Porto’s Lopetegui and Diego Reyes: the art of scapegoating

The argument goes that Mexican defender Diego Reyes was so lacking in confidence and out of position in such a tough scenario that his permanence on the pitch in Allianz Arena dangerously compromised Porto’s interests. Reyes, who, playing as a centre-back, nullified the likes of Leandro Damiao, Oscar and Neymar during the 2012 Olympics final, had just had 477 minutes in seven matches prior to his lineup and, to make things worse, was deployed in the ‘unfamiliar’ right-back spot. By the 33 minutes of the first half, already 3-0 down to Bayern, Julen Lopetegui would have realized his own mistake and subbed Reyes off for natural right-back Ricardo. 

Two more home side goals were to follow in the remaining 12 minutes.

The key to deconstruct such a shallow argument is to analyze events in the first half. For events I mean what Bayern’s attacks were about and not what Reyes did individually (a defender can complete brilliant stats and defend poorly a single set piece that screws up all his previous work). In this respect, this graph about Bayern’s created chances -blue arrows represent passes which lead to shots and yellow arrows represent goal assistances- is very eloquent:

(First half, taken from FourFourTwo's StatsZone)

As seen, the overwhelming bulk of Bayern’s attacks were carried across the heart of Porto’s midfield and Porto’s left side; that is, through the inside play of Thomas Mueller and Robert Lewandowski, and the outside play of Philipp Lahm. Indeed, when still at 0-0, the Pole had hit the goalkeeper’s far post after a quick interior combination with Mueller that showed how easy Bayern could dismantle the away midfield. Remarkably, what the graph also shows is that Porto’s right side just conceded a single created chance (the 1-0 by Thiago Alcántara); the flank covered by Diego Reyes initially and Ricardo subsequently.

The deconstruction of Bayern’s opener illustrates the actual pattern of Porto’s misery. In the one hand, seen from the perspective of a man-marking system, Diego Reyes stuck to Mario Goetze, Bayern’s left winger, and Ricardo Quaresma had to track back Bayern’s left full-back Juan Bernat. In spite that Reyes stuck tight to Goetze when he charged forward inside the box, Bernat was free to cross for Alcántara’s surprise surge. Albeit centre-back Maicon was really poor at Alcántara’s header, he can defend himself by arguing that the Spanish-Brazilian midfielder, again in a man-marking system, was left absolutely uncovered by Héctor Herrera. If, on the other hand, Porto’s system was zonal-marking, then Reyes should have been stationed on Porto’s right flank but then Goetze would be left free to go inside and able to provoke overloads in a far more dangerous zone for Porto. Man-marking or zonal-marking, the Portuguese side was thoroughly outplayed from the birth of Bayern’s attacks.

In other words, Lopetegui’s tactical plan (if one other than sitting very deep did exist) was a total disaster. One should contemplate and hail the Bayern Munich brilliance and Guardiola’s tactical masterclass over a side that almost self-destructed from the show given at Do Dragao. But, if your first reaction as a manager, when you see your side opened up in the midfield and the left side, is to make a straight swap in the right-back spot you are clearly trying to absurdly blame one single component of your system for its wholesale failure.

And that is scapegoating. Diego Reyes now at least knows that Champions League football sometimes implies lumping silently with despotic tyrants.

Danubio, the poorest and most loser side in Libertadores?

Commonsense in football journalism says it's ill-advised to write about poor and loser sides in any given competition; unless, of course, the poor and loser is a big club whose misery illustrates decadence and deterioration. Uruguayan side Danubio FC qualified to this Libertadores as reigning champions of their domestic league, and yet, their continental record this year can't be poorer: all games lost, the bottom place of their group already guaranteed with one match to go, fourteen goals conceded.

Having watched all of Danubio's losses so far, however, something keeps telling me I'll regret it for long if the chance to write about them is simply let pass by. That is because Danubio is not a poor and loser side: it is merely a too young one, if not entirely juvenile, that ran with the awful luck of being seeded within this Libertadores's Group of Death along current monarchs San Lorenzo and Paulista powerhouses Corinthians and Sao Paulo FC. In any other group, the odds could have been rather good to make a decent stage and even dream with progression.

Their boss, Leonardo Ramos, went bold and courageous enough as to field a three-man defensive line in which the most experienced member was the sweeper, Matías de los Santos, with just 22 years old. To the latter's right was Federico Ricca, 20 years old, and to the left was Cristian González, 18. When De los Santos was unavailable, Ramos picked Joaquín Pereyra, 20.

Training Athletic de Bilbao, Marcelo Bielsa used to say that, as a coach, it was cynical to field youngsters in order to expose and prove them unable to compete in tough scenarios. Well, in the case of Danubio, Cristian González endured a true nightmare in Montevideo trying to cover Corinthians' experienced striker Paolo Guerrero. The Peruvian himself had endured a difficult first half under the supervision of impressive Federico Ricca; by the second half though, Guerrero moved towards González and Corinthians finally found the path to victory in Uruguay. What did Leo Ramos do afterwards? He gave confidence to González and his young folks as undisputed starters for the subsequent matches.

Brazilian supporters of both Corinthians and Sao Paulo might cast my interpretation of Danubio as highly partial and over-romanticized as the Uruguayan side showed lots of dirtiness that went unpunished by apathetic referees. It is true. There is no innocence in their youth: with clenched teeth, more often than not the Danubio players indulged on unnecessary challenges and blatant aggressions which made many of them well-deserving of straight red cards. Killer children. Uruguayan ones who see in violence, either in physical, verbal, or in footballing terms, the only way to lift their club from the humbleness of the Uruguayan league and make it compete with South América's finest.

One feels he will regret not writing about the likes of Ricca, González and De lo Santos as they can well turn into the future Uruguayan centre-backs plying their trade in some European superclub. The same can also apply to the correct holding midfield duo of Fabricio Formiliano and Nicolás Milesi. Albeit Danubio is neither Peñarol nor Nacional (not even Defensor Sporting for that matter), notable former players include Marcelo Zalayeta, Álvaro Recoba and Edinson Cavani.

Danubio, the poorest and most loser side in Libertadores? Not at all, they are by far the most refreshing side in Libertadores and well worth watching them.

Osorio's Atlético Nacional goes conservative in La Plata

  The 3-3-4 formation which the Atlético Nacional de Medellín boss, Juan Carlos Osorio, deployed for the home match against Ecuadorean Barcelona de Guayaquil was indisputably the main factor behind the most vibrant Libertadores match so far. Atlético Nacional had thrown punch after punch, worked both the inside and the outside of the pitch to attack, showed energy and courage. And, at the end, nevertheless, the Ecuadoreans took the best out of the tactical imbalance of the Colombians and collected the three points with a 3-2 victory that uncovered the ugly face of Osorio's romanticism.

That ugly face was almost crystal-clear: those who should have been the wing-backs within a traditional 3-4-3, Venezuelan wingers Alejandro Guerra and Jonathan Copete, were pushed so high up that, while both helped to connect with the forward partnership of Pablo Zeballos and Luis Ruiz through their mobility and dribbling (Guerra was unstoppable on the right), the three-man defensive line and the holding midfield duo were left alone against Barcelona's 4-2-3-1. Sometimes, Atlético Nacional had a spare man on the back and often that wasn't enough as the opposition's attackers were faster on the counter. Therefore, it was easy for the Ecuadorean side to harm Atlético Nacional with simple transitions.

The romantic mistake was not to be repeated yesterday in the away game at La Plata versus former Valencia CF manager Mauricio Pellegrino's Estudiantes. Osorio moderated his approach, although 'moderate' might sound euphemistical if one considers that Atlético Nacional only managed to make one shot on target -the winner by Jonathan Mejía- during 90 minutes. Indeed, he went conservative by reverting to a typical 4-2-3-1 shape with four natural centre-backs (Murillo, Henríquez, Peralta and Nájera) in the back line. Osorio also dropped Zeballos and lined up Ruiz as the lone forward whereas Alejandro Guerra was fielded on the right wing and Mejía in the number ten role behind Ruiz himself.

Osorio's caution is illustrated in the above image: despite the fact that the eleven players of Estudiantes appear in a defensive 5-3-2 shape on their own half, just eight field players of Atlético Nacional appear in the offensive phase of the 4-2-3-1. That is, the centre-back pairing, Peralta and Henríquez, are on their own half with no one to mark and thus the system is quite cautious                      

Tellingly enough, the only goal of the match came from a quick counterattack in which Estudiantes' own wing-backs (Rosales and Álvaro Pereira) didn't track back with enough speed and hence the centre-back trio of Seba Domínguez, Jonathan Schunke and Leandro Desábato was exposed by the mobility of Ruiz making a great decoy run. And the lone Estudiantes holding midfielder, Gastón Gil, was easily beaten by Mejía as well as by Guerra a few minutes later for another dangerous Colombian attack.

What one can draw from Osorio's counterattacking strategy against Pellegrino is his faithfulness to the tactical textbook of conventional wisdom. When the opposition lines a centre-back trio, the textbook says, a lone striker is to be flanked by wingers on either side so they can drop to help in the midfield battle and this makes one of the enemy three centre-backs redundant. The opposition may have possession but will be vulnerable to counterattacks at pace as the wingers can surge and create one-on-one situations: exactly the same that Barcelona de Guayaquil did to Atlético Nacional in Colombia.

In order to equalize, Pellegrino also attempted to play textbook strategies by switching constantly to the many variants of 4-4-2 after half time, but his tactical shifts were frankly confusing. For instance, he deployed Seba Domínguez, a heavy defender now on his 34, on the right full-back spot to no offensive avail. Having observed Domínguez's situation, Pellegrino subbed him off for a classic Argentine trequartista, Román Martínez, and thus placed an otherwise young forward, Carlos Auzqui, on the void left by Domínguez's departure. Confusing and chaotic. Dominant but unable to penetrate.

By the final whistle, Osorio celebrated effusively, for his tactical and strategic shifts towards conservatism proved fruitful. This Colombian coach, who in other scenarios likes to make risky bets and produce enthralling football, is learning quick how to play round-robin tournaments with caution and patience.

Where is Ramón Díaz’s Paraguay heading to?

Back in the 2011 Copa América, what could have come as Paraguay’s most glorious day was instead the beginning of the end of the successful modern cycle of a nation that achieved successive World Cup classifications between 1998 and 2010. That afternoon, goals by Luis Suárez and Diego Forlán in the final in Buenos Aires piled-up to an easy 3-0 Uruguayan victory that bore witness to a perplexingly faint Gerardo Martino’s side. Arguably, that poor show just heralded what was to come: four different coaches in four years and the bottom place in South American qualifiers for Brazil 2014.

During that successful modern cycle Paraguay was never exactly the model of some sort of aesthetical football, but the blueprint of adamant tactical organization, ruthless finishing, and unforgiving braveness. It is somehow telling that, despite all the languid performances Paraguay put on during the qualifiers, in 2013 the team managed to collect a surprising 3-3 tie to Germany in a friendly match at Kaiserslautern. Although Joachim Loew lined up the likes of Mueller, Lahm, Khedira, Ozil and Reus, Paraguay always was on the lead and only a last-minute goal put the Germans level. The Guaraníes -as the Paraguayans are called for the country’s majority ethnic group- showed their lost pride and sheer guts at least one night on European soil.

As the 2015 Copa América fast approaches, however, the team’s perspectives look pretty uncertain. The Paraguayan Federation sacked Víctor Genes, the coach in charge for that German draw, and named Argentine boss Ramón Díaz in his place. For Pelado Díaz, this is his first job as coach of a national side being the case that his is a well established name in Argentina’s first division with River Plate and San Lorenzo de Almagro. Many Argentine pundits agree in saying that Díaz’s career has faded in recent times and he might be taking a country to reignite his career and thus resemble Gerardo Martino, who is now in charge of Argentina.

In his first two friendly matches Ramón Díaz has collected a goalless draw against Costa Rica in San José and a 1-0 loss to México in Kansas City. Notwithstanding cohesive play cannot be expected from the onset for a manager who landed on the job, Paraguay exhibited far too little basic football and far too much dirtiness. Consider the simultaneous debut of coach Gustavo Quinteros with Ecuador: Quinteros knows the Ecuadorean league, his tactical system does not represent a radical break from his predecessor, and he himself was bold enough to introduce some new players like Miller Bolaños and Ángel Mena. As a result, although Ecuador lost its friendly matches against México and Argentina, the play was fluent and fairly propositive.

Putting tactical issues aside, Díaz’s initial list of players included injury-prone Roque Santa Cruz -who did not play in either game- and a set of names from the Mexican league whose international value is either fading or yet to be proved. Paulo Da Silva, 35, might represent the first case; Édgar Pájaro Benítez, the second one. Oddly enough, Óscar Tacuara Cardozo, joint top-scorer in the Turkish league alongside Demba Bá, was omitted from these games. Omitted as well was young AS Roma’s Tonny Sanabria; FC Basel’s Derlis González was called but could not make it through legal issues.

Both Paraguay and Ramón Díaz are betting risky on this project: the federation is hiring a winning coach who, nevertheless, clearly does not know Paraguayan football in depth, and the coach who will lead a national side in transition for a Copa América which will feature better established teams like Ecuador, Venezuela, Chile and Uruguay. 

Perhaps, for now, the only thing Díaz needs to do is to restore Paraguay its unforgiving braveness and sheer guts.