Atletico 2-1 Fulham: Forlan finishes leave Fulham forlorn
This is the kind of game where the losing side will be described as ‘brave’ in the headlines, but tonight, maybe Fulham were not brave enough. The game was decided by a scrappy late goal, and Fulham will feel unfortunate to have lost – but the reality is that Atletico were the better side, and the one who showed more attacking intent throughout.
Atletico’s formation was as expected – the only slight question was who would start at right-back, where Tomas Ujfalusi got the nod. The two central midfielders sat deep, knocking passes out to either flank, whilst Sergio Aguero had a free role and tended to drift to the left, whilst Diego Forlan played relatively deep for a central striker, confusing the Fulham backline with his movement.
Fulham were also largely as anticipated, and also saw a slight surprise right-back, with Chris Baird in for John Pantsil. A half-fit Bobby Zamora led the line, Zoltan Gera played just behind him, with Dickson Etuhu playing deep infront of the Fulham defence.
Although Atletico started the game on top, Fulham defended well early on. Baird stuck to Simao Sabrosa, and Paul Konchesky was tight on Jose Antonio Reyes, giving the Atletico wide players no time or space on the ball to spin and run at the Fulham defence. The marking on the centre-forwards was slightly less tight – Forlan was tracked across the pitch reasonably strictly by Brede Hangeland, but Sergio Aguero was given slightly more freedom when dropping deep, and he was Atletico’s biggest threat throughout the match.
Fulham were occasionally threatening when getting forward. There was little subtlety to their attack - long balls forward to Zamora was the name of the game, and two of his knock-downs created half-chances on the edge of the area for Simon Davies, whose runs in from the left were a clear threat, and Zoltan Gera.
The full-backs on either side were rarely getting forward to support the inverted wingers, which led to a fairly narrow game. The first time a Fulham full-back did get into an attacking position, however, resulted in Atletico taking the lead. Konchesky was caught high up the pitch, and Jose Antonio Reyes sprinted into the space he had vacated – the first time Atletico were really able to counter and use their pace. The ball eventually found its way to Aguero, whose scuffed volley was diverted in by Diego Forlan.
Fulham responded fairly quickly when Davies again took up a good position inside the box and finished well – and although the move initially seemed to have broken down and Fulham were slightly fortunate to get a second opportunity to shoot, credit should go to them for getting four men into the box, and for having faith in their ability to engineer a second chance.
It was a difficult game to call at half-time, but arguably the decisive moment came when Fulham had to replace Zamora, and bring on Clint Dempsey. Zamora is clearly unfit and did well to struggle through the first half, but Fulham’s gameplan was forced to change, and they looked less comfortable with Dempsey on.
A major problem appeared to be tiredness. Fulham seemed to hit a brick wall after 60 or 70 minutes, and whereas Zamora’s ability to hold the ball up and buy time may have seen them get away with it, Dempsey’s desire for neater link-up play was testing the energy levels of Davies and Damien Duff, and Fulham simply couldn’t get enough men forward into attack. There was one instance in the second half where Gera and Dempsey briefly found themselves with the ball and with space to run into, but when they looked to the flanks, Davies and Duff were thirty yards behind them and clearly exhausted.
It was also disappointing that Fulham didn’t try a simple ball in behind the defence more often – the one time they did, Gera would have been in on goal but for a heavy first touch. This Atletico side is far from solid defensively – 58 goals conceded in 37 league games this season – but Fulham didn’t test their back four enough, especially in the final hour.
That said, the Spanish side didn’t deserve to be infront either, for they were not creating enough themselves. The fact that Qique Sanchez Flores replaced his two wide players, Simao and Reyes, speaks volumes, especially considering the relative lack of attacking intent from the two central midfielders in their system. The game was as tense and tight as you would expect, which made for a decent spectacle, but in the end it was two similar sides cancelling each other out – similar to Fulham’s game in this stadium in the semi-final against Hamburg.
The similarity in shapes meant that there were no free players on the pitch, but the man who found himself with most time on the ball was the Atletico right-back, Ujfalusi. He constantly found himself in space on the right-hand side (especially after the introduction of Erik Nevland pushed Gera to left-wing) but was ponderous on the ball and his delivery was poor. If Atletico had a rampaging right-back to provide a real threat, they surely would have wrapped the game up, but Ujfalusi (comfortable at full-back, but a centre-back by trade) was not the man to unlock the Fulham defence).
As the game went into extra-time, Fulham were hanging on. Murphy continued to retain the ball well, but Dempsey and Nevland gave it away too cheaply, and Fulham’s back four had no respite. Hangeland in particular looked on the verge of collapse, and Aguero hit the side-netting from a yard out just before half-time in extra-time.
With Fulham’s tiredness plain to see, it’s hard to imagine why Hodgson didn’t use his final substitution until the 28th minute of extra-time, when Fulham had conceded. Maybe he didn’t want to lose his shape (or was keeping penalty-takers on the field), but when the ten outfield players were so exhausted, a bit of energy was required – telling Jonathan Greening to come on and simply run his legs off for half an hour surely would have been a better option than persisting with the awfully tired Gera, for example.
Atletico’s winner came in slightly fortunate circumstances, and it was the Aguero-Forlan partnership again which proved deadly. Forlan’s strikes to defeat Fulham were reminiscent of the way Pippo Inzaghi pounced twice for Milan to defeat Liverpool in a European final in 2007 – there was more than a shade of luck about the goals, but deep down, you know that the ’sixth sense’ goalpoachers like Inzaghi and Forlan possess means you must give credit to them for being in the right place at the right time.
Fulham’s inevitable response was to shove Hangeland upfront and hit long balls – and they looked rather dangerous in those two minutes with the Norweigan upfront, as if to emphasize how much they missed the focal point of Zamora. A little bit of luck in the penalty area and the game could have been so different, but even the fiercest Fulham supporter must concede that Atletico were always more likely to get that luck, simply because they got the ball into the area more often.
Atletico 2-1 Fulham: Forlan finishes leave Fulham forlorn
I didn’t Fulham had started for the first 15-20 minutes. They seemed to be very tired and their passing was far from sharp. The first goal seemed to epitomise this for me. Konchesky gave the ball away very cheaply, almost a pass and then Etuhu turned his back on Reyes and seemed to expect him to take the body check and any subsequent free kick even though there was evidently tons of space behind him to run into.
I realise that Hodgson was playing Duff and Davies as inside-out wingers, but I’m astonished as to how far in they were coming. There were occasions when they were more central than Gera or Zamora.
Does anybody else find it as hard as myself to believe that Damien Duff is considered a quality Premier League footballer and can barely dribble with his right foot? Although he did deliver a couple of good crosses with it, almost as if to prove me wrong. He seems to be the easiest winger to defend against that I’ve seen this season. 99 times out of 100 he will cut inside and look to fire at goal.
Most wingers are one-footed to a greater or lesser extent. Robben is the same – great left foot, not so good on the right. The difference is in competence in the weak foot, with continental players developing decency in their weak foot while most British Isles players aren’t coached this way when they are young.
its normal for wingers to play on the opposite side so they can cut in. Robben does it perfectly. Duff actually hasnt got a bad right foot…scored a great goal in the premiership not so long ago with it.
Robben is so effective because he has the right footed Philip Lahm behind him who will fill in the position on the right flank when Robben cuts in…toghether this side is quite a challenge for every defence because it is not enough to focus on Robben…
I think it’s a relatively fresh innovation to the current game. It has happened plenty in the past but coming more and more back into fashion.
Of course he will have one foot better than the other, but my point is that to really get trouble the full back you need to vary your attack. In the 10 or so Fulham games I’ve watched this season I can probably count on my hands the number of times he has NOT picked up the ball about 30 yards out on the touchline and made a bee line for the D on the edge of the 18 yard box.
If he pushed the full back looking for the ball in behind/tried to dribble around the outside a little bit more he might be able to stretch defences and open them up better.
Considering that Duff has played all of his club games on the right this year, it’s only natural that he’s going to cut inside onto his stronger foot. If he was playing on the left, and kept going along the touchline, would you be making a point of it? Whilst we’re on the subject, Simon Davies has been doing the same from left to right since he came back from injury. Why havn’t you picked this out? Was it just a personal attack on Duff?
For Duff, Davies, and any other winger as well, it seems uncontroversial that whether they are playing inverted or regular they should vary their attacking decisions, sometimes cutting in and sometimes making for the byline, regardless of which foot such a move entails. To do otherwise, or to do the same thing each possession, is clearly stupid because then the defense will know what to expect. I don’t understand what your objection us here.
What surprised me with Atletico was the number of high crosses into the Fulham box. So many of their goals this season have come from low crosses aimed at the six-yard box, ready to be tapped in. Ultimately, this is how they got their winner, but they didn’t seem to force this tactic till the latter stages of injury time. Maybe the narrow pitch played it’s part in this respect, which helped funnel the play to Aguero (Or ‘Agwerra’ like how Channel FIVE’s pundits seem to pronounce it), who displayed some excellent link-up work tonight.
You described in another article how the poacher role has declined because of the game changing but forlan seems to be a complete poacher for atletico, in most all of his goals, he hasn’t shown real technical ability, speed or strength, more finding himself in the right place and time…
It’s the one thing that stuck out for me because its more his movement than anything that gets him goals, he also scuffed a lot of half-chances throughout the game.
His fitness also seems to be a key factor in his late goals, he always takes off his top after scoring and you can see he is ridiculously ripped.
Yes, it is Forlan’s movements that makes him score all the time , however I would like to ask you,if you ever seen another player that can kick with both legs as Forlan does?
He has the perfect skills to shoot to the goal any side any leg,you can not tell if he is left or right footer, and besides his fitness, that is why Forlan is a top scorer all the time.
I completely agree. I have taken particular interest in recent weeks of one-footed players in the Premier League (Duff, Downing, Valencia, even Rooney etc. etc.) and it was very nice to see a player equally comfortable on both feet.
Fulham are set up around Zamora this season and he led the line superbly knocking the ball down for onrushing attackers on more than one occasion in the first half. What a shame he wasn’t fully fit.
I echo your sentiments about the one-footed players in the Premier League but id like to point out that Rooney isnt one-footed in the slightest.
I think the article was more regarding “poachers” who could score goals and contribute little else.
Forlan clearly has a lot more strings to his bow than penalty box tap-ins. He can attack at pace, dribble, good in the air, a good footballing brain (nice passing moves) and works fairly hard.
The result can be attributed to the difference between the strikers of both sides as well. Forlan and Aguero were very mobile and created some chances through good turns and dribbles, whereas creative duties for Fulham fell to Gera, who rarely tried to go past defenders. Forlan often drifted wide or deep, instead of being a classical fox in the box, though the two goals did come when he was central. It will be interesting to see if Uruguay replicates the Atletico style of play in the World Cup, with Forlan and Suarez.
fulham play more of a /4/4/1/1 formation gera MORE IN a free role zamora up on his own
Hi ZM, maybe you have an answer to this. I just thought, it’s interesting that these two side did so well in the tournament but struggle in the league. And I remember that that has also been the case with Milan when they won the Champions League. Could it be that this is a matter of tactics?
Chelsea didn’t won the CL under Morinho, same did Inter until now; ManU used different tactics in both competitions. Is this coincidence, fatigue, lack of motivation or are there tactics that helps you win tournaments and tactics that help you win league competitions?
Interesting point, I think that your final question there, “Are there tactics that helps you win tournaments and tactics that help you win league competitions?” could be answered basically with ‘yes’. Impossible to sum up briefly, but in the case of these two:
Fulham’s league position is perhaps slightly lower than is ‘fair’ considering the ability of the team. They simply didn’t have the squad to compete in two competitions – they rested players before Europa games, and then the players were tired after them. It’s also a pretty old side – Etuhu and Baird were the youngest players last night, and they’re both 27. It would be interesting to see where they would have finished had they had a ‘free’ go at the Premiership without European distractions.
As for Atletico – well, in European competition this year they have 2 wins out of 15 games! It worked in a cup competition, but clearly would be pretty poor form in the league…
ZM,
The piece you wrote recently about the changing role of midfielders fits very nicely with the way in which Fulham set about the task last night. Ethuhu played the Makalele role (essentially an advanced central defender) and had a splendid match but curiously Murphy seemed torn between a deep-lying midfielder (the Mascherano role) and play-maker and was thus largely ineffective when not engaging in “false pressing” becasue he was too deep to dictate the play in Atletico’s half. The gap between these central midfielders and the two forwards was therefore too great hence the reliance on the long ball up to Zamora.
There are 2 problems with this tactic that both involve the wide players; When Fulham won the ball back, usually deep in their half, it was played quickly up to Zamora who would then look for support from Gera, in turn he would then be expecting support from the midfield quartet. As Etuhu and Murphy were sitting deep the responsibility to join the attack rested with Davies and Duff, however they were having to cover a lot of ground very quickly – this is unsustainable for 90 minutes, let alone 120.
The other problem is when Atletico won the ball back Murphy and Etuhu were usually still too deep to venture into the midfield, therefore (as Rocco mentions in the top post) Davies and Duff ended up doing defensive shielding, whilst retreating, in the centre of the pitch in front of their central midfielders.
It wasn’t that Fulham hit a brick wall after an hour, their players were all assigned specific positional duties with the exception of the wide players whose role was to act as fluid players allowing Fulham to defend as 442 and launch quick attacks as 424. It all went wrong when the two wide players were obviously exhausted, thus it appeared that Fulham were collectively exhausted when in fact most of their players were assigned overly cautious and defensive duties, the team was subsequently left without a counter attacking option.
In fairness to them they played for penalties and were only denied by a fortunate deflected goal.
Yes, interesting point about the two midfielders. I thought part of the problem was that Etuhu (the tackler) was obviously deeper than Murphy (the passer), but because Atletico’s two central midfielders played so deep, Murphy actually had more ‘active’ defensive work to do, in terms of tackling, intercepting, closing down etc. I wondered if Hodgson might have switched them around, allowing Murphy more time on the ball and getting Etuhu to close down quicker.
But I disagree slightly with your penultimate paragraph. Obviously the wide players had more running to do than anyone else, and so certainly tired quicker (hence why I thought it was strange that Greening wasn’t used to relieve the tiredness somewhat) but I thought it seemed a problem with other players too. A couple of times Hangeland looked absolutely knackered – on one occasion in particular, which I think resulted in Aguero hitting the side-netting. He took an age to turn around and run back towards his own goal, probably partly as a result of Forlan’s excellent movement throughout.
This is probably a result of bad periodization on the part of Fulham. Hodgson is known as a great hands-on tactical coach but you wonder what they do for fitness if the rested players from the league still look tired midway through the second half. Same problem shown by Liverpool this season too. Tactics are great but fitness is more important and it is vital to get that part right throughout the season.
Speaking of two-footedness, I noticed Etuhu was knocking the ball around well with both feet. At one point I managed to convince myself he might actually be left footed. Thought he had a great game, any idea if he’s expected to feature much for Nigeria this summer?
I think another contribution to how congested the midfield was, was that both teams defended very very narrow. The wide attacking 4-4-2 became like a 4-4-2 with 4 midfielders defending compact in front of the box. Hence why it was full-backs who found themselves with the most time and attacking space as their nomal marker was tucked inside.
Thankfully Ufaljsi was pretty poor with his deliveries.
What I’ve always wondered, is when managers are happy to give full-backs plenty time and space, is it conceivable to play an out and out winger/playmaker at full-back to chase a result?
Think replacing Ivanovic for Chelsea with, say, Joe Cole.
Also thought I’d comment on how toothless Fulham became without Zamora. It is a shame and the long cup run / long season took its toll but without Zamora, a well organised, machine-like team just lacked that cutting edge up front – and it was a losing battle from there.
Couldn’t agree more about the winger at full-back idea.
This may well be the next “innovation” in soccer. It could be a combination of two “inside out” fullbacks playing on the outside midfield, and two wingers behind them. I used to play for a manager who did just that, at youth level. Very different, and confusing for the opposition. If it happens on a widespread level, it will just mean that fullbacks and wingers will then be trained as “wingbacks”, so to speak, and then the next cycle of tactical evolution will occur.
However this will leave you vulnerable defensively, if the intended effect is to substitute more attacking power from the traditional fullback position at the expense of defense.
Perhaps this will push a deep-lying central midfielder further back into defense when the fullback advances, similar to a Gilberto Silva DM -> CB role?
It wouldn’t leave you vulnerable defensively if your aim is to press the ball in midfield. Similarly, if the winger-as-fullback advances, then the remaining 3 back four players can slide across to fill the space or the FB-as-wide-mid can drop in. The idea of playing fullbacks as outside mids is to win the midfield battle and attack from strong-side overlaps. It doesn’t make your system defensively weaker if you play your system better than the opposition plays theirs.
Well, in reality, a coach should try and play his best 10 players in the field,
all at the same time. That’s what total football is all about – exploit the wekanesss of the opposition. You spread your
best players around the field and play checkers with the opponents pieces.
Sure, “wingers” and “fullbacks” should be quick, but there would be nothing wrong with
playing Vermaelen as a “ten” or Eduardo as a “3″. Most of these players could play
anywhere, anyhow; the coaches just try and place them where they fit best as a part of tthe
team. As a matter of fact, Picque could probably play a “9″ on a bunch of other teams…(just don’t try to have Hangeland play outside and deliver crosses; dude’s awesome in the box but questionable with delivery).
A few years ago whilst coaching an U16 team I stumbled across this phenomenon whereby fullbacks tended to get more time and space on the ball than anyone else. The stereotypical fullback in the playground was the kid who was picked last, this was something that has tended to filter into youth teams – however I wondered what would happen if the fullbacks were not “rubbish wingers” who could defend, but instead were the most creative players on the team.
The result was quite interesting, by the end of the season both fullbacks would receive the ball quite deep and were able to run into the centre of midfield with several options; there were two other central midfielders (although one would tend to hold back), wide options on both left and right, a ball into the feet of a striker or a ball through for the quick striker. The remaining 3 defenders shifted to form a “3″.
By allowing the fullback to push into the central midfield area there were extra creative options than, for example, if the more advanced central midfielder had the ball they had to pass the ball outside of the central midfield (to forwards or wide midfielders) or backwards to the deep midfielder. By retaining possession in the centre of midfield with 2 advanced midfielders teams are able to look for the best option rather than be coerced by the opposition into playing the ball wide or a risky pass for the forwards.
I appreciate this is quite theoretical but I see no reason why it couldn’t be deployed if the team is organised. The idea of playing wingers at fullback is already kind of being used (prime examples are Ashley Cole, Dani Alves and from next season Jose Enrique) to good effect. It would take a brave person to challenge the idea of Maldini being the best left back ever, and he was a splendid defender, but the defensive fullback is a role that has become outdated.
I think Zhirkov is already quite close to this. Also Gareth Bale. The player would have to be a bit better defensively than Joey Cole, though he definitely does put in a shift tracking back.
The problem is that this seriously disrupts the accepted way of defending with a back four since if the opposite side fullback advanced, the true winger would advance as well leaving 2 CBs exposed to a counter. You’d need a DM to slot in and form a back 3 as has been discussed on this site previously.
The shifting DM into CB would then cause quite a gap in the central midfield position which the opposition could then exploit (on the counter maybe?) using the right formation/tactics…
Well any team that sends both outside defenders forward simultaneously in ANY back four system is asking for trouble. You overlap on the strong-side, the weakside FB sits, and the remaining three of the back four slide across.
Brazil have tried that recently, with Bastos as left back, but I wonder if they’ll keep him in the World Cup starting XI. In club, he is a very offensive left winger.
And, arguably, in any other team than Barcelona, Alves would probably play as a winger. As well, I remember Leonardo starting as a left back in 94.
What stood out to me was how slow paced the game was, especially on Fulham’s side. A player would receive a pass, not really run with it, pivot a bit, pass it to someone else, repeat. Duff at times seemed the only one interested in running WITH the ball. Was this down to fatigue or was it part of the tactics?
I thought that Atletico would really take the game to them with pace and urgency, but they also seemed content to play at this tempo, and really as you said their only danger men were the two forwards.
Shame Zamora wasn’t fit down the stretch, would’ve loved to see him at full force in this game and on the plane to SA.
I didn’t really like this write-up because it failed to give enough credit to Athletico. From a purely neutral point of view, i wouldn’t have been surprised if the score at the end of this game was 5-1. That’s how many more chances and opportunities for goal Athletic had vs Fulham. In fact, I think basically every chance that fulham had in the first half resulted in a goal, lol. In the 2nd, I cant think of more than 1 chance that Fulham had and it was the one you described above with the heavy touch.
It was a relentless attack from Athletico, and fulham did nothing to provide an attack themsevles. Only in the first half was it even a close contest, and even then Athletico was clearly the better team.
Also, it is as if only Fulham was on the pitch for 120 minutes. You do know that Athletico was also on the pitch for that same time, so why didn’t they get tired? Doesn’t Fulham even play in the faster paced EPL? No, it wasn’t tiredness as much as Fulham was simply outclassed. They were dominated and were lucky to get a 2-1 scoreline.
The class Athletico had up front with Aguero/Forlan was in another world compared to what Fulham had out there. Remember that Athletico just beat Liverpool in a 2 leg tie the round earlier. Liverpool obviously being a much more talented team from the EPL. The truth is that Athletico was simply too good for Fulham, and about the same as Liverpool, as far as talent and team strength go. Fulham never had a shot, unless they were going to get extremely lucky.
I was at the game and while Athletico deserved to win the manner of the two goals was hard to take. The first one looked clearly offside from the stands, but no-one has mentioned that and I haven’t had the liberty of a replay, so I guess it was not. Forlan’s movement won this game for Athleti.
Fulham’s wingers have been cutting inside all season, but for some reason over the past month or so, they haven’t been getting the support from the full-backs which made this tactic far more dangerous. Not once have the full backs been going beyond the winger and it has certainly been to the detriment of Duff’s game on the right wing.
This is the first time in the past month that Dempsey has replaced an injured Zamora but it hasn’t worked. That switch has led to a more fluid strikeforce with Gera and Dempsey, but Fulham missed Zamora’s ability to hold the ball and allow other players to join the attack. This left Demps and Gera isolated quite often.
As for Athleti dominating attacking, well they did in so much as Fulham allowed them to. Fulham’s defence is set up to permit the odd blast from distance and Athelti were more than happy to do this, but about 10 shots were wildly off target, which skewed the stats somewhat.
And Murphy was kept on the pitch as he is the main penalty taker at Fulham. Another 4 minutes and it wouldn’t have mattered.
So close, but Athleti were the better team on the night.
I echo your sentiments about the one-footed players in the Premier League but id like to point out that Rooney isnt one-footed in the slightest.