Uruguay 3-0 Colombia: Tabárez's solutions, Pékerman's troubles

 The decision-making of Óscar Tabárez and Néstor Pékerman in Uruguay and Colombia can't be more dissimilar now: the former copes with the absence of his world class Cavani-Suárez striker partnership due to suspension, while the latter enjoys such a deep pool of talent in quest for a way to fit it all within the same squad. The Montevideo clash showed a Uruguay of no glare, but cohesive and ruthless, and a Colombia of glare, but too imbalanced and fragile.

Although the Colombia boss didn't have James Rodríguez, he used instead decent playmaker Edwin Cardona from the start and later in the second half introduced another ball-playing midfielder in MacNelly Torres without subbing Cardona. Indeed, the use of Freddy Guarín shuttling to the right of holding midfielder Carlos Sánchez was reminiscent of the midfield diamond used by Roberto Mancini at Internazionale with Guarín in the very same role. Juan Guillermo Cuadrado, however, began the match wide on the left wing flanking Cardona and thus it was an unorthodox (and tipped) formation. Cuadrado's spot on the left, being right-footed himself, raised controversy amongst Colombian twitters, but Colombia's underperformance first and foremost was about tactical imbalance and just then about individual performances.

                                             

The image that heads this story is eloquent: whereas left full-back Frank Fabra is well protected by Cuadrado's tracking back, right full-back Santiago Arias is alone in front of oceans of space with no winger to double protect his channel. It only took some audacity by Uruguay's full-back Álvaro Pereira (as Martín Cáceres was early replaced through injury) to gain the bottom line and cross or provoke set pieces. All in all, Pékerman was justified to deploy two numbers nine - Bacca and Teo- with a complete platoon of creative players behind them as long as he surely expected Uruguay to seat deep with two banks of four and soak pressure up with 0-0 still on the score. Colombia's tactical imbalance became an issue when Uruguay took the lead via a Godín power header and thus Colombia had to chase the match. The home side sat deeper and exploited the wings yet again for the successive goals as Carlos Sánchez and Guarín were clearly outnumbered at covering the the pitch to the right. Teo should have tracked back, but he's proven great at running horizontally, not vertically.

The new troubles of Pékerman with Colombia seem rooted in his persistence on playing the whole offensive arsenal at expense of balance and width. The Copa América elimination to Argentina a few months ago was a similar match to this one in Montevideo: Pékerman fields a lone holding midfielder -that time it was Alexander Mejía- who clearly gets outnumbered by default formations such as 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1/4-3-3. Against Argentina, his squad bled in the center of the pitch; with Uruguay, it bled over the flanks (see heatmap).

                             

The old solutions of Tabárez with Uruguay, as usual, seem rooted in the boss's recognitions of where Uruguay as a team has world class talent and where it has just decent players. It's noteworthy, however, that both Suárez and Cavani were absent and anyway the block remained cohesive and well organized. One is even tempted to say that, had Uruguay played a strikerless formation of 4-4-0,  they anyway would have relied on set pieces to score and on their two banks of four to maintain their lead and alienate the opposition. Formation and strategy permit the return of both strikers with the minimal previous work allowed by international football.

The Montevideo match between Uruguay and Colombia gives credence to South American qualifiers' reputation as the toughest of all. For they demand quick solutions and punish dearly those who get into tactical troubles.