Santos 2-1 Peñarol: greater attacking variety gives Santos the Copa Libertadores
The starting line-ups
After a goalless first leg, goals from Neymar and Danilo gave Santos their first Copa Libertadores for nearly 50 years.
Muricy Ramalho made a few changes from the first leg, including a significantly different back four. Danilo dropped back from the midfield to become a right-back, whilst Leo started at left-back, and Edu Dracena returned at centre-back. Ganso had recovered from injury to take Danilo’s place in midfield.
Diego Aguirre had fewer selections issues, and was significantly content with his side’s first leg performance that he named an unchanged side.
The game was dominated by the home side, with Santos better both with and without the ball across the 90 minutes. They wasted chances and were a little unfortunate to concede a late goal – their superiority wasn’t reflected in the eventual narrow win.
Formations
Ramalho moved Neymar across to the left having been quiet last week on the right, and he drifted to the flank in a system which was a cross between a diamond and a 4-2-2-2, and therefore not dissimilar to Dunga’s formation when in charge of the national side. Arouca played at the base of the diamond with Adriano slightly advanced to his left, whilst Elano shuttled to the right and joined Ganso, playing as a classic number ten, but coming towards the ball when he was tightly-marked.
Penarol’s formation was a cross between a 4-4-2 and a 4-2-2-2 – their shape can also be likened to that of their national side in the last World Cup – see how Uruguay lined up against Ghana in the famous quarter-final last year – two very deep holding midfielders, two wingers, and a strike duo. Luis Aguiar and Nicolas Freitas never ventured forward from their role, screening their own back four, whilst the Matias Corujo played slightly narrow on the right, with Matias Mier more of a classic winger on the left.
Midfield battle
The outcome of the two formations was clear – there was one man who consistently had time on the ball in the midfield, Arouca, the deepest Santos midfielder. He had time to distribute the ball out wide to the full-backs and forward to the more attacking players, but his role changed as the game went on, and he gradually took more advantage of his freedom. For the first half hour he simply passed the ball, but thereafter he exploited his freedom to storm forward on the ball, leaving Adriano to drop in as the holding player. This eventually resulted in the opening goal, scored by Neymar, which came after a wonderful mazy dribble from Arouca (at the start of the video below).
Ganso was similarly impressive, escaping the attention of Peñarol’s midfield duo by coming deep and turning, then running at the ball with speed, also encouraging Elano forward to the right – his comparative width forced Aguiar and Freitas to adjust their positions and move towards their left.
Santos dominance
There were two key tactical reasons why Santos wee the better side. First, they worked much harder without the ball. Peñarol stood off when they lost possession, inviting Santos pressure and allowing their midfielders time on the ball. Their strikers simply walked back towards their own half. Santos were far more proactive without the ball, closing down all over the pitch. Neymar and Ze Eduardo were both energetic and often tracked the full-backs on their respective sides as far as the halfway line, meaning that Peñarol’s centre-backs were often the only free players – and neither were able to step forward and create from deep. As the two Santos forwards drifted wide, the Brazilian side often looked like 4-3-3, with Ganso almost the highest player up the pitch.
Santos’ second area of superiority was their compactness. As the forwards came deep, the gap between back to front was minimal, and a highish defensive line also aided this. In stark contrast, there was a huge gap between the Peñarol midfield and attack, meaning Alejandro Martinuccio and Juan Manuel Olivera were cut off from the rest of the side when Peñarol had the ball – and when they didn’t, Santos were allowed too much time on the ball deep in midfield.
Battles
The most interesting individual battles were on the flanks. Neymar played as a left-sided forward but moved towards the touchline to get the ball, meaning he often dribbled at speed up against Alejandro Gonzalez. Gonzalez picked up a booking which looked ominous as Neymar continued to dribble at speed – ironically, before Neymar could truly punish Gonzalez by forcing a second yellow, a foul of his forced Gonzalez off with an injury, to be replaced at right-back by Emiliano Albin.
The opposite flank saw a good contest between Mier and Danilo. Mier is a tricky winger who wanted to perform stepovers before finding a yard of space to cross, but Danilo held firm and didn’t commit to tackles. In the end, the right-back conclusively won the battle – his defensive strength meant that Mier was substituted, and his replacement Jonathan Urretaviscaya allowed Danilo to go untracked for the second goal – Danilo came inside and placed the ball in the far corner with his left foot.
2-0
Aguirre had to make changes at 2-0 down, and his side were at their best in the final 20 minute after a couple of substitutions, with both Urretaviscaya and Fabian Estoyanoff (who replaced Albin) on. Peñarol looked more like 4-2-4, although it was fluid in the final third, and the full-backs were much braver.
To their credit, Peñarol never resorted to hitting the ball long – particularly admirable considering they’d suffered for so long with the gap between the midfield and the attack being too large. They continued to work the ball wide before crossing, taking advantage of Santos’ narrowness. It was the two substitutions that created their consolation – a brilliant combination between Urretaviscaya and Estoyanoff deserved better than the finish it got – a crazy Durval slice that ended up in his own goal – but that was 2-1.
From there, the game became incredibly open and frantic – Peñarol pushed more men forward and Santos should have scored at least one goal on the break, with both Neymar and Ze Eduardo missing very easy chances. They held firm at the back, with Eduardo often dropping in to become an extra centre-back when the ball was wide, and on balance, they were the better side.
Conclusion
A very open game created various interesting battles, particularly in the wide zones. The game came down to which side operated better as a unit, however – Santos were more compact and more hard-working.
The role of Arouca was probably the most interesting individual tactical feature of the game – many holding midfielders take advantage of being unmarked by simply distributing the ball, but Arouca was more attack-minded and stormed forward to great effect for the opening goal.
Santos 2-1 Peñarol: greater attacking variety gives Santos the Copa Libertadores
Ganso was brilliant as a playmaker. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuNvzshdv7Y
It was a thrilling match with many chances, but I can’t help but wonder what would have been if Velez (a far, far more technical side than Penarol) had advanced from the semifinal. It is great credit to Aguirre that he took such a limited group of players all the way out of a tough group and with crucial away wins against much better squads such as Internacional.
Also, no mention of Zé Eduardo’s ineptitude? He not only misses an incredible number of 3-yard shots, he also thwarts many attacking moves with his poor first touch, lack of vision and indecisiveness. He makes Carlton Cole look like a La Masia graduate. I can’t recall a worse CF playing and winning a major international final since Guivarc’h in 1998.
I really hope that Neymar and Ganso stick around for the Club World Cup, a Santos-Barca final could be enthralling with those two battling it out against Messi and co.
Check out my blog @ http://www.inforthehattrick.blogspot.com
dude just stop.
Santos can beat Barça. Barça’s high defensive line is everything Neymar’s speed and hability to score goals plus Ganso’s incredible through balls want!
Wait and see!
not the best display/representation of Latin American football, no not at all when we learn that both managers were students of the great Tele Santana! “by any means necessary” was the order of the final. Penarol, you can excuse for being underdogs, limited, having a squad full of soon-to-be departees, age-defying veterans or on loan mavericks. Santos hardly played football under Muricy Ramalho, but however you win you win, credit to them and the wonderful duo of Ganso & Neymar. Arouca & Danilo deserve a share of the credit too.
you keep wondering what Penarol could have done if Estoyanoff had been on earlier. in every game he’s played, he performed well, but it always seemed to be at the end of the game.
ZM, I dont know how far back you’ve been watching this year’s Libertadores, but if you’ve only caught the final, you’d have missed out on tactical overdose by Velez Sarsfield, Universidad Catolica & Once Caldas. Velez would have surely fought this final as equals, but thats football for you.
Great piece ZM, I’m a fan of your work from Brazil, and I appreciated very much that you wrote about this final.
As a bit of a tactical fanatic too, I think there are two things you haven’t spoke about that are points of interest:
1. Although in the diagram Adriano appears relatively far away from Martinuccio, he man-marked the Penarol No10 during practically the whole match. The left-sided positioning of Adriano occured only when Santos had the ball; as soon as they lost it, Adriano sticked to Martinuccio, effectively marking him out of the game. The Argentinian forward is clearly Penarol’s only creative player in the starting XI, and the game showed how risky it is to have only one source for creativity in your team.
2. Penarol’s left-sided holding midfielder, Luis Aguiar, did venture forward a couple of times. He tended to drift to the left flank and set up combinations with Mier, who is a tricky winger indeed, but had a disappointing couple of games in the finals against Santos.
After all, I agree absolutely with you: Santos were by far the better side and deserved the title. One final note: I think Neymar’s performance was overrated. He did score the opening goal (although the keeper Sosa could surely have done better to stop the shot), but didn’t influence the game as much as Ganso or Arouca. In Brazil he has been hailed a king by the media…
Great points!
I (almost) totally agree with you, except in the last line about Arouca. He was the most overrated player. Sure, he was responsible for the breakthrough that led to the 1st goal, but had a poor game overall – lots of bad decisions with the ball.
Great review and totally delighted to see ZM covering a South American match finally! I am from Argentina and would love to read coverage from ZM about Primera Division tournament. Here in Argentina, all premier division matches are broadcasted by the public television (Channel 7, the state channel) and I am sure everyone can see these matches from thr web or so.
Thanks for doing this one, ZM.
Thanks for doing this game. Im looking forward to your analysis of Copa America.
Thank you very much for your analysis of the Libertadores final match. Maybe not the best exhibition of SA soccer.
To be honest, notwithstanding the work of Alex Bellos, I always have this feeling that SA soccer is underestimated by most of the englishman and other Europeans specialists.
I really liked your analysis, but I think that the ineptitude of Ze Eduardo should be mentioned. Compared to the squad they had when Andre was a member of Santos’s side, it is rather disappointing.
Further, I was really impressed on how Ganso’s return changed the way Elano plays around.
I do have a question for you, already imagining a possible match down between Barcelona and Santos.
Neymar have been playing mainly and as a left side forward, do you think he could be as effective if he was playing more narrow to the center?
In some games, Neymar played really close to Ganso, which generated a quick and creative game play.
If you have time, could you share your opinion with us?
Again, thank you very much, it was a pleasant joy for a Brazilian based in Tokyo.
Great to see some Libertadores analysis on here, ZM!
With the prospect of a Santos vs Barcelona clash in the World Club Championship in December, hopefully the profile of exciting South American club sides such as Santos will become more widely known, even in the realm of tactics.
Some random thoughts on the final:
- Arouca is not a natural holding player; we might be looking at a new Ramires – potentially a great asset provided that he is used within the correct framework.
- Arouca was able to play in the Santos double-pivot thanks to the presence of Adriano who would generally stay behind and screen the defence. Having said that, neither is Adriano a natural holding player – at least not an impressive one, given his awful anticipation. He almost seems like a full-back who has been thrust into an unfamiliar role whilst his hyperactivity clashes with the demands of the position.
- It is tempting to assume Neymar is just another Robinho in the waiting – bags of potential yet ultimately too individualist/egotistical to cut it in Europe – but there are two problems with such an analysis…
First of all, Neymar and Robinho may have been deployed in a similar role and position when breaking through at Santos, but this does not mean they are exactly the same kind of player.
Secondly, even if Neymar does go through a rocky period trying to adapt to elite European football, there is no reason he still cannot emerge an excellent player. Even Robinho himself has emerged as a much more professional, team-oriented player over this past season at Milan. Perhaps Neymar will assimilate this work-ethic/sense of collectivist responsibility at an even earlier stage and without the intervening fall-from-grace that befell Robinho.
Don’t count your chickens… everyone was anticipating the Inter vs Inter final last season (as I recall you wrote an excellent hypothetical blog post about it), but it failed to materialize. As far as the match, I was surprised at how “European” Santos played without the ball. As ZM pointed out, they pressed high up the pitch and stayed much more compact than Peñarol did.
However, Barcelona are another beast entirely. Santos’ holders aren’t nearly disciplined enough to close Iniesta and Messi down, Pedro and Villa (or Alexis Sanchez, should he arrive) will slice inside Santos’ fullbacks with relative ease, and I don’t know how well even the marvelously talented Ganso will hold up against Barcelona’s constriction of space (the similarly gifted Ozil was completely snuffed out by Barcelona’s pressers, especially Busquets). Neymar generally received the ball near the touchline in the second leg (and he proceeded to accelerate past whomever opposed him with alarming ease), and his supply might be cut off against a side that possess the ball better than Peñarol. He might be forced to move inside prematurely in the hopes of receiving balls to feet (textbook Arshavin), which will limit his effectiveness. With room to accelerate, Neymar is completely unplayable. If he is denied that room, he’s reduced to aimless stepovers and attempts to draw fouls.
Also, Barca peaked in form around Christmas last season (the heart of the 16 consecutive La Liga victories), which will coincide with the Club World Cup next season
Of course Matt, counting chickens is something I should stay well clear of!
But what I wanted to say was that this would be the kind of match that the World Club Cup/Intercontinental thing needs purely in terms of generating interest among European audiences, to shake them out of their provincialism as it were.
And I agree, this Santos is significantly poorer than Santos 2010 so it’s doubtful whether Ramalho would send them out to be so amibitious as to be naive. Muricy is, however, an excellent tactician in the sense that he will do what the job at hand requires. His Sao Paulo sides are testament to sound organisation, three centre-backs and playing on the break, so it’s likely he will find this the most viable method of withstanding a hypothetical opponent such as Barcelona.
Furthermore, as you correctly identigy, Santos’ full-backs – so used to being given free reign – would not be accustomed to playing against high-pressing wingers of a 4-3-3, and this is a huge spanner in the works of many a Brazilian team given that they tend to use the full-backs as an outlet for bringing the ball out.
About Ganso, my admiration towards him is equal but my reservations him extend beyond yours, and more specifically in terms of how he’ll fare against European opponents in general (and not just Barcelona). I say this largely because of the issue of space (or lack thereof) in the European game. As such, I really think he needs to engineer an eventual move to a particular setting; a club and domestic league which will not be so unconducive to his style of play. I see him potentially thriving in Serie A where could be a Zidane/Rui Costa-like figure.
But does Ganso seem like a Premier League player to you? Or even in La Liga?
all true, except that Muricy Ramalho is in charge of Santos. they’re not going to the CWC to play “o jogo bonito”…they will be prepared
I think Ganso would probably do an ok job against barcelona while ozil is a fantastic player for a playmaker he doesn’t actually receive alot of the ball (this for a number of reasons really partly because of himself (he doesn’t drop that deep, isn’t aggressive enough when out of possesion and because of his small stature you cant exactly lump balls downfield at him) and partly down to madrid (the wingers are both unbelievably direct ,frequently too direct, and the holding midfielders are not the best passers of the ball they frequently have to pass sideways or backwards or out wide and although this happens far more when the holding midfielders when being heavily pressed which against barcelona they obviously are because alonso is obviously an excellent passer of the ball but he needs that extra half a second to sort his feet out which is why I dont think he has ever had a good game against barcelona offensively) Back to ganso the midfielders there are actually posibly better passers than madrids when you compare elano adriano and arouco to alonso khedira and pepe (pepe’s lack of ball playing skills and excellent defensive abilities are interesting as he looked a very good player when playing against barcelona but bad against zaragoza). Ganso is a playmaker who wants the ball and distribute it effectively ozil’s play is more about directly setting up goals than ganso’s which might make ganso more effective against barca.
Although the in quality in south america is difficult to judge (altough i think frequently underated) it is very likely barca will be comfortable
Neymar is already a greater player than Robinho has ever been.
1 – Neymar is very very good at scoring goals. Neymar was the goalscorer of sao paulo state championship of 2010 and 2011, of the Brazilian Cup in 2010, The U-20 south american championship in 2010 and 1 goal from being the goalscorer of this copa libertadores 2011.
For people who don’t know Neymar very well, he started playing for Santos’ first team in 2010 and has already won all those championships I mentioned above.
Robinho has never been top scorer of any championship, what he did best is what we Brazilians love most – Dribling! Which Neymar also does much better already!
2 – Since the first game of Brazil’s National Team after the WC of 2010, Neymar is the best and most important player of the team. At the age of 18. Robinho became known almost turning 19 when Diego was better at the age of 17 that time.
3 – When Neymar played his first cap, he was already the main player of a national team with so many options up front. Robinho wasn’t a starter before the WC os 2006 when he was already 22.
4 – A player like Neymar doesn’t show up to us every year, every decade. It happens every 50 years. If you think we in Brazil are overratting this Neymar guy, I invite you all to wacth this 3 cap – 19 year old player.
Don’t forget about Paulo Henrique “Ganso(goose)”. His style of play reminds Riquelme and Zidane.
I agree with your analysis but I disagree on the posiotioning of Arouca and Adriano.Adriano is a typical “trinco” who stays in front of the back four and holds position.Sometimes Adriano is
designed to mark man-to-man the playmaker of the other team.He does that particuraly well and his job was marking Martinuccio in the final games.Santos can beat Barça, someone above said about Neymar against the high defensive line system, which is a true fact.But I see some problems on Edu Dracena and Durval marking Messi on one-to-one.It will be a great game, that’s for sure.