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.
