward (remember Bielsa's 3-3-1-3?) in order to add another enganche on that intermediate line to create chances for the forwards (a "doble enganche" as La Nacion called it). The outside midfielders (I believe Zanetti and some other defender--Sorin?) would function as both defenders and midfielders. The odd thing was that Bielsa insisted these were midfielders and not defenders (hence the 2!) Of course, by Act II, a lopsided 4-2-2-2/3-3-2-2 depending on the moment. However, as a final note. Perhaps "Coco" is doing something different. If he can resolve the problem of width and colarify who is ultimately responsible for center midfield duties (5), we won't have to rewatch the spectacle of Veron and Masche each taking turns at bat. But it is clear this team is less orderly and more free-flowwing. We'll also have to resign ourselves to a 5 & 10 game of small precious passing without velocity...but much monotony.
Ricardo
Pekerman had relative success with Sorin at the left wing midfield (3-4-1-2) because Sorin is such a work horse! We simply don't have such option anymore without bringing back Sorin. Clemente Rodriguez is offensive enough to fullfill that duty, but in the case the formation had to drop back into 4-3-1-2 he would have became a defensive reliability issue. Same goes for lucho.
Also. I like Heinze at the LB more than him at LCB. Because he can tackle well but lacks the intuition to distribute the ball wisely.
as for double enganche. It's fundamentally splitting the midfield. This reduce the workload on the offensive players since they wouldn't need to do much lateral channeling, but lateral channeling's benefits aren't limited to concentrating midfield support. It also help to lose their markers without them doing too much back tracking.
Once some adjustments to the center defense are made (either milito do better or have burdisso come in for him and shift ayala), then we can rely just on the backline and mascherano. Then we can play 2 offensive outside mids instead of this veron-cambiasso combination, and we shouldn't be seeing the cluster fuck around the defensive screen anymore.
by playing a more offensive pair (consider messi on one wing. this is still entirely possible, althought somewhat risky against a very disciplined team), space will open up at our waist.
If the game compresses towards one waist of ours, then the other side will have the opportunity to push. I think that could be a solution to our inability to get the ball out of the place cleanly.
I think Messi will do more lateral channeling and cooperate better with other midfielders in the upcoming games. He started to become more laterally active in the second half. If not then expect tevez to go in. Either way we shouldn't continue to display the problem of allowing opponent to force overloading on one side, at least less significantly.
and the speed issue.
the fastest runs usually come from outsides. So our wings being largely inactive meant not much fast long runs, and it was one of the reasons why the game looked dull.
but also it was because the lack of successful lobes. Vertical long passes in general. US did pretty well by playing virtually 3 DM to allow very little space between their screening players, but there was no effective long passes in the air either, and that again should be blamed on Veron.
He dropped 2 balls to Crespo, both times when 2 US defenders were on him, and the angle and velocity of the 2 passes were garbage. He also made 3? vertical passes on the ground to Messi, all of them intercepted or left messi with no room to receive and gain control.
shitty performance from veron. Not worthy of the spot.
Very illustrative points. The problem of congestion on the left waist (that is a new term for me) though very apparent has not been mentioned enough by a lot of reports.
More worryng was the inaccuracy in passes. I think the current system of sacrificing quick wide players for more skillful central midfleid players is to give up on some width and speed for accurate passes and utilising the vision of these creative players. But the passing - long balls as well as some of the short passes were not of the usual standard.
It was not just a congestion at the left edge of defensive screen, it was a cluster fuck :(
Our long pass accuracy should improve since players usually get more relaxed as tournaments progresses, so they usually show more individual skills in the later games.
To successfully get the ball out you also need players to receive the ball at the other end. Otherwise opponent will get possession and bring it right back. So the key to solve this cluster fuck on the left will probably lie in the hands of our right wing players.
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