Why I thought Corberan would succeed in Greece: Part 1, Defensive Principles

Carlos Corberan made a surprising choice to join the Greek Superleague champions, Olympiakos, this August, after their 5–1 loss from Maccabi Haifa in the qualifying stages of the Champions League. A few weeks after he had resigned from Huddersfield, where he outperformed the resources available and reached the Championship Play-offs Final, most expected his next step to be at a lower-end Premier League side. After just 7 weeks and 11 games, Corberan’s time in Greece ended with a 2–2–1 record in the league and 2–6–3 overall.

On a personal note, with limited pre-existing knowledge of Corberan’s tactics and philosophy, after his first league game I felt really confident that he could be successful at Olympiakos. Not only in terms of results, but in terms of setting a new, higher tactical benchmark for the future tactics of the club and the ball-dominant teams in the league overall.

Despite his early departure I still think he improved the performances and tactics of the team. In a weird summer for the club in which the squad personnel was changing till the mid-September days (as of September 19, 35 players have already been used), it would surprise me if his early departure had to do purely with the underlying performance of the team.

In this piece, I will explore the reasons which I based my confidence around Corberan’s future starting with his process of changing the out of possession principles of Olympiakos. Hopefully, this will be a two-part series and on the next piece I’ll focus on his approach in possession.

PROBLEMS HE INHERITED

Before going into detail, I have categorized the (main) tactical issues inside Olympiakos’ 4–4–2 defensive organisation as the following:

• Covering the space between the fullback and the centre-back when the ball moves from the centre into wide areas
• Winger’s responsibilities and shifting from side to side
• Defensive Line Height and Vertical Compactness

Those concepts don’t necessarily work in isolation, but for clarity I’ll focus on them separately.

ISSUE #1: COVERING THE SEAMS (SPACES BETWEEN FULLBACK AND CENTRE BACK)

How the defensive block shifted from the centre to passes into the wide channels was one of the biggest problems Corberan had to fix. When the opposition used a deep player in the outter corridor to invite the winger to press and had another one wide to pin the fullback, Olympiakos used the near-side CM to cover the space between the fullback and the centre-back.

This is an option that protects the centre-backs and requires less from them physically in terms of covering runs, jumping into the wide spaces and gives them a +1 advantage against the opposition forward. But by removing a central midfielder from the midfield space, it weakens the team’s coverage in the centre, as illustrated in the animation below.

So for this defensive rotation to work efficiently without leaving the inside diagonal option open (as the CM moves wide), there are a few key actions required by the 4–4–2 defensive block, among others

• As the front-two first prevents central access to the #6, when the ball moves from the centre to the sides they have to stay in close proximity to the midfield line and move across to prevent the diagonal pass to the centre with their cover shadows.
• The front-two’s diagonal movement also gives some extra inch of time to the far-side CM before shifting to the ball-side too to close the diagonal passing option. The horizontal compactness of the block in this rotation is really important to cover the spaces on the ball-side.

Corberan’s defensive principles in the 4–4–2 compared to how Olympiakos set up before, placed a higher emphasis on the horizontal compactness of the block, both when the ball was on the sides and centrally. In this process, he tried to minimize the distances the players had to run within the defensive shape and by prioritising the protection of central spaces, placed a lower strategic value on the wide spaces.

By having shorter distances between the players on a horizontal level, Corberan’s Olympiakos had the centre-back covering those diagonal runs behind the fullback, rather than the central midfielder. To do this, apart from the aforementioned well-coordinated shift of the defensive block in a shorter amount of time (as the distances were smaller & with an extra player in the midfield) they needed to decrease the distances between the lines too.

Corberan wanted his centre-backs to play a high line, move across, and be able to track the runs in the space that’s left behind the shape. He prioritized having minimal space within the block, while taking the risk of leaving space in behind.

I’ve selected a few video examples showing the game-to-game progress to illustrate these differing principles to this game-situation from Corberan.

1. In the first video example we see Olympiakos’ approach to covering the seams before the Spaniard took charge.
2. In the second we see Olympiakos’ facing similar problems in Corberan’s first game in charge, with a deep defensive line.
3. In the third we are starting to see the first set of improvements/differences with the central-defender covering the space behind the fullback: the winger closing the centre and timing his press better; the front-two engaging deeper and staying in close proximity to the midfield line; a stronger midfield presence to cut off central passes; a smaller distance of ~16 metres between the first and the last player of the block. The playable space is minimized and the opposition has no option but play over the defense.
4. In the fourth sequence the different approach is noticed again with the central midfielder staying committed to covering the central spaces and not being dragged away. The centre-back moves across and jumps aggressively to the pass behind the fullback.
5. Finally, in the last sequence we see the near-side central midfielder covering the diagonal run between the fullback and the centre-back, but the effective implementation of the actions required for this defensive rotation to work (that we mentioned earlier) and the higher vertical compactness, turned the previous threat into a pressing trap and a consequent counter-attacking opportunity.

ISSUE #2: WINGER’S POSITIONING & SHIFTING

We’ve already mentioned the importance of being compact horizontally for Corberan. For the previous management, protection of wide spaces was a higher place of emphasis and the wingers’ positioning was more player-oriented towards the opposite fullback, than space/passing-lane oriented to cover central lanes.

This type of defending from the wingers of the near and far-side before Corberan, helped to minimize threats from wide, but made the halfspace (both in build-up and in the final 3rd) a point of reference for the opponents to cause positional dilemmas, drag players out of position and create space.

In the following clips we can see Olympiakos’ principles of defending these situations before and after Corberan:

1. Before Corberan we see the central midfield jumping to the opposite midfielder’s halfspace receipt in build-up, while the winger is pinned deeper and wider by the opposite fullback.
2. In Corberan’s 3rd game we notice the different approach in a similar situation: the winger jumps to the central midfielder curving his run to deny the pass to the fullback. With the far-side winger tucking into the midfield, the midfield is more stable too and central spaces are protected, while the spaces on the far-side are open.
3. The defense shifts from the right to the left (before Corberan) and in similar fashion to the previous clip we see the far-side winger orienting his positioning towards the opposite fullback and the midfielder stepping out the midfield line to press.
4. In Corberan’s 1st game (3 days after his appoinment), the different instructions to the wingers are already apparent, as they congest the space centrally and leave the wide spaces open for the fullback to jump in the event of a switch of play

ISSUE #3: DEFENSIVE LINE HEIGHT

The establishment of a defensive block that would make the pitch small and shorten the distances both vertically and horizontally was the biggest challenge for the Spanish manager. On a horizontal level he succeeded to a degree and changed/improved the team’s behaviour. The level of the opposition faced in the league played a part too, as there weren’t many opponents that could up the tempo of ball circulation to create pockets of space within the block with consistency.

On a vertical level, whilst the different approach was clear from early on, the results were mixed. The intent was to have a high mid block to minimize the spaces between the lines, but inconsistent personnel selection at the backline towards the end of his tenure (for a variety of reasons), limited pressing activity from the front-two and the questionable fitness levels of the squad he took over led to many ups and downs especially in the last few games of his time in Greece.

Based on the principles that have been mentioned so far, we can see the improvement on the way Olympiakos’ protected the spaces between the lines and within the shape with Corberan:

But the squad didn’t gain the required levels of comfort at playing a high line consistently in Corberan’s short spell. This was particularly noticeable when the defensive personnel changed (for example in matchday 4, three out of four players were different from matchday 4) and there was limited communication when opponents would make a run in behind. The centre-backs would move backwards and track the run, rather than stay committed to the high line and leave the opposition offside.

As a result, the distance between the defense and the midfield was stretched and huge amounts of space were created between the lines for the opponents to receive. The distances would then be too large for the defense to jump into the ball and the risk to do so just outside the box would be too big. Add into the mix the limited pressure on-ball from the frontline and the opponents had important spells during games where they could pin Olympiakos back.

CONCLUSION

This analysis has been about looking how Carlos Corberan succeeded in changing Olympiakos’ collective defensive behaviour in various in-game situations by instilling a new set of defensive principles to different groups. His interpretation of defending in a 4–4–2 defensive block was vastly different to the previous management, but with limited training time and from his first set of games he showed his ability to a coach a modern defensive block. Had he been granted time it would be interesting to see how he would evolve the team’s pressing structure on that basis.