The Simeone system in the circularity of football

Time is a dimension, what is used to measure the change. The passage of time is the 4. dimension, what means a temporal extension. We process time linearly. The big question of science is examining space and time. We can't split the two continuum, because as Einstein's theory of relativity says: spacetime. Time depends on the observer's spatial correlation (twin paradox). But do space and time exist independently of consciousness, or we just created these continuums to describe the world around us? It worths to think about. As I heard in a series: "Time is a flat circle." So what happened once, will happen again, and again. But what's the difference? The consciousness, that defines the cognitive interpretation of the given situation. The process of learning helps this, in what we deduct conclusions from our experiences, so the personality develops, the behaviour changes. Of course It can only be observed, when the person actually learns from the experiences. That's why a lot of people fall into the trap of time, because they can't learn from the past. 

We used to say about football, that it's circular. Here comes the analogy with the previous idea. What happened once, will happen again. Once the defensive football, then the attacking football dominates. This moves the football forward. Somebody invents something, then an other person re-counters, so the evolution is continuous. Of course a lot of coaches fall into the trap, while others can evolve, adapt. It was Tata Martino's biggest mistake. In 6 matches agains Atletico Madrid, he couldn't evolve. Of course on the other side there was Cholo Simeone, who made an amazing system. 

Atleti's biggest focus is on defending, and then fast transition to attack. Their defending contains 2 components:

• deep, compact defendind on own half (we will analyse this)
• counterpressing on the opponent's half

Atleti defends narrow, they want to reduce the opponent's space of the action in this way. This is the main principle : force the opponent's attack to one direction, which means the wide areas. 

The width of defending is about 20-25 metres, while in depth it's 20 metres, they are very close to each other. They want to keep the opponent far from the goal. Team's big problem is (now Barca) that there are only one player inside the Atleti-phalanx.

But when there are more player between the lines, Atleti use man-marking on the player, so they force him backwards/backward pass. If the opponent pass the ball between the lines, the defender comes to mark him, but there are occassions, when the midfielders marks the player, they reduce the space. The most important is, to not let the opponents turn around, so he could face the goal. 

When the ball is in wide areas, they try to make decisive dominance around the ball (they shift to the ball's zone). This means in the 4-4-2 system, that the winger, the fullback, and the closer central midfielder (plus occasionally the closer centre back). They have player advantage, so the attack can't go forward, only option is backward pass. We can see on the pictures, that there are space in the defending, but they can't exploit it, because of the advantage in the middle (maybe with running in from deep positions, but they still have more player, so if the pass is successfull, there are more defending player). Barca yesterday used the only option: crosses. But in the middle Atleti had number and physical advantage, so the crosses didn't work (although only Alves had 15). 

There is one more thing: the players' head orientation. When the ball is in wide areas, they turn towards the ball, and they don't let the ball inside. That's why they can force the ball to wide areas, because after a backward pass the opponent is forced to wide areas again. Barca's solution for this was bringing Messi back to deep positions, he undertaked the skills, and 1 on 1 situations, but Atleti could stop him after 1-2 successful skills (with tackling or with fouls). 

Yesterday there were some counterpressing, too. Especially in the end of the first half, and in the beginning of the second half, Barca barely went out from their half. They press not very often (except from throw-ins, goalkicks). In this way they try to disrupt the opponent's build-up, the ball can't go the safe place, there is no direct goal-threat. 

Key thoughts: 

• narrow defending -> force opponent to wide areas -> decisive dominance in the ball's zone (shifting) -> force backwards/steal ball
• head orientation, normal defending position, so the opponent can't go to middle positions/spaces
• counterpressing -> reduce the opponent's space/time
• pressing -> disrupt the build-up -> ball can't go to safe position -> no goal-threat-

Tiki-taka analysis

We can call the Spain's and specially the Barcelona's style as: tempo attack. This is an attacking conception based on possession.

Definition of tempo attack: 
-Finding and taking advantage of opponent's impotent moment.

Purpose of tempo attack: 
-Raid on the vulnerable point.

 Tempo attack has an important element: "surprise effect". When can we do it? 
-Opponent's bad rhythm reaction
-Speed difference benefit of the attacking player
-Disruption of the oppontent's structure

Attacking organization tasks: 
1. Picking up the basic formation
2. Keeping/"frozing" the ball
    a., looking for the tempo
        -evolving gaps
    b., catching the tempo, hitting the inertia moment, starting the attack
3. Raid. Taking over the attack. Invasion to the defensive wall or breaking through the defensive line. 

This is just the theoretical basis of tiki-taka, more analyses with a lot of examples will come later. 

The art of Pressing

Firstly make a difference between pressing and counter pressing. Counter pressing starts at the moment of losing the ball, while pressing is an organised interception starting for a given sign, when the opponent have the ball. 

So let's define the attacking organization tasks: (we just need the first two tasks, so I don't write the others)

1. Allocate the ball into a safe place after interception

2. Bring out the ball

    a., Incease the game space in width and in depth

Counter pressing is about to prevent the first task, pressing is about to prevent the second task.

The mental purpose of the defending is to reduce the space and the time, which need for accomplishing the activity with the ball. It has two methods: zonal marking for reducing the space, and man marking for reducing the time. In a match both of them appears, but sometimes one of them is more dominant.

The purpose of zonal marking is to delay the attack, and to force the opponent into a mistake.

The purpose of man marking is to cut down the time for the attacking player to recept the ball, and to tighten the space, which needs for transmitting or holding the ball. In a part man maring is zonal marking.

Pressing's and counter pressing's shape element is diamond. Why? Because this is the best formation to control the space. The second point of attacking organization tasks says, that the attacking team have to increase the space in width and in depth, and you can prevent this with a diamond formation, because the two players, who are located at the two sides of the diamond can deny the space increasing in width, and the bottom member of the diamond can counteract the space increasing in depth. We will see this perfectly in the examples. These examples are from Barcelona, Bayern Münich, and Athletic Bilbao matches.

Pressing

As I wrote before pressing is an organised interception starting for a given sign, when the opponent have the ball. Of course we can see here the diamond formation.

So here is the diamond, the defender one (who is the nearest to the ball at pressing, now Messi) attacks the player, who has the ball, the defender twos (the two side of the diamond, now Iniesta and Pedro) protect the wings (if the next acitvity is a side pass they will be the defender ones, who have to attack the ball), and the defender three (the bottom member of the diamond, now Xavi) is about to deny the depth pass.

Other example of pressing from this match:

Barcelona's pressing is zonal marking and man marking at the same time, but sometimes one of them is more dominant. The defender one and defender three use man marking dominantly, while defender twos use zonal marking dominantly.

Some examples from Bayern Münich.

Bayern Münich's system is like Barca's system, the only difference is, that Barca uses a more agressive type of pressing.

But Athletic uses an other type of pressing. They use man marking not only at the area of pressing, but at the other parts of the pitch. Bielsa organises a man marking, so everybody have their own man, except of a central defender, who is called "spare-man".

In this picture we can see the man marking, the two player signed with a blue point are the defender threes, so that's why there are two diamonds. The "spare-man" is framed. On the next picture we can see the same (2 diamonds, 2 defender three, man marking).

Counter Pressing    

Counter pressing starts at the moment of losing the ball. Examples from Bayern and Barca.

When we saw, that in pressing the defender two use zonal marking and man marking too, but in counter pressing they use man marking dominantly. The defender one and defender three have the same role.

 

After losing the ball, the defender one (Inista) immediately attacking the player with the ball, the two defender two is the two full-backs, who are placed in the middle of the pitch (to tighten the space), the defender three follows the player, who comes back, the result is interception.

This is a perfect example of counter pressing, and by the way there are more Man Utd players in the pictures, but because of the well organised counter pressing, that doesn't matter.