[MENTION=12906]DonAndres[/MENTION]
You didn't understand me or perhaps I didn't explain it very clear.
First I need to define what 'center' or 'middle' means in the scope of this comment. By center I mean every area where a player can find a teammate and pass in a 360° angle. So if I am sort of near the sides, but I still have a teammate who is wider than me, by all accounts, I'm in a pretty central position in relation to my teammates. So center does not mean right in the middle of the park. But more occupying a place where I have teammates and options to continue the attack in every direction. If I look right and there is no-one wider than me in my team, and I'm sort of right near the sideline, then I am not in the center anymore.
All big teams will use the wings and can create very dangerous actions there, especially if you have skilled players like Messi, Neymar, Henry, Robben and top fullbacks like Marcelo, Lahm, Alves etc. But the question is not if you do it or not, all teams do it. It is about when you use the wings, and how you plan your wing attacks to improve the success rate, and create chances. The managers who don't have a strategy regarding this, basically go with the flow, and in this case the success or failure of attacks is mostly down to whatever form your star wing players are in on the night.
Let's say a defensive team has a middle-wing defensive coverage of 60% - 40%. They will reinforce the middle more, as it is normal, but would also be very careful in the wing and won't give too much space in the wide channels either. Which is quite common actually, because most teams don't move off the ball a lot when in positional attacking phase.
Valverde's Barcelona falls in this category. Not too much movement, very few changing of positions, not many off the ball triangles. You basically don't see these 'on the move' passing combinations, where players know each other almost telepathically. So, naturally vs a Valverde side, teams would basically reinforce the center, but not too much, knowing that without off the ball movement being great, it's quite hard to get away of markers.
So, Valverde's Barcelona faces teams that have this 60 - 40 balance between central coverage and wing coverage in defense. Let's make it 65-35, let's say Messi alone makes opposing teams be even more careful in the center, even though we all know Messi doesn't move too much.
Well, the main issue is that even this 60-40 ratio is enough for Valverde's Barcelona to start building on the flanks and take the easy option. It seems like it is a bit more space there. But it is actually an illusion. Alba is more free to receive the ball than Rakitic or Arthur, yes, since he is usually very wide, but Alba's options on the ball are downgraded by 50% due to more difficult access to his teammates once he gets in possession. Once on the wing, you have what? 1-2 options to pass if you're lucky. In the middle, you should have 3-4 minimum. So you build on the wings, because it is a bit more space there, but as soon as the ball actually gets played there, the attack dies down very fast. So the ball usually comes back because there are very poor prospects of carrying out a really dangerous actions in the absence of passing options. We spend so much time doing this, passing somewhere only for the ball to come back with nothing changing in the shape of the defending team. This is basically why having the ball for 75% of the time vs Bilbao created not even 1 single great scoring chance. We constantly moved the ball in zones that were easy to close for Bilbao with minimal switches.
Now this is where the approach differs in regards to great possession teams, like the ones Guardiola manages.
First a 60-40 ratio between central and wing coverage for the team doing defensive phase vs a Pep side is not enough. It's almost suicidal to only slightly reinforce the central channels vs Pep teams. But why can Guardiola's team maneuver the ball and ensure progression in situations where a team managed by Ernesto Valverde, even with Messi in it, is hopeless:
It's because of several reasons, and probably others I'm missing right in this moment:
1) Pep uses a very fluid system where players move around. It is harder to track and mark players who are in motion as opposed to players who are static. Nothing to say more here, it's pretty clear. Moving targets are harder to lock down and block.
2) Pep usually uses more technical midfielders than a coward like Valverde. Pep has even put a midfield trio of Gundogan, Silva, Bernardo. All these 3 players used to be attacking midfielders, some played as wing forwards even. All of them superior technically, all movers, all energetic, and all great passers. This means there are more chances to build qualitative superiority (since numerically superiority is hard to achieve in crowded zones). Rakitic vs 1 opponent who presses him is a 1 vs 1. Theoretically a 1 vs 1 is great for an elite side like Barcelona. Not here though, since Rakitic will piss himself under pressure. Bernardo vs 2 is actually a numerical disadvantage, but Bernardo Silva doesn't get scared. His close ball control and first touch, plus his feints, will often wrong foot 1 opponent right away, and the initial 1 vs 2 actually becomes 1 vs 1. Bernado has more chances to find a great pass or to dribble between 2 pressing defenders, than Rakitic has to do those things vs only 1. So here is an instance where a 1 vs 2 for City is way better than a 1 vs 1 for Barcelona. Also, the no1) point, the fluidity part, means that the two opponents who try to block Bernardo also have to worry about the possibility that other City players might make themselves available for a pass. So the 2 defenders while they outnumber Bernardo, have many things to worry about (like Bernardo's skill, his first touch, possibility that other players might appear in the hole, maybe the possibility of a 1-2 move etc.).
3) Pep's defenders are actually part of build-up. For Valverde, a lot of the time, defenders will stay back and mark air while the other team's strikers are defending behind the ball. They can move up and take more aggresive positions, to relieve other players, but Valverde is above all a safety first manager. So Ernie would have about 3-4 players behind the ball (the ball carrier + 2 CBs + 1 fullback at times). Pep will often have one of the CBs to carry the ball, allowing the midfielders to serve as pass options, while having the other CB positioned horizontally. So actually you go from as much as 4 players behind the ball in a Valverde positional attack, to 0 players behind the ball in a Pep Guardiola positional attack, or 1 player at best. More passing options, more chances to break the lines of the defending team. This is risky, true. But Guardiola's players are taught to live with this danger, and the fact that they have passing options at all times means it is very unlikely to lose the ball through anything other than pure defensive blunders. The downside is that if the defenders fuck up, and this is where both Laporte and Otamendi are liabilities (see Laporte vs Tottenham), then it is almost a sure goal conceded. But, again, this is about risk and reward. With no risk, there is no reward. Pep is a high risk, high reward manager. Valverde is a low risk, low reward manager.
4) Pep's players think ahead. When they orchestrate an attack they imagine what it would look like 3-4 passes in advance. Sometimes a player is not involved in the first 75% of the passing network, but appears in the last 25% with a key role. This is pre-planned. And above all, this is done with a lot of training hours. They do not make one pass at a time, but series passes ending where they want to and plan to get. When a passing cycle is terminated because of a certain reason, they will recycle possession and safety pass until they are ready for a new sequence and everyone is properly positioned. Every time, the plan of a passing sequence is to create a chance. Valverde's players for example will pass the ball in a seemingly open space, only to see it closed right away. They see the other team has an easy fix to a question they ask, but then after 2 mins they ask the same question. The same answer appears. And then again, and again.
5) Probably other things I'm missing right now.
Guardiola positional system is like a cinema lover who goes to the cinema with the ticket in his hand, popcorn and soda, knows where they will sit, what movie is coming, what's the run time, who stars in it and who directed the movie. Sure, sometimes the movie will turn out to be a bad one, but that's no problem. Most often than not, if you do your research and are prepared in advance, and you are smart and you know what you are doing, you will see great movies with this thorough approach.
Valverde's positional system is like a dude that goes to the cinema without having a clue if there is a good movie that day, or what time it begins, or any of the above details. He just goes on a whim, maybe he figures it out and finds something good to see. Or maybe not, and he goes and gets drunk in some bar instead. Sometimes, he gets lucky, he appears at the cinema and Dunkirk is about to begin in 15 mins and there are good seats available. Most of the time, the poorly prepared moviegoer will either see crap comedies or Disney movies or get drunk.
All the reasons above make a 60 - 40 ratio a poor one to block a Guardiola team in the middle. It won't be crowded enough to stop them from going through. So the defensive side will think they need more men in the center to block the passing combinations that Pep is famous for. So they go more extreme in their attempt to be ultra compact in the middle. And they will go 70-30, or even 75-25. And this is where a Pep team will start to seriously use the wings, by switching play. The logic is simple. If a position is ultra-crowded, and if the other team doesn't cheat by using more than 10 outfield players, then it means other areas (the wings) are more open than they should be. And they direct attacks there more and more. And with the right players there, usually fast ones (Messi, Robben, Sane, Sterling, Pedro etc.), you can do some serious damage. But until the defending team has exaggerated in their central coverage, they will not insist on the wings. Because wing play become very lucrative when there is space to use. No wonder many wingers are fast players that do well when they have space to run into.
So wing use is totally different from Guardiola to Valverde. Guardiola uses central combinations to create superiority and either break there or force defensive teams to go overly-compact and give him space in the wings. Valverde uses the wings because he can only create an attack wherever an opponent is giving space. Valverde doesn't have the tactical knowledge and the balls to alter his stiff positional system and thus create spaces in the middle. So he does the simple thing. Plays in the bit of space the other team gives him and hopes his star wing players can pull something off.
