[gogol]

I mean, you’ve got about half of the teams in Serie A quite prepared to play with 3 strikers at one time or another. What’s italian soccer come to?

The days of 4-5-1 seem to be over. Anyone who associates italian soccer with being overly-defensive is talking about the past, not the present. The ‘tridente’ has become a normal word these days, instead of being something revolutionary.

Teams like Roma, Lecce, Udinese and Juve use the trident attack regularly these days. And other coaches like Mancini are ready to use this system too.

I’ve been following Serie A for a long time now, and I’ve never seen coaches with so much attacking intent as this before. I think that the return of Zeman has prompted a few to look at his way of playing and the virtues of pressing the opponents instead of sitting back.

It isn’t a question of having good attackers or not. I remember that when Lazio was very rich under Cragnotti in the late 90s, they still had a very defensive team under Zoff and Zac. But even Zoff plays in a more adventurous manner now, instead of straight-up catenaccio.

Overall, I think most coaches rate playing a good game a bit higher in comparison to getting the right result and focusing on a particular result and simply scrapping for it. Right now, I find a lot of similarities between our soccer and Argentine soccer, in terms of flair and passion, which is terrific.

 

[Catenaccio]

Basically, Italy has a lot of 'trequartista' type players these days and I think Italian teams have learned that it is dangerous to put all your attacking plays through 1 player. Italian sides don't have a lot of natural attacking wingers but they have attacking full-backs and a lot of defensive midfielders.

Usually, 2 out of the 3 forwards are either support strikers, attacking wingers or trequartisti.

Typical attacking system is:

--------------GK--------------

----------CB1---CB2----------
FB1------------------------FB2
-----DM2----DM1-----DM3-----

----FW2--------------FW3----
------------Striker------------

Usually one of FW1 or FW2 is either a playmaker or support striker while the other can either be the same or is an attacking winger. In some cases, it could be someone like Ibrahimovic who holds the ball up for the striker/poacher.

No matter how you look at it, its actually a trend everywhere. I have seen this creeping into the EPL and Spain.

When the full backs attack one of the DMs cover against a potential counter attack...and the attacking full back can either cross the ball or do a 1-2 with the attacking forward on that side. Also given that there is already 3 defensive midfielders, you can have the one in the centre being more of a play constructor or deep playmaker like Pirlo and Emerson are - or what Veron could be.

I think this is the system which is most natural for Italian football characteristics because even if you are playing defensively - you have 4 defenders plus 3 defensive midfielders and 2 forwards who play deep - but the counter attack is more effective as you have 3 players sprinting forward.

That is why for Italy, you could play a similar system:

---------------Buffon----------------

------------Nesta---Canna----------
Zaccardo--------------------Zambro

-----Camo/----Pirlo/----Gattuso/----
---Maresca---De Rossi---Blasi?------

----Esposito/------------Totti/-----
-----Cassano-----------Miccoli----
-------------Gilardino/-------------
-------------Montella-------------

 

[gogol]

but my point is that its happening in Serie A, which is getting more and more attack-minded.

 

[Great Outdoors]

Yep, good post and interesting observation.

But I do not think that Italian teams in general are foresaking results for the sole sake of attacking football. Results are, and will forever be, the number one priority in all our clubs from the Serie A right through to C2. That's what Italian teams are programmed to do and that's why Italian teams have been so successful the past 20 years, or even more. It just so happened that, I believe, clubs started to believe that having a trident attack will guarantee more wins. Tactical flexibility will allow for teams taking a lead from the trident attack to adjust themselves and protect what they have achieved. It's just a new way to guarantee 3 points.. football will always come full circle and soon we'll see one-man attacking teams in vougue again. That's just the way it is..