Italian Catenaccio 1982

Firstly, the idea behind this is certainly not to make my team unbeatable, but instead i aim to take a famous tactic of old and make it as competitive as possible in the modern game.

A Brief History On The Tactic

Switzerland was the birth place of the tactic, but it wasn't until the Italians followed suit in the 1950's that the style of play really came to be known. Very strict man marking defenders, who would also kick lumps out of you at the same time. The formation would more often than not include a Sweeper or Libero, whether that be behind 2 center backs or part of a back four unit. What ever way the formation was set out, it was always intended to stop the opposition from playing, then quickly counter on them once the ball was won back. This style was of course quite boring to watch, but 1-0 or 5-4, a win is still a win. Throughout the 1970's the Dutch's 'Total Football' made man-marking almost impossible, this was when Zonal Marking was introduced as way to try and stop the fluid passing and moving of the opposition. Rather than stick tightly to one player all game, the defender would simply control a specific zone of the pitch and any player that entered it would then be his to mark.

And in 1982 the Italians were rewarded with the World Cup by playing in such a way. Over the years since then the style slowly faded due to all the Italian teams using it and becoming very predictable to play against and very boring to watch!. Nowadays the Libero is very rarely seen in any formation, meaning the great 'Catenaccio' is now just a distant memory, well for those of you old enough to remember it is of course.

My Attempt

There are two main variations of the tactic, one with the Libero and one without. Naturally I've gone with flat back four due to the lack of Libero's in world football today.

Libero Version



Flat Back Four Version



Training

Throughout pre season i just kept the training to Tactics and sometimes defensive positioning on a very high level. During the season lower it to a high level, with Tactics as your main focus (until fluid) and then just rotate around the other training methods, though i do recommend using defensive slightly more.

The End Result

Well i'm currently playing through half a season with Arsenal, i have replaced Giroud with both El Shaarawy and Doumbia, this is because Giroud does not have the pace to be very effective on the counter attack (trust me, I'm an Arsenal fan) so have purchased both to try and have some cover if one is injured. I also added another defender to the team but again, this was just as cover. A better DM would be ideal also.

Here's my current first 11 when fit.



Ten Game Table



Ten Game Results



I still have a few more games to play before we reach the half way and the tactic will be uploaded for anyone to try if they like. It is currently fairing much better than i expected due it being so defensive minded, but the counter attack really does seem to work with a vast majority of the goals scored coming from winning the ball back in your own half and the quickly breaking away. Sadly a lot of the goals conceded do come from corners/crosses, but i really don't think there is a way to stop this

End Of Season Results

Well we finished second which i'm fairly impressed with considering the first 19 games included away trips to Man City, Chelsea, Everton and Man Utd. The only game we really deserved to lose was against Southampton, their style of play didn't suit the tactic at all, they simply sat back and passed and passed, meaning no chance of a counter attack and our man marking was largely ineffectual due to the movement of the Southampton players. The Fulham defeat was completely undeserved as the pic will show. I'll also add that no in game changes were made, even when we was losing i still kept the tactic exactly as it started, so more points may well have been saved with a more attacking approach at certain times when behind.







Opponent Instructions

RB/LB - Tight Marking/Show on to Weaker Foot

CM - Closing Down/Hard Tackling

LW/RW/LM/RM - Tight Marking/Show on to Weaker Foot/Closing Down

AMC/ST - Tight Marking/Show on to Weaker Foot/Closing Down

Tactic Download

Will be very interesting to hear how others do with this, or even how a more attacking approach would do.