Football: After listening to the advice, I became the strongest free man! - Chapter 381

c381 Parallel advancement like the tide!

For one thing, Kroos and Modric often prioritize staying in contact with defenders who are under less pressure, resulting in the team playing a slightly higher proportion of back passes than Barcelona (14.73% vs. 14.01%), and 31.66% of forward passes. The ratio is the lowest in La Liga.

Secondly, the team will also lack penetrating passes in dangerous areas. After all, Kroos and Modric will be limited to the midfield and backcourt, and this 4-3-3 formation does not leave anything for James. Due to the position, it is basically impossible to expect smart passes that frequently pass through the opponent’s defense.

Thirdly, this idea of ​​​​consolidating possession of the ball essentially means “opening up a battlefield in a relatively safer rear”. It is true that there are many people in the backcourt, which is helpful for passing the ball. However, once the ball is lost, , the results are self-evident.

In fact, even in this peak season, Real Madrid’s midfield and backfield passing is far from that stable. Although the team loses the ball every minute of net defensive time, the frequency is quite decent and the third lowest in La Liga; but it loses the ball as high as 17.20%. The power occurs in the backcourt, but the proportion is the 10th highest in La Liga. It is not uncommon for midfielders and backfielders to dig holes for themselves, as shown below.

So far, Real Madrid’s passing and controlling method does not seem to be too threatening. However, this slow-paced advancement is neither all components of an offense; nor is it the only type of offensive system.

Real Madrid also relied on their strong performance after advancement and more diversified offensive routines to score 106 goals throughout the season.

It must be mentioned here that Zidane emphasizes passing and control but is not obsessed with it. The team should be simple and direct without ambiguity.

The more smart pass passes to the side, it is true that the penetration of the middle is impossible, but Real Madrid does not seem to care at all about whether there is penetration from the middle. Anyway, it was the end of the peak of the BBC. No matter how it is placed, in most cases, crosses are enough to rely on. arms.

The team contributes one cross every 1.45 minutes of net possession time, ranking second in La Liga in frequency; and its cross accuracy rate of 36.10% is also the second highest in the league.

The biggest advantage of maintaining the offense in a relatively simple way such as crosses is that it is extremely easy to accumulate relatively reliable shots – although these shots are difficult to avoid interference, they are at least close enough to the goal.

In the 16-17 season, Real Madrid formed a shot every 1.98 minutes of net possession time, beating all teams in La Liga at a frequency; and because the shooting areas are mostly concentrated near the small penalty area, it can at least increase the probability of scoring through distance, and each shot is expected The number of goals scored is as high as 0.128, second only to Barcelona led by MSN.

In the end, relying on the superposition of times, the team’s average number of expected goals per game is almost the same as Barcelona’s. The actual number of goals is slightly less, mostly because Barcelona’s shooting accuracy is better (the real shooting rate is 0.058 for Barcelona and 0.041 for Real Madrid). .

Of course, Real Madrid has never given up its “excellent tradition” of advocating crosses for many years. This is also a reasonable positional battle plan naturally determined by its frontcourt configuration.

So why are crosses in the 16-17 season so much more reliable than those in the following two seasons?

The first reason is that the frontcourt configuration is rich enough.

At that time, Bale had not completely fallen out of favor. He still made 17 starts throughout the season. With Morata coming to the bench to support him, and Cristiano Ronaldo’s continued strong performance, Real Madrid did not lack people in the opponent’s penalty area, and even Vazquez, James also has a certain awareness of grabbing points in the penalty area. In the end, although Real Madrid was suppressed by MSN next door at the top of the list of touches in the penalty area, as many as 6 people were shortlisted in the top 30 list, continuing to grab points resources. His ability is unparalleled in La Liga.

What needs to be especially noted is that Bell did not “let himself go” like he did last season. Zidane seems to have this ability, allowing Bell to reduce the ball holding and go to the penalty area to grab points.

Here are some animated pictures of Real Madrid passing the ball to grab points. Let’s focus on how many troops Real Madrid accumulated in the penalty area at the moment of the cross.

When the winger passed the ball, Morata and Ronaldo grabbed the point at the same time.

After Isco separated, he immediately entered the penalty area to grab the point. When Carvajal passed the ball, Bell and Isco in the penalty area grabbed the front point, and Ronaldo grabbed the back point.

When Danilo passed the ball, Real Madrid formed a three-man rushing point near the opponent’s small penalty area.

The above group-style point-grabbing charge not only creates multiple contact points, but also makes the offense relatively more flexible. On the one hand, when a winger passes the ball from the outside, the number of people in the penalty area can still be guaranteed to respond. Real Madrid therefore ensures more flowers. In addition to the leading striker Cristiano Ronaldo, there are as many as 7 people who have contributed more than 5 goals this season.

When Ronaldo crosses the ball as shown in the picture below, Bell cuts in at the right time and Morata resolutely grabs the front point, which can ensure that there are enough contact points in front of the goal.

On the other hand, the group charge allows you to play some small tricks from time to time when grabbing points, such as “the player at the back point detours to grab the front point”. This move is somewhat similar to the off-ball movement using screens in basketball. Of course, the premise is that in Enough troops must be concentrated in the penalty area to have the possibility of “covering”.

Note that James, who entered last, made a circle from the right area of ​​the penalty area, threw it to the left side of the goal, and gained the first point. And Iniesta, who was marking him, was attracted by the other two Real Madrid players who were competing for points. Without a group-style grab, this kind of movement would simply not exist.

Of course, Real Madrid’s own aerial advantage is indeed huge within La Liga.

The team achieved a super high success rate of 53.02% in the whole season, ranking first in La Liga. Its advantage over the second place is equivalent to the gap between the second and tenth places, which is completely outstanding.

With this confidence, it means that once a group charge is formed, the opponent is very likely to not be able to tell who is the focus of the defense.

Mobile warfare is still easy to say, after all, it is always good to focus on Ronaldo when defending against a goal.

However, when it comes to set pieces, the situation becomes extremely complicated when Real Madrid’s midfield and backcourt participate in the goal-scoring. Ramos frequently saves the team in set pieces that season, and the media keeps promoting what “big heart” means, but somewhat ignores that Real Madrid is a team with extremely terrible set-piece attacks-30.49% of the team’s set-piece attacks can eventually form a shot, and the quality is ranked fourth in La Liga.

In addition, the small routines under the group charge mentioned above are obviously easier to perform in set-piece attacks because more troops are invested.

With this idea in mind, looking at Ramos’s several lore again, it is not difficult to find that the “cover” of teammates is crucial.

Before Ramos competed for the header, it was obvious that Bale helped him to cover.

Real Madrid’s group charge, the number of people competing for the header was even far more than that of the defending Barcelona. In fact, even if Ramos could not header the ball, Ronaldo basically competed for the header without any defensive interference.

Before Ramos competed for the header, Varane moved forward first and helped him take away a defender; then Ronaldo helped him block another defender, and Ramos had almost no physical confrontation before touching the ball.

However, positional warfare is ultimately a relatively inefficient way of attack, although in most cases all teams have to resort to this method to solve the problem.

Zidane himself does not reject some relatively simpler and more direct routines. Although the team’s fast break has not recovered the fast-break level of Mourinho’s era, the 7.14% counterattack ratio “only” ranks third in La Liga; but the terrible thing is that 31.63% of the counterattacks can eventually form a shot, and the quality is far better than all other La Liga teams.

The parallel advancement like the tide below was implemented very well in the 16-17 season.

It must be noted that although Real Madrid did not have a top front-court ball-carrying player at the time, there were many midfielders who were good at holding the ball and solving the opponent’s pressing; although the team did not frequently hold the ball against the offensive end (the frequency was 14th in La Liga), the success rate of 44.85% was the highest in La Liga.

Some of the team’s counterattacks were actually largely achieved by the personal possession of the two Croatian midfielders Modric and Kovacic.

For example, Kovacic’s advancement.

In addition, the strong passing ability in the midfield and backcourt allows Real Madrid to directly launch attacks through long passes in the backcourt, which has never changed since Alonso joined.

The team attempts 1.95 long passes per minute of net possession time, ranking 10th in La Liga. As a team with strong passing and control ability and many short passes, this is already a very alternative ranking; what is rare is that the high frequency of long passes does not affect the quality of long passes. Real Madrid’s long pass success rate is as high as 63.82%, ranking first in La Liga-other teams in the top 5.

The frequency of long passes is different from that of Real Madrid.

In fact, in that season, Real Madrid reaped the rewards directly from long passes more than once.

Before the Champions League final of that season, Real Madrid and Juventus were called a duel between spears and shields. Whether it was simply the result of their cumulative goals scored or not, it was at least a correct judgment.

In fact, if the MSN combination was not too powerful and Zidane made a large rotation in the middle of the season, it would not be impossible for Real Madrid to win the league’s first goal.

This is a team that lacks a ball-holding god, but is extremely good at stacking shots.

Of course, this offensive mode naturally requires a large number of troops to be invested in the offense, and accordingly, there will be hidden dangers in the defense.

In fact, their performance on the defensive end is indeed not as good as the offensive end.

Defense: No hidden dangers of outbreak

Objectively speaking, Real Madrid in the 16-17 season is said to be the strongest in history, but there is still an imbalance between offense and defense.

The team scored a lot of goals on the offensive end, but the defense was somewhat lagging behind.

After 38 rounds of the season, Real Madrid conceded 41 goals, which seems to be the fourth-fewest in La Liga, but the gap is still quite obvious compared to Atletico Madrid (27), Villarreal (33) and Barcelona (37) (especially the top two).

From the data, they still have a lot of problems on the defensive end.

These problems can only be regarded as “hidden dangers” in such a successful season, but it is only a matter of time before they burst out.

In the following two seasons, Real Madrid really started the “defense pit” mode.

In fact, it is a very bad habit for the outside world to scold the defenders at every turn. In recent years, Real Madrid defenders have spared no effort in chasing back no matter what their own state is. It is precisely because of this that, except for the frequent counterattacks by opponents in the Lopetegui era, Real Madrid can limit the opponent’s shooting environment to a relatively poor range most of the time.

In the 16-17 season, this phenomenon was particularly evident. The expected number of goals per shot of Real Madrid’s opponents was 0.096, the fourth lowest in La Liga. Coupled with Navas’ barely passing performance (“blocking opponent’s shot scoring rate” 0.80%), Real Madrid at least limited the opponent’s “true shot scoring rate” to 0.015, the fifth lowest in La Liga.

Considering that teams with high ball possession usually gather a lot of troops in the frontcourt, leaving the backcourt empty, thus giving the opponent good shooting opportunities, it is very rare that Real Madrid can force the opponent’s shooting environment to the “poor” level.

So why do they lose more goals? The reason is simple – they really shouldn’t give the opponent so many shots with such a high ball possession rate – the team gives the opponent a shot every 2.73 minutes of net defense time, and the frequency of being shot is the 9th highest in La Liga.

No matter how bad the opponent’s shooting environment and shooting quality are, the accumulation of time and time again will eventually knock on your door.

What is the specific problem?

Real Madrid has adopted a rather fragmented defensive strategy – they do emphasize pressing in the frontcourt, and they can indeed benefit from it.

The problem is that Real Madrid’s pressing seems to only happen in the frontcourt. In other words, once the opponent hits the ball past Real Madrid’s first line of defense, it is often a smooth journey into the midfield. Zidane, either because of his understanding of his players or because of overall tactical considerations, seems to have never considered the midfield to follow the frontcourt to press.

If you only look at the two pictures above, it is even difficult to see that Real Madrid’s frequency of regaining the ball is only 2.83 times per minute of net defensive time, which is only the 8th level in La Liga.

The low total number of regained ball possession also makes the team’s extremely high proportion of regaining the ball in the frontcourt (17.88%, the second highest in La Liga) become somewhat pale and powerless.

The most fatal thing is the proportion of Real Madrid’s midfield regaining the ball. Guess how much?

A mere 37.84%, La Liga… second to last…

Limited by this poor midfield pressing strength, Real Madrid is simply poor in limiting the opponent’s passing and advancing.

In the net release time per minute, he will pass the opponent a terrifying 14.93 times with an extremely high pass success rate of 83.70%, which are the second and first highest in La Liga respectively.

What is particularly bad is that these passes include a large number of threatening passes that can produce substantial advancement.

Real Madrid’s opponents’ progressive pass frequency (5th), progressive pass success rate (10th), smart pass frequency (4th), and smart pass success rate (9th) are all in the top 10 in La Liga.

The most terrifying thing is the opponent’s pass to the front third area. The frequency is 9th, but the success rate of 74.10% is actually the second highest in La Liga.

This means that Real Madrid’s midfield interception can basically be ignored…

In terms of the use of defensive technical actions, it is not an exaggeration to say that Real Madrid has the potential for “grandfather disease”.

The team’s success rate in defending against the ball holder is obviously very high (63.06%, No. 1 in La Liga), but the frequency is only 2.58 net defensive times per minute, embarrassingly ranking 10th in La Liga; don’t even mention interception and cutting passes – it’s already difficult to interfere with such a high frequency of passes given to the opponent. In the end, Real Madrid only interfered with 9.78% of the opponent’s passes (i.e. the ball was touched, regardless of whether it was intercepted or not), ranking… 3rd from the bottom in La Liga…

In fact, in terms of Real Madrid’s personnel configuration, this situation is completely expected – whether Bale or Isco starts, it is difficult for Real Madrid to add a permanent defender in the midfield. It is normal for three people to form a midfield defense line, and among these three people there is Kroos, who has always been soft in defense. This means that Zidane’s emphasis on midfield pressing will eventually expose the back line to the opponent.

Therefore, even if there is pressing in the midfield, it is usually chosen at the right time and handed over to Casemiro to complete it – even more often in conjunction with the defender, rather than Kroos.

This is a two-line defensive position diagram marked according to Real Madrid’s initial defensive position. Obviously, Kroos, as a member of the left midfielder, did not appear in his own defensive zone. It was Casemiro who finally succeeded in the double-teaming with Ramos.

But it should be noted that Casemiro’s defensive zone is not actually here. In order to achieve this double-teaming, Casemiro is equivalent to moving Modric to the side with the ball, and Real Madrid actually missed a man in the middle of the midfield. How dare you use such a pressing frequently?

It is undeniable that such a defense will be extremely dangerous when encountering a strong enemy, and Real Madrid has indeed suffered a lot – especially considering that their defense line is often short of people because of the assists of the full-backs, and the problem of unfavorable midfield defense is bound to be magnified.

It is enough to explain why Zidane did not let the midfield press – the front court pressed but failed to press down, and the midfield pressed again directly messed up the overall position.

In fact, Real Madrid has tried to increase the number of defenders. The midfield is now 4 instead of 3, but the midfield still failed to cut off Rakitic’s receiving route in time. This is the risk that pressing must bear.

Then Rakitic passed the ball forward, and Nacho failed to steal the ball – note that theoretically, Ramos and Nacho should be flanking Neymar at this time, but Ramos can’t go to the middle to make up for the defense – because Marcelo didn’t come back, Ramos had to follow Suarez on the side, so he couldn’t help Nacho.

The three-man defense in the midfield was useless and couldn’t cover the empty space on the side. Iniesta almost aimed at the pass.

Marcelo inserted an assist and was unable to return to defense in time. Ramos was entangled in whether to help in the middle or help Marcelo take over Suarez on the side. While hesitating, Suarez had already succeeded in grabbing the point.

The good news is that Zidane himself is deeply aware of this problem. In many tough battles, he would order a winger to retreat. In addition, Modric was in good physical condition and had excellent running ability at that time, so he finally supported the number of midfielders in most cases.

For example, in the Champions League against Bayern, Bale, who started, basically maintained his defensive enthusiasm.

In fact, there were not many special highlights in this defense. It was basically a very typical 4-4 parallel position. The reason why it was brought out was to illustrate Zidane’s defensive arrangement at that time.

Post two static pictures. Everyone should pay attention to Bale’s retreat and the overall movement of Real Madrid’s defensive system.

Of course, before Valverde emerged today, Zidane actually lacked the chips to truly solve the midfield defense problem-Kroos and Modric partnered up, and all they could hope for was Modric to defend back and forth with his life.

But Zidane has never lacked important chess pieces for improvement on the wing-Lucas Vazquez can gain a foothold in Real Madrid, which is full of stars, for a long time, and the investment on the defensive end can be said to be a great contribution.

In extreme cases, Zidane will even let Vazquez retreat to the back line and play a conservative 5-3 system.