"In his regular BBC Sport tactics column Robbie Savage tries and fails to sound more intelligent than whatever you had for breakfast this morning."
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In his regular BBC column Savage has today covered the tricky subject of "Chelsea v Atletico Madrid: How Mourinho Got it Wrong". So without further ado...
Left Flank Lets Atletico In: What you'll notice about this section, if you bother to go and read it, is that it contains no tactical analysis whatsoever. Observe, he first describes Cesar Azpilicueta's role on the right side for Chelsea. He then goes on to say "That flank was solid. As we found out for Atletico's equaliser just before half-time, Chelsea's left side was not. I don't know what Ashley Cole was doing when Tiago played his initial diagonal ball for Juanfran to run on to. For some reason Cole was in the middle of the area rather than at left-back and Eden Hazard did not track back." : "Eden Hazard did not track back" is a descriptive sentence acknowledging what Eden did or didn't do, "For some reason Cole was in the middle of the area" still lacks tactical content, since we assume that it wasn't a tactical decision, but an individual positioning error, which can surely not be attributed to Mourinho getting it wrong unless we consider it an oversight that Mourinho should have explained in detail everything Cole shouldn't do.
What's important to note about the Savage column is how it is billed: "In his regular BBC Sport tactics column, Robbie Savage looks at Chelsea's Champions League semi-final defeat by Atletico Madrid" - note the crucial word 'looks' not 'does some analysis of' but 'looks at' implying viewership, implying descriptive but not technical or analytical content.
If we persist with the opening section we get from Hazard not tracking back to "The whole goal was a mess from Chelsea's point of view, because nobody cut out Juanfran's pull-back either" - again, no discussion of the tactical breakdown that may have led to this state of affairs, but an expressive opinion-laden clause followed by a basic descriptive one.
Opens with similarly absent promise, "Atletico's away goal meant that Chelsea were out unless they scored again" before proceeding with: "Because Chelsea needed to go looking for another goal, it also meant Atletico could threaten on the counter-attack". Taking it paragraph by paragraph we begin with a basic understanding of how football scores work, we then learn Atletico's first half goal seemed to have "taken away" all of Chelsea's confidence, in paragraph three we learn that Sam Eto'o came on, in four Savage gives an opinion on this move, "It was the right decision, but it worked against him", the next paragraph takes on the following structure: Paraphrase of a Mourinho quote, and a nod to some stats. So, with 5/11 paragraphs in this section down we're still somewhat short of anything more than a pub garden nod to tactics. We hear more from Mourinho in paragraph six, in the seventh we get the following "In the first half, it was pretty even. But from the start of the second half, Atletico were on top": then we learn that Atletico had a "positive start" and looked "more dangerous" but no sense of the tactical underpinnings of this "positive start". In fact in all 11 paragraphs the one tame nod we get to tactics is in 10 when Azpilicueta switches to left-back.
Right, finally, the tactical discussion is under way. Kicking it off, Atletico have two banks of four, Chelsea have "no chance" of scoring on the counter-attack, that is because it is naturally impossible to score against any side that ever leaves four men back. Everyone knows it's the equivalent of never moving any of your draughts off the back row. It's completely impenetrable. There is "No Chance" of scoring against that. "Could they have done with more attack in their side apart from set pieces? Yes." clears that one up once and for all. Willian and Torres "barely linked up". To summarize Chelsea "lacked attacking threat" because Simeone was "cautious" and "left four men back" which seems to be about as close as we're going to get.
Ah. We start now by talking about left-back Felipe Luis pressing the ball in the opposition box, how that epitomized the work ethic which wasn't the reason Atletico Madrid won because they actually won because of cautiousness and leaving four men back. They have some "real talent in attack" to go with their "organization at the back". Juanfran was brilliant at defending and "turning into a right winger at times".
The title of the article is "Chelsea v Atletico Madrid: How Jose Mourinho Got It Wrong" with the only issue being that "How Jose Mourinho Got It Wrong" is almost never even touched upon. When we get anything that even resembles a tactical analysis it's talking about Atletico Madrid and their paradoxical full-backs. Willian and Torres never linking up isn't linked back to Mourinho getting it wrong, it's implicitly linked back variously to Atletico having two banks of four, to leaving four men back, and to work ethic. When Mourinho even comes up it's because he got something right, namely the decision to sub on Sammy Eto'o shortly before he conceded the penalty. To summarize what we've just witnessed Atletico Madrid had real talent in attack but rarely from anyone in particular like Arda Turan, they have Koke who "had a fabulous game" and made more touches than anyone else, Diego Costa only appears in reference to his goal. Only the full-backs of the entire defence get a mention and the analysis of Simeone's tactics is limited to inspiring "caution, attitude, desire and work ethic". But the main fault is that an article billed as "How Jose Mourinho Got It Wrong" says an absolutely pathetic amount about his tactics, describes much more than it explains or analysis, and skims over almost the entire fixture, which is an interesting tact for an article based on absolutely nothing else.
A final note of thanks goes to the Guardian website which is where I nicked the images from.
