Nine points on Zenit 3-2 Benfica
The starting line-ups
An eventful match with lots of attacking and rather too many goalkeeping mistakes.
1. Zenit are now without Danny after his sad injury. He was their technical leader, brilliant on the counter-attack and wonderfully creative. Zenit are predominantly a counter-attacking side – their approach in Europe this year has been to sit back, soak up pressure and then hit sides on the break.
Here, however, they were much more proactive without the ball – the front players closed down, the fluid midfield triangle tried to press Benfica’s holders quickly. It created an open game, but Zenit allowed Benfica far too many opportunities to counter.
2. On that note, Benfica should have scored more goals, particularly on the break. Nicolas Gaitan, usually a fantastic user of the ball, was unusually poor with his decision-making and passing in key situations. One 4 v 3 break, for example, came to nothing with a woeful pass behind Pablo Aimar.
3. Aimar’s introduction, for the injured Rodrigo, forced Benfica to play a slightly different system, and they looked less dangerous when attacking after the switch. Jorge Jesus elected to put on Pablo Aimar rather than Javier Saviola, and whereas Benfica had been causing problems with the option of hitting the ball direct to the front two (with Rodrigo dropping onto Igor Denisov when out of possession, then spinning in behind him), Aimar sat much deeper in front of Denisov, and didn’t have the explosion of pace to get past him.
The line-ups after Aimar replaced Rodrigo
4. Roman Shirokov has been one of the most effective players in the Champions League this season with his ‘llegada’ – late runs to the edge of the box from midfield. The Zenit midfield trio often rotates at will, but here there was a more structured approach with the ball – Denisov sat, Konstantin Zyryanov played the link role, and Shirokov was free to power into the box. Like in the home game against Porto, he netted two goals.
5. Shirokov owes a lot to the intelligent runs of Aleksandr Kerzhakov, who continually peels away from the centre, takes a centre-back with him, and leaves a huge amount of space for the midfield runners to exploit. This was particularly obvious for the chance he created for Shirokov just before his first goal, and also for Sergei Semak’s goal that came at the end of a beautifully sweeping move.
6. Zenit’s reserve goalkeeper Yuri Zhevnov had a truly awful game, and looks well short of the required ability for this level. Benfica should have tested him more from range, and if Vyacheslav Malafeev doesn’t return in time for the second leg, Zenit may have serious problems if they’re looking to recreate the defensive-minded performance that resulted in progression away at Porto.
The line-ups after Spalletti's second half changes
7. Luciano Spalletti deserves great credit for the substitutions that allowed Zenit to dominate much of the second half. Sergei Semak had replaced Zyryanov in the centre of midfield, but Spalletti then brought on Vladimir Bystrov for the ineffective Maksim Kanunnikov down the right.
At the same time, Spalletti made an odd change, bringing Viktor Fayzulin briefly to a right-centre position, and Semak out to the left of the front three. Those players were clearly out of position, but Fayzulin was able to see more of the ball and created well from deep, while Semak got the finishing touch to the second goal after a fine move started by Bystrov on the opposite flank.
8. Nemanja Matic is currently nowhere near as adept as Javi Garcia in the holding role, and he failed to get a grip on the game in midfield. He actually completed more passes than any other Benfica player, but it was 30 completed passes from 54 attempted, a staggeringly poor effort for a central midfielder.
9. 3-2 to the home side sets up the second leg perfectly, and with the return leg of Arsenal v Milan likely to be a dead rubber, hopefully there will be more attention on these two fine sides. Benfica will be more attacking from the outset, and Zenit are likely to revert to a counter-attacking approach in Lisbon.
Fayzulin went to the center right after half-time as Semak came onto right wing and Kanunnikov switched to the left.
UEFA shouldn’t have permited the game on that pitch, it was impracticable. But $Gazprom$ has influence. How about that tackle on Rodrigo from Bruno Alves? That’s how you kill carreers.
It’s a sad indictment of our performance that your analysis, quite naturally, focused on Zenit’s display. This was as disjointed a performance from us as I’ve seen this season, and while much had to do with the options Jesus made, credit must go to Zenit for exploiting those weaknesses.
Using Matic rather than Garcia changed the nature of the two central pivots because Garcia often drops deeper into a space just in front of Luisão and Garay, which allows them to move slightly wider and the full backs to push onwards. Matic rarely does that and both midfielders end up occupying relatively parallel positions when on the ball, which doesn’t actually give any protection to either full back and, because they are slightly more advanced than Garcia would be, that left a lot of space for Zenit to take advantage of. What that meant was, I thought, that there was a lot of space behind the central duo and behind the full backs, and we were heavily punished.
That said, and as per your analysis, we really should have made them pay on the break. They pressed high after the first goal and we simply couldn’t play our way from the back because of the odd shape of the team and because instead of Rodrigo we had Aimar, who was often bereft of any options except when the wide players came inside (as they are wont to do, this was an extraordinarily narrow take on the 4-2-3-1 which I am not a fan of, especially when Zenit had so many bodies in the middle), which in turn blunted their attacking potency. While that meant we lost possession quite easily, both of our wide players/full backs found themselves in possession in key areas or in quick transitions. Their poor use of the ball, notably Emerson on the left and Gaitán on the right meant that instead of relieving pressure and pushing Zenit back we just gave the ball away and found ourselves defending again and again.
Jesus didn’t really see this as a problem at all and he did absolutely nothing to change anything until Nolito came on, far too late to have any real impact, while leaving clearly underperforming players like Gaitán on the pitch, when a tactical rejig might have wrestled control of the match away from Zenit. The scoreline clearly obfuscates what was an accomplished performance by Zenit (barring the keeper) and very poor decision making both by Jesus and our most influential players.
I have read so many articles or reviews about the blogger lovers however this paragraph is really a fastidious paragraph, keep it up.
Do Ajax v Utd.
http://economicinterest.wordpress.com/ My blog, doing an article on when the football bubble will burst 2moro
never seen a goalkeeper have such a terrible game.
Probably the worst performance of the season for Benfica.
Zenit, the weather and some dubious decisions from Jesus, contribuited a lot to that.
Zenit were very fast on the ball at times, and clearly were out-matching Benfica in the player energy department. The weather probably played a part in that, and Benfica who thrive on the counter were particularly poor, often not getting enough players forward.
That however may be linked to Jesus’ tactics for the game: the long ball to Cardozo.
Benfica never play that way, and even though Cardozo has developed his aerial ability in the last 3 years, going against a top-level air defender like Bruno Alves would always be triky. Especially after Rodrigo was out of the game.
Benfica continued to play long balls (again, a very uncharacteristic feature for Jesus’ Benfica), even though there was no one near Cardozo for him to pad the ball down.
Despite your analysis, I actually think Aimar played a very good role for Benfica… even though, as I stated, he didn’t fill the main strategy… He got the ball deep and offered a link that neither Gaitan (still not 100% after his injury time off, and overal not at last seasons’ level) and Bruno Cesar (one of his worst games, and his strong side is clearly on the left) were able to provide.
As you’ve commented, Matic also offers an extremely different skillset from Javi Garcia… and the team is very used to having Javi in there filling that hole in the middle of the defense… Matic plays higher up the pitch, and dsespite his physical presence, really shies away from contact.
He does offer a lot of passing quality, but Benfica’s overal strategy is always to play simple passes from the back, and neither Gaitan nor Bruno Cesar are keen on making forward runs without the ball to take advantage of long diagonal balls.
Another problem in having Matic, is that Witsel clearly plays a deeper role, than when Javi Garcia is in there. And Benfica lacked Witsel’s passing and forward runs higher up the pitch.
This game also showed that despite Benfica’s apparent quantity of solitions for the forward players (Cardozo, Rodrigo, Saviola, Nelson Oliveira, Gaitan, Bruno Cesar, Nolito and Djaló), there isn’t a real sense of variety in their styles… Oly Nolito and N.Oliveira with their directness offer something different… and Jesus preffers Nolito for games when the team has the majority of possession and N.Oliveira is still trying to find his role on the team. Djaló also has a different skillset, but he’s new to the team and didn’t compete in the 1st half of the season (see the Sporting/Nice transfer debacle).
P.S: Semak’s goal is probably one of the best of the season!
“Nicolas Gaitan, usually a fantastic user of the ball, was unusually poor with his decision-making and passing in key situations.”
I honestly don’t believe you see any Benfica portuguese league matches. Gaitan is one of the worse players in that squad when it comes to decision making.
bof, I like him
I like Bystrov, stretches the game nicely.
In addition to my last comment,isn’t Matic normally a box to box player
I think you knew how to arouse interest in me! I like the article so much that I think I didn?t even notice that I?m reading with an open mouth! Really very cognitive! So I?m writing here for everybody to enjoy it! Have fun!!!
Hi!! Really informative blog post. Nice and useful. Really thank you!
Thanks for this blog, thanks for these posts! Lot of truth, fun and inspiration!