Lazio 0-2 Inter: both sets of supporters happy with the result
A game almost identical in context to the Liverpool v Chelsea game: the away side going for the title, the home supporters half-heartedly supporting their own team, knowing that a win would play into the hands of their biggest rivals. Lo and behold, the same scoreline.
Lazio continued with their interesting 3-5-2 shape, with Roberto Baronio coming into the centre of midfield, and Mauro Zarate replacing Tomasso Rocchi upfront.
Inter’s team sheet was a surprise, with Diego Milito rested and Dejan Stankovic replacing him. It turned out that Maicon would be playing as a right-winger, with Stankovic in the centre of midfield, and Wesley Sneijder pushed out to the left. Samuel Eto’o was upfront alone.
As detailed on ZM before, the inherent problem with the 3-5-2 system is that it only works against sides playing two orthodox strikers - against one-man or wide three-man attacks, either the defence gets pulled around, and/or the wing-backs end up playing too deep, conceding the midfield to the opposition.
Today, it was the second problem. Lazio’s wing-backs are instructed to get level with the central defenders when not in possession (more on that later), and therefore Lazio had five defenders up against one or two Inter players, leaving the defence relatively secure but leaving a severe shortfall on the rest of the pitch, resulting in Inter dominating possession and easily being able to retain the ball both in midfield and in full-back areas.
That said, Inter struggled to find the opening goal. Their wide players, Sneijder and Maicon, were both in unfamiliar roles and created relatively little, and Inter’s main threat came from balls over the top to Eto’o, in the right-hand channel. It was surprising how many times Lazio’s defence was caught out by a simple lofted pass for Eto’o to chase, and they played a relatively high line considering that Eto’o was clearly going to beat them for pace.
Lazio showed little attacking intent throughout. Their main source of attack was, as ever, the energetic running of their wing-backs who got forward throughout, but created little. Zarate looked lively but seemed to want to take the entire Inter backline on by himself, selfishly refusing to pass to better-placed teammates twice in quick succession.
Inter ended up taking the lead through an unlikely source on 45 minutes. Walter Samuel came high up the pitch to win a tackle, and as the ball fell to Sneijder, Samuel ambled forward to join Eto’o in the area. The Lazio defence were surprised by the sudden extra threat and failed to pick Samuel up, and he rose to nod home Sneijder’s lofted, inswinging cross from deep.
As if there was any doubt that Lazio’s fans didn’t care too much about losing to Inter, they immediately unfurled a banner that sarcastically said ‘Oh nooo’.
The fans didn’t care, the players didn’t seem to care, and manager Eddy Reja was serving a touchline ban, and so there was no change of plan from Lazio. Thiago Motta headed in a second from a corner midway through the second have, the banner came out again, and the result was settled. More on the nature of Lazio’s performance here and here.
Inter didn’t win the game because they were better tactically, they won it because they were the only side that actually tried to win. Even when Lazio won a corner, they only sent four players up into the area to try and score, and overall it would flatter the game to describe it as a contest.
Instead, let’s look at Lazio’s three-man defence. It’s rare to see one in operation in Europe these days, but Lazio have often defended well this season – despite not yet being safe from relegation, they have the sixth-best defence in the division, and 41 goals conceded is only one goal worse than 2nd-placed Roma and 4th-placed Sampdoria.
First, the wing-backs drop level with the centre-backs when not in possession, effectively creating a five-man defence:
The problem with this, however, is that the defence can become very narrow if there is no wide threat, making it hard to counter-attack. Here, seven Lazio players are dealing with one Inter player:
If the ball is in a wide position, however, the wing-back on that side comes a long way up the pitch to meet him, the wing-back on the opposite side drops in, and the defence shuffles over to create something more resembling a four-man defence:
Lazio 0-2 Inter: both sets of supporters happy with the result
Kolarov in full flight is one of the most entertaining sights in world football today.
I’m really looking forward to seeing Kolarov in the black and blue. He’s got a laser shot with his left foot and he seems to have loads of potential. Right now he’s just another great player being stifled by Lotito.
Far from “half-heartedly” supporting their team, Lazio fans were actively supporting Inter, and there’d have been a riot if they hadn’t lost. Lazio players never had any intention of even drawing this game, bizarre to do a tactical study of a fix.
A fix? Perhaps Lazio lost on purpose, no need of a fix (with Inter) at all… just thinking “hey, better let Inter win so my rivals won’t win the Scuddeto” and there…
The links you posted don’t give much insight into the true “nature” of Lazio’s performance yesterday. For a better picture, go here: http://www.football-italia.net/blogs/sc111.html. I have really been enjoying your website, but agree that there was little point in analyzing the “tactics” of this match, when one side’s entire plan consisted of simply rolling over and playing dead (though somebody did forget to let Muslera in on the plan).
lazio are a bad, unmotivated squad, but the match wasn’t fixed and lazio didnt lose on purpose. i’ve seen my share of fixed matches and that wasn’t one. man city – burnley, now that looked fixed
I have to agree with the above poster about the difference between Lazio and Liverpool fans. At Anfield the fans simply didn’t care what happened. At Lazio the fans were actively cheering like crazy when Inter scored. It is clear that the enmity between Lazio and Roma is far far stronger than that between to the two most successful English sides.
Paolo, you said “For a better picture, go here:” I think you meant to say “For a one sided account of what happened from a bitter Milan fan, go here:”.
Either way, Lazio played exactly how a poor team play when they go down 1-0 at home. Look at there league position and then consider the performances of the teams around them against Inter this season. Only Siena has given Inter a real show, from the lower part of the table that is.
A further point to add re. Lazio fans ‘cheering’ Inter to victory is that there has been a long running gemellatti (friendship) between both sets of Ultras. In fact on the final day a few years back Lazio beat Inter 4-2 and handed the title to Juventus, but still the gemellatti remained intact.
The sentiments regarding how the home fans would have started a riot if they dared to win this game its definitely not far off the mark.
Whilst Lazio’s season has been a disaster at least they are almost safe in the knowledge that they ‘contributed’ to another scudetti for Inter at the behest of the eternal foes.