Eduardo fails to track Igor Denisov, and Zenit get the upper hand in important victory
The starting line-ups - key man Denisov highlight in blue
After such an exciting first game between these two sides, the return match was something of a disappointment.
The match essentially revolved around a single key battle in the centre of the pitch. Zenit are usually 4-3-3 with one midfielder in the holding role, whilst Shakhtar generally line up 4-2-3-1. As in the first game, the midfield triangles were set to match each other.
Mircua Lucescu sprung a slight surprise in his side, though, with the use of Eduardo in the centre of the pitch, in support of Luiz Adriano. Eduardo has usually been used either on the flank or as the centre-forward – this was the first time he’d been used as a central player in the attacking band of three, with Willian and Alex Teixeira in the wide positions.
This changed that midfield battle. Eduardo is not used to tracking central midfielders, and therefore constantly failed to get goalside of Igor Denisov, Zenit’s deepest midfielder. It was unclear whether Lucescu had asked Eduardo not to track his man and stay in a position where he could launch quick attacks, or if he was simply not following orders. Either way, he played much higher up the pitch than Jadson in the first game.
In a game that took a long time to get going, the obvious result was that Denisov was always in space, and was allowed to dictate the game. He completed the most passes of any player – 62. The next highest player was his midfield colleague Konstantin Zyryanov on 50.
What made his freedom particularly obvious was that he didn’t just sit in position and knock passes from side to side – he sprinted forward to get into goalscoring positions – the Arouca role. Zenit play a wonderfully fluid midfield where Zyryanov and Roman Shirokov take it in turns to drop deep and cover Denisov’s forward runs (look at the midfielder’s average positions – right on top of each other) so he was able to make it to the edge of the box to attempt five shots. All came in the first half – as Zenit went ahead in the 45th minute, he was asked to be more conservative after the break.
His tendency to move forward also meant that he played more passes in the final third than any other player – 28. And he created two chances for teammates, too. All this is rather surprising for a side’s deepest midfielder.
It’s notable that his shots and chances created all came from a centre-right position. It might well be the case that this was because Eduardo tended to stray to (his) right of the pitch, and therefore Denisov had more space to exploit by moving to the right himself.
If it was calculated gamble by Lucescu, to get Eduardo into space, it didn’t work; he barely created anything on the break as Shakhtar were particularly poor. Instead, Denisov took advantage to control the game – the only surprise was that his influence didn’t result in a goal or an assist – Zenit deserved to win by a greater scoreline.
Eduardo fails to track Igor Denisov, and Zenit get the upper hand in important victory
Perhaps the dawn of a ‘false number 5′ role!?
Didnt manage to see either of the games, but Denisov’s passing charts look fairly similar in both (with more activity in the left channel in this game). Do you think Jadson did a better job in that game, or perhaps the Fernandinho/Mkhitaryan change had more effect?
Good question – I think Jadson did better at getting goalside, but I honestly can’t remember specifics as the first game was so frantic…it might even be the case that it was the same in that game, but there was so much else going on that it wasn’t noticeable. Whereas here it was quite quiet, so this battle was obvious.
False 5? How would you describe that? A player who is similar to a box-to-box midfielder, only starts off deeper?
A ‘holding’ player who has much freedom to move forward – most of the time would cause opposition problems in tracking him. If an opposition #10 was to track, he would be taken much deeper than ideal, limiting his own threat.
Would obviously require cover from another midfielder to prevent leaving space (Much as described here with the two other midfielders taken turns).
See http://www.zonalmarking.net/2011/06/25/santos-2-1-penarol-tactics/ for Arouca performing a similar role in last seasons Libatadores final.
I like this idea very much, but it requires a very unique player. You must have the defensive ability added to the energy and attacking threat. Who are players you can see performing this role? So far I’ve thought of Arturo Vidal and Yaya Toure, perhaps the latter being the better all-rounder.
Yaya Toure for Barcelona?
Alex Song? He does sometimes get forward well
I didn’t see the game but I do have one question. If Eduardo was playing higher up the pitch than Jadson and not tracking Denisov then wouldn’t Shaktars formation be more of a 4-4-2 which often struggles against 4-5-1’s spare midfielder (I’m thinking of Makelele with Chelsea a few years ago)than a 4-2-3-1. As your analysis demonstrates Denisov had the most passes and was alowed to effectively run the game.
Such a basic mistake by Lucescu, at least if Eduardo played in the hole as a number 10 and caused trouble with his movement (mayble like Ozil or Sneijder), then the choice could have been justified. Instead, the basic 442 v 433 mistake occurred: the deep-lying central midfielder (regista) was allowed to run the show… Imagine if someone like Pirlo, Xavi, Xabi Alonso, Scholes, or other such brilliant registas were playing instead of him? Zenit would have run riot then…
Unrelated: could you please update your upcoming section (and add dates to them)?
Thanks! Another great write-up ZM!
Nice write up of the tactics, but it would have been good to have the score and the names of the teams playing in the headline or first couple of lines. Tiny point though, keep doing a great job ZM.
Eduardo tells us that it’s Shakhtar, who get good coverage on this site, and Zenit is mentioned in the title. Agree about the score though.
Second that last point
looks like Shakhtar could have used former player Tymoshchuk this time, who of course played for Zenit as well
Funny to look at that link from FourFourTwo. It’s easy to see who’s clearly the best player on the pitch: Srna. I wonder why he wasn’t scooped up by a big team from Western Europe, right-back is not an easy position to play, and he’s clearly one of the very best. Content to play in Ukraine? High salary which English/Spanish/Italian sides couldn’t afford?
Indeed, I think he’s excellent. He’s captain – maybe he likes being the star…
He’s not really that good defensively and is much more suited to a club that will play 95% of games in a season against inferior opposition, like Shakhtar does. So he would probably be a good addition only for the best of clubs, something like Alves who is perfect for Barcelona but would find it very hard to replicate that style of play anywhere else.
He’s also a notorious diver (as bad as e.g. CRonaldo, just not as obvious due to playing in less known/followed leagues) and a kind of player that will argue every single call against his team by the ref. Now, that can be good in creating that “whole world against us” siege mentality, but it can also be bad. It can polarize players, force them into taking sides and also fosters loser mentality where every lost game is due to referees blah blah blah.
So although very good player, he comes with some additional baggage, would be really suited (and interested into) only to limited number of clubs, and is probably too expensive due to Shakhtar not really needing money, at least not in reasonable quantities. He likes being a big fish in a small pond, so he probably won’t leave Shakhtar.
Nice article to my mind. Thank u a lot for providing that info. By the way, why don’t you make another header?
Well, at least to something like this mobile signal jammers website has.