There are matches that start in one way and then develop in another and understanding them and then explaining them remains a very complicated task, especially when on paper the technical difference is notable, but then on the pitch this distance is not noticeable. And then the coach of the weaker team normally thinks he has adopted the most effective tactical strategy possible and the coach of the stronger team takes it out on the players incapable of translating the theoretical technical superiority into facts. And at the end of the first half of Roma-Servette the picture was more or less this with Weiler’s pride on one side in having dribbled the ball at some moments even in Roma’s half of the field (and having scared the goalkeeper on two occasions) and on the other the anger of Mourinho who saw, from his special view in the press gallery, his team struggling despite an advantage in the result achieved more by chance than by real superiority. In fact, it would have been enough that the deviation of Cristante on Stevanovic’s shot had ended up in the goal and perhaps that of Tsunamoto on the shot of Lukaku out of the posts to have an opposite result at the end of the same 45 minutes of play, perhaps more consistent with what we had seen.
Errors in non-possession
14 minutes after the restart were enough to deliver the verdict that everyone already knew on the eve of the match, namely that Roma are decidedly stronger than Servette and that the potential of their players is such that there cannot be a result other than victory. Those three goals in the space of 14 minutes confirmed what had been called into question by the facts in the previous 46 minutes. We are led to think in situations like these that beyond the good work done by the Swiss in the first half there were clear responsibilities of the Roma players in the difficulties initially revealed by Roma, starting with a decidedly insufficient approach judging at least by the action that after 20 seconds of play could have brought switching costs. Specifically, as we analyze in the graphics alongside, there was a clear communication error between the three protagonists of the action on the Roma front. On the long throw from the right central defender Vouilloz, Cristante and Mancini they were so far ahead of Bedia that they couldn’t agree on who should be the first to intervene on that ball after Cristante had slid it behind him. On the one hand he himself, Bryan, who had made it flow trusting in the decisive intervention of Svilar who, for his part, remained stuck in a middle position fearing to disturb his teammate’s defensive action. When Mancini then intervened on the scene, Cristante thought that he wanted to resolve the embarrassment and tried to cut off his opponent from behind, spectacularly failing in the task so much so that he fell in the heat of having smoothed him out, or rather in some way helping him to shoot in a less precarious position than Mancini. If we were to distribute a percentage of blame in the action that could have led to the Swiss goal, we would start from 50% for Cristante, passing through 30% for Svilar and finishing at 20% for Mancini. In the graphics we also explain the genesis that led to the other great risk taken on the opponent’s initiative with Stefanovic’s shot deflected by Cristante to deceive Svilar, with the ball then fortunately slipping 1 cm from the post. Specifically, as visible from the images, there were three different defensive misjudgments of Paredes, Aouar e Cristante to determine the chain of errors that also led Servette to come close to a goal in this case. Once again individual responsibilities, in short, and yet this time too one can easily trace the germ of a not always very lucid defensive organisation, but also of a half-hearted offensive proposal. As often demonstrated by the delta between the goals actually scored and those that could have been scored and the goals actually conceded and those that could have been conceded, a team does not always get what it deserves and vice versa, which is why the difference will always be made by quality of the players called into action.
The offensive proposal
From an offensive point of view, in the initial 15 minutes of the second half, Roma had that natural predisposition to attack that they had lacked in the first 45. We are not talking about a simple offensive method but about a predisposition to attack on a continuous basis. In practice, these are all those preventive attack mechanisms whereby a winger who receives the ball from a central defender does not try to control it only by thinking of pure possession management, but already mentally prepares himself perhaps for a one-two with another midfielder or with the attacker in the ball area. It’s basically about thinking positively and Roma in possession don’t always manage to do this. The “structural” flaw in a game system like the 352 then lies in the almost inevitable lack of a man between the lines with whom to communicate. When there is Dybala it is precisely the Argentine who almost naturally supports certain trajectories, without it it is more complicated. So very often Roma’s wingers find themselves having to face one-on-ones and sometimes even one-on-twos where above-average technical skills and also a natural propensity to sprint (and great muscular endurance) are fundamental. The midfield interior players could also present themselves with greater continuity with deeper insertions synchronized with the two attackers. In a game like this it’s nice to underline, for example, how Literate was able to exploit the opportunity by showing himself enterprising and strong-willed even if in his case the technical quality is unfortunately not very high. In fact, upon closer inspection, in the actions of the two assists his finishing was not clear. In the first case, the goal of Lukakuhe had been good Belotti to recover a ball that Celik had lost, then on the next proposal for the Turk it was necessary to simply pass the ball horizontally, Lukaku did the rest. In the second case, however, El Shaarawy’s beautiful opening was exploited thanks to the header of the Turk who was not tempted by the temptation to shoot on goal. But it is likely that his intention was to serve Lukaku at the center of the attack and not Pellegrini which came from further away, invisible to Celik’s eyes. The important thing, however, was that the action materialized and Roma rounded off their score. But even the good performance probably does not change the general idea that the coach has of his players for the wing and will continue to choose from time to time the element considered most reliable for that match, without pre-established hierarchies in Cagliari.
2023-10-07 06:00:00
#positive #score
