ChicagoBlue
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 10 Jan 2009
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- 18,796
What it all boils down to...The Third Man... who (even when tightly marked) exploits the defenders need to attack the ball, then moves into a position to break the line, and by doing so opens the space in behind to spring an attack.Don’t know if already posted but if you want to be blown away with real in depth analysis of Pep (with bits from his Barca, Bayern days, but mainly concentrating on the evolution of tactics at City) try this very long read
How Guardiola & 3-2-2-3 (ultimately) solved the defending meta
Guardiola’s image in the football world is complex to describe. While polarizing, everyone seems at least to agree that he is an unique innovator. Funnily enough, he is polarizing exactly because of this mutual agreement of critics and fans. The public discourse about his Barcelona team mainly...spielverlagerung.com
My head hurts... god knows what opposition managers feel
It is the same triangle that has always been played in basketball and football, but you constantly play the ball and receive it back to suck the defender into a challenge, which opens up the man he was marking for the SECOND pass via a (lateral, if necessary) FIRST pass.
The soul destroying aspect of this system is that the ACTIVE DEFENDER is always the patsy. The more he works, the more he is exploited. It knackers him out, it destroys his soul (because his man is always open) and yet he is doing exactly what he was told and taught to do...close down the ball! Too bad it was THE MAN he REALLY needed to defend against, because now he not only has the ball, but he is in behind him!
The key to defending this is either swarm forward and never allow that Third Man space by passing him off or let City play with the ball and collapse into a defensive shell where there is little to no space for even the Third Man to operate. Liverpool have always done the former to good effect, with their “Gegenpress” and every non-Top Half club seems to try to do the latter, occasionally eeking out a draw!
“The third man is impossible to defend, impossible … I’ll explain what it means. Imagine Piqué wanting to play with me, but I’m marked, I have a marker (defender) on me, a very aggressive guy. Well, it is clear that Piqué can not pass it to me, it is evident. If I move away, I’ll take the marker with me. Then, Messi goes down and becomes the second man. Piqué is the 1st, Messi the 2nd and I the 3rd. I have to be very alert, right?! Piqué, then plays with the 2nd man, Messi, who returns it, and at that moment I’m an option. I’m now free of my marker who has moved to defend closer to the ball. Now I’m totally unmarked and Piqué passes me the ball. If my marker is looking at the ball, cannot see that I’m unmarked and then I appear, I’m the third man. We have already achieved superiority. This is indefensible, it’s the Dutch school, it’s Cruyff. It is an evolution of the Dutch triangles. (…) To look for the third man is, for example, that the central players have the ball and one of them is always open because you always have one player more than opposing strikers. In that case, Puyol has the ball and goes up, up and up until a defender challenges him. If the defender who tries to stop him is my marker, then the third man happens to be me! If it is Iniesta’s marker who moves to challenge Puyol , then Andres is the third man. And so we seek superiority in any area of the field. You make a three against two, you win and you have the third man. We advance positions up the field” – Xavi Hernández