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Iraola is a very interesting manager as his style of play has elements of a lot of modern-day teams with specific positional rotations, high pressing, and aggressive fullbacks but what changes this is his heavy emphasis on wide play as well as direct football something that is really not as common nowadays. The 5 main things we will be looking at when it comes to his style of play is his use of the flanks, controlling the midfield in the opposition half, overlapping wingbacks, direct passing, and high pressing.
First off is his use of the flanks and overlapping wingbacks. Iraola asks his team to attack in an asymmetrical style. This is done by the LW staying wide and the RW inverting and the 10 shifting over to the left so you have a left winger and 2 10s. This is then helped by the overlapping run of the RB as well as the left back who will either go inside or outside of the LW depending on where the space is. The main thing is that both the wingers will pull up and be overtaken by the wingbacks who are the ones looking to get to the line and cross. Now there is 1 caveat to this. If the RB goes the LB will stay and vice versa. This is because if the team builds down 1 flank they will look to cross into the box or will play back into the middle leading to our point about controlling the midfield.
The way the team looks to control the midfield is by creating a box midfield shape between the 2 10s (Remember 1 is the RW) and the double pivots. This allows the team to go inside with the ball in the opposition half if they are forced inside/can’t cross or the defense is sitting in a low block. This shape allows again for the wingbacks to get forwards but when possessing like it’s almost always the RB who goes forwards while the LB sits. Now you would think Iraola doesn’t want to possess the ball, but he actually does, and this can be seen by his ideas about trying to build from the back.
He wants to encourage his team to control the game through possession but is also aware not every defender is good on the ball so he will look to identify defenders that are good with long balls as if the team is high-pressed the team will hit long balls out wide to either the winger or wingbacks who hopefully are in space and behind the first line of pressure. This is because of the direct nature of his sides. Iraola wants his teams to always look to break lines with the first pass. If this is not possible then the players are okay to play sideways. In the end, the goal is always to play forwards and break lines through passing which is also why with the long balls he wants to have his players behind the first line of pressure.
Finally, when it comes to defending Iraola applies the reverse ideas of his passing, he wants to stop teams from being able to play through his lines and get in behind the press. The team looks to press in a 4-4-2 shape with the 10 becoming the 2nd striker in the press. They want to make sure the opposition cannot play Inside and are force-wide at all costs. This is why you will see the main triggers of the ball sideways or out wide being used to press aggressively. The other thing about the press is he wants his to team always try to win the ball as close to the opposition box as possible ensuring that his team has the shortest field possible to attack into and having more opposition players behind the play.
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All video clips collected from WyScout: https://platform.wyscout.com
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