Brazil and Uruguay, On the Horizons

Forward to Brazil Part.2

I mentioned this in a previous article:

In international competitions, the teams that showed remarkable condition early on usually couldn't go far because their synchronization were forged by long term practice as a unit. To gain such experience, the players need to be mostly or all of domestic origins. In many cases, these players were avaliable for training but not necessarily the most technically gifted, and often lose eventually to teams made up with very talented players who weren't very familiar with each other at the beinging of the tournament but managed to find their form and sync'ed up during course of the competitions.

It's a common phenomenon in international competitions, and today we saw TWO examples of such case.
Uruguay went from 0-3 defeat by Peru, to 1-0 over Bolivia (which IMO is on par with Peru in term of overall rating), to this 4-1 win over the host country Venezuela...
Brazil went from 0-2 defeat by Mexico, to 3-0 win over Chile and 1-0 against Ecuador, to today's 6-1 domination over Chile.
The commonality between these 2 teams is obvious: they both have many players servicing foreign clubs, and these players went from individuals to synchronized teams through competitions provided by the tournament.

Uruguay and Brazil are the biggest threats to Argentina's 15th Copa America title. For a while I was hoping them not to find their form, and get pushed out before playoffs. That's simply wishing for too much. Copa America brackets are extremely forgiving in the sense that only 1/3 of its participants are eliminated during group stage. 4 points guarantees quarter final entrance, and there's at least one low ranked team in each group...

With Brazil going against Uruguay in one of the semi-finals, we have to start evaluating our strategies, so we can be prepared to meet the winner in the final on 15th July.

Brazilian play 4-2-4. That's the only formation they play, and that will be the only formation they'll ever play :D As mentioned before, 4-2-4 is a 5:5 formation eventhough it looked like 4-4-2. The 2 center midfielders in this formation are neutral, and can become attackers. So 4-2-4 can utilize 8 players (2 wingbacks; 2 center midfielders; 2 outside midfielders and 2 forwards) when attacking.

When Brazil attacks, the 2 outside midfielder usually tighten up at the waists, while the 2 wingbacks pushing all the way forward to cover the empty spaces towards opponent corners.
The advantage of this is the concentration in the middle. However, because the 2 center midfielders have defensive duties, Brazilian can't push all 8 attackers into opponent box. Instead they usually initiate attacks at distances over 35 yards from the goal, and attempt to use their individualities to carry the ball into striking distance.

If we attack from the center, Brazil will have 1 center midfielder, 1 center back and 1 outside midfielder on each side to defend. If we attack from the wings, there will only be 1 center midfielder and 1 wingback in our way. Quite obvious, the ideal approach is to attack Brazil from their wings.

On defense, we need to concentrate defending the mid routes. Because that's where Brazilian attacks will be coming from. They use african style attackers, we must structure depth in our defense to disrupt their through balls and vertical runs.

IMO, the ideal formation to fulfill the above 2 criteria is 4-2-3-1. It not only creates congestion in the midfield to render Brazilian attacks ineffective, but also provides sufficient wing spaces to take advantage of 4-2-4's lack of width. Having so many players in the midfield would allow cleaner defensive plays, and can possibly reduce Brazil's dead ball chances. They are deadly on set plays. We must concentrate on not forfeiting corners and freekicks.

note: France used 4-2-3-1 in 06' World Cup against Brazil and successfully defeated them.

Uruguay probably won't get pass Brazil. But to ignore the possibility of meeting them would be foolish.

Uruguay used four formations in their 4 Copa matches. They started out with a 4-3-1-2 against Peru. Estoyanoff's performance probably wasn't satisfying so they benched him and went to 4-4-2 against Bolivia. Then they went to 3-5-2 against Venezuela and achieved limited success. And finally today, Uruguay used 4-2-2-1-1 to beat Venezuela 4-1.

Oscar Tabarez is probably one of the most experienced DT on the market. He had coached A.C Milan, Velez Sarsfield, Boca Junior and Cagliari just to name a few. He helped Uruguay find its form through agile adaptations of different formations. It gave us a sneak preview of his tremendous tactical understanding and ingenuity.

To tell the truth, I'm not sure if there's a set of rules to counter Uruguay. They have too much variations in their strategies. So I'll just list some of their invariables.

Best 3 defenders for Uruguay are Lugano, Dario Rodriguez and Scotti. All 3 can play either center or outside. D.Rodriguez probably fits better at a wing role, so in the case Uruguay needs Dario Rodriguez to push for width, they usually put in Godin who's another CB.

Uruguay used 4 wingers (not counting Dario Rodriguez) so far. Fucile, Diego Perez, Maximiliano Pereira and Cristian Rodriguez. Perez and Fucile are defensive wingers while the other 2 more offensively oriented.

Celta Vigo's Pablo Garcia is Uruguay's main holding midfielder. This guy should probably be classified as a CM instead of CDM. Uruguay relied too much on Garcia in their lost versus Peru. From there on they had been having at least one other player near the center to help Garcia out.

Up top, Uruguay uses Forlan as target person, then various other forwards to support him. Being a Villarreal fan, I wasn't too pleased with Forlan's performance over the past couple of years. Only recently did he seemed to find his form again, and started scoring like before his injury during the Champion's League season.
But Forlan is fast, and he's got the finish. Oscar Tabarez seemed to have realized that he needed to give Forlan space. Forlan needs the distance to make his runs. So their center midfield can't be pressing too high, and Uruguay's best bet is probably sending people down the wings to cross for Forlan.
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My rating of the teams

Group A

Uruguay 3.5 Oscar Tabarez saved the team from exiting too early. now they got the time to sync, perhaps they'll prove they aren't paper tigers?
Peru 2.5 Lucky team, mediocre quality.
Venezuela 3 Cruised through group stage due to ideal setup... against synchronized uruguay they proved to be everything critics expected.
Bolivia 2.5 As bad or as good as peru but not so lucky

Group B

Brazil 4 They survived while unsynchronized. now they're dangerous
Mexico 3 Lucky win against an unsynchronized brazilian team. as their fatigue adds up, mexico overall quality shall start to decline.
Chile 2 stupidest coach in this Copa. Played a negative defensive 3-4-2-1 christmas tree against Brazil. How long have Brazilian been using the 4-2-4 and doing their center attacks?
Ecuador 2 Got screwed. but they also didn't finish last in the tourney.

Group C

Argentina 4 4-3-1-2 still weak in defense. although better than most other offensive formations. 3-5-2 V shape midfield is probably safer...
Paraguay 3.5 I think their style is too negative. never the less, to successfully build a team around any doctrine takes a good football federation
Colombia 2.5 More often than not they're undisciplined and lose in the most retarded ways. no difference this copa. such a waste of their wonderful talents.
USA 3 Future looks good