Fonseca’s football

[JoeSFC]

Another astute manager off Portugal’s production line, Paulo Fonseca is finally receiving his due exposure after Shakhtar’s impressive run in the CL this season.

Background:

Initially plying his trade at numerous lesser sides in Portugal, it was at Paços de Ferreira he caught the eye. Making the most of Jean Seri, Antunes and Josue, he spectacularly led them to 3rd in the Portuguese league before moving onto Porto. Though sitting in 3rd place, 11 points behind leaders Benfica in the second half of the 13/14 campaign, he didn’t last one full season. His struggles however weren’t particularly helped by major departures in the form of Joao Moutinho, Otamendi and James Rodriguez. Following this setback, he returned to Pacos working his magic once again but narrowly missing  out on EL. Come the 15/16 season he would find himself at Braga, finishing 4th that season while winning the Portuguese Cup. Then Shakhtar came calling. Fonseca has built on his predecessor, Mircea Lucescu’s success continuing their domestic dominance with 2 league titles in his time at the club while implementing a more attractive style.

Footballing style:

Fonseca is an exponent of progressive, attacking football and looks to incorporate positional play aspects. Numerical superiority is quite evident at times in Stepanenko’s seemless splitting of the CB’s to facilitate build up from deep. This is particularly useful against opposition who field a striker duo that look  to prevent distribution from the back and force Shakhtar to go long. Furthermore, his sides look for qualititative superiority which is displayed in his supremely talented widemen including the likes of Marlos, Bernard, Ismaily and Srna. Fonseca looks to exploit these quality advantages in wide areas. Despite this abundance in talent, Shakhtar aren’t excessively reliant on their flanks, and often instigate quick vertical play in central areas mostly via Fred and Rakitskiy. Finally, Fonseca seeks positional superiority in the movement of the attacking trio (Bernard, Taison, Marlos) finding space behind opposition midfield lines. Likewise, Ferreyra can often be found looking to run in behind and capitalise on defenders facing the opposite direction.

Out of possession, his Shakhtar team seek to maintain a high line and look to aggressively press their opponents. His team shifts from their nominal 4-2-3-1 in possession to a more accustomed pressing shape in 4-4-2. Taison will push forward, supporting Ferreyra’s efforts to win the ball back. Meanwhile Bernard and Marlos move inwards to form a horizontally compact, narrow unit. 

FM translation: 

Mentality: Control

As previously mentioned, Shakhtar are an attacking side in all aspects of play. 

Shape: Fluid

Fonseca drills his side to be vertical and horizontally compact to force opposition wide, restricting their ability to play centrally. 

TI’s: 

Normal tempo - Fonseca’s side use possession purposefully with forward-thinking intent. The control mentality is already quite attacking, thus I feel normal tempo provides a bit more balance. 

Play out from defence - A major component to Fonsecaball. Shakhtar’s sides are often seen playing it out from the back even under intense pressure. Only on rare occasions will Pyatov go long

Mixed passing - Shakhtar’s buildup can vary in passing range. They will go more direct when required, but early buildup phase usually involves short-medium interchanges. 

Higher defensive line - Part and parcel with the press, looking to suffocate the opponent.

More closing down - Shakhtar aren’t as intense as a Bielsa press but rather a bit more pragmatic while still harassing opposition. Additionally a control mentality and high defensive line already further its influence. 

Work ball into box - Shakhtar’s inside forwards look to play in teammates centrally or take on opposition themselves. 

Look for overlap - Despite Srna’s absence this season, the fullbacks bomb on, notably the attacking Ismaily. Increasingly synonymous with modern football, the fullbacks are expected to provide with and supplementary attacking options as Shakhtar enter the final third. 

Play Wider - In possession, Shakhtar fullbacks typically adopt high and wide positions enabling the IF’s to move into the half spaces and link up. Shakhtar make full use of the pitch looking to stretch teams. 

Be more expressive - Fonseca allows his attacking players freedom to roam, find pockets of space between the lines and cause problems.

This is just my interpretation of Fonseca’s football. Feedback is much appreciated.

 

 

 

 

[zlatanera]

1 hour ago, JoeSFC said:

Numerical superiority is quite evident at times in Stepanenko’s seemless splitting of the CB’s to facilitate build up from deep

Surely you'd need him in a DM slot in a role like Half Back if you want to imitate this, rather than in a central midfield pairing? 

Also your description of Shakhtar using mixed-short passing in buildup kinda sounds like the description of the Attacking mentality. 

[JoeSFC]

1 hour ago, zlatanera said:

Surely you'd need him in a DM slot in a role like Half Back if you want to imitate this, rather than in a central midfield pairing? 

Also your description of Shakhtar using mixed-short passing in buildup kinda sounds like the description of the Attacking mentality. 

Yeah definitely sprung to mind when first developing the tactic but didn’t really have the effect I wanted. Forced the CB’s a bit too wide for my liking. Trialled Stepanenko as CM(d) and he still dropped deep between the CB’s to pick up the ball occassionally, which is what I want; not fixed between the CB’s in possession the whole 90. PPM comes deep to get ball also helped. Similarly considered dropping the midfield pairing into the DM strata but the midfield lost a bit of compactness. Fluidity increase might reduce that space, but I’d like an outlet on the counter 

[juusal]

I played around with this idea myself and even tried out one shape quickly. I figured a narrow 4-2-3-1 would suit it better as Bernard and whoever is on the right play much more inside than what roles like IW or IF allow them to do. Also worth noting that in FM, attack duties in wide positions tend to stay wide when defending, so inverted wingers might stay too wide when defending.

Otherwise looks really similar to what I had in mind. For the AMCR/CL positions I thought AM/S would suit the best, maybe AP/S for Bernard and PI run with ball more often. They tend to come deeper to get the ball rather than look to make runs behind the defence, and they tend to drop deeper in defence, so support roles seem better. Other roles seem really similar to what I had in mind, slight differences but the idea is the same with all of them.

[JoeSFC]

2 hours ago, juusal said:

I played around with this idea myself and even tried out one shape quickly. I figured a narrow 4-2-3-1 would suit it better as Bernard and whoever is on the right play much more inside than what roles like IW or IF allow them to do. Also worth noting that in FM, attack duties in wide positions tend to stay wide when defending, so inverted wingers might stay too wide when defending.

Otherwise looks really similar to what I had in mind. For the AMCR/CL positions I thought AM/S would suit the best, maybe AP/S for Bernard and PI run with ball more often. They tend to come deeper to get the ball rather than look to make runs behind the defence, and they tend to drop deeper in defence, so support roles seem better. Other roles seem really similar to what I had in mind, slight differences but the idea is the same with all of them.

Great suggestion, the narrow 4-2-3-1 completely slipped my mind for some reason. Think I was concentrating too much on getting them to drop deeper in defence alongside the CM’s to form a solid bank of 4. 

Yeah I had a bit of trouble getting the IW’s to come inside more often at first. Ticked the sit narrow PI’s and I did see improvement. Likewise out of possession they weren’t as narrow as I’d ideally like. Can see Bernard as an AP(s) and yeah Marlos as an AM would work well. Considering Taison’s already an AP along with Bernard, wouldn’t they become redundant in both coming deep/intruding on each other’s space looking for the ball centrally? Similarly have question marks over whether the two wider players in that narrow trio will track back sufficiently? Your suggestion would definitely improve the horizontal compactness though. 

[juusal]

5 hours ago, JoeSFC said:

Great suggestion, the narrow 4-2-3-1 completely slipped my mind for some reason. Think I was concentrating too much on getting them to drop deeper in defence alongside the CM’s to form a solid bank of 4. 

Yeah I had a bit of trouble getting the IW’s to come inside more often at first. Ticked the sit narrow PI’s and I did see improvement. Likewise out of possession they weren’t as narrow as I’d ideally like. Can see Bernard as an AP(s) and yeah Marlos as an AM would work well. Considering Taison’s already an AP along with Bernard, wouldn’t they become redundant in both coming deep/intruding on each other’s space looking for the ball centrally? Similarly have question marks over whether the two wider players in that narrow trio will track back sufficiently? Your suggestion would definitely improve the horizontal compactness though. 

You can always play around with the roles for the guys behind the strikers. I would probably use max. 1 playmaker, if even that, and rather use AM roles and use PIs to alter them the way you want them to play. Playmaker roles have the tendency to get sucked towards the ball, so it might be an issue if Bernard plays as an AP on the AMCL position and gets dragged too far to the right when the ball is on the right flank. I often find that those three players play too narrow anyway, it's difficult to get the outer AMCs to drift wide, even with move into channels.

The defensive part is difficult to recreate exactly. The ME in FM is just not fluid enough to let us control the defensive shape that much so you can't have everything you want. Narrow 4-2-3-1 will keep it compact, and higher closing down on the wide AMCs will see them help out on the wings but not necessarily track back sufficiently. IW/A will not play compact but cover more on the wings, so it's one of those difficult decisions again. Another thing you could try is using wide 4-2-3-1 and having AML and AMR as advanced playmakers on support. This role makes them get inside (much, much more so than inside forwards for example), and because of the support duty they will drop a bit deeper and come inside when defending. Generally speaking, attacking duty for wide players means that they will stay wide and a bit more advanced when defending and support roles drop a bit deeper and get inside to defend. Of course you could also try the inverted wingers on support roles but from my experience I think they would not be advanced enough when your team has the ball and stay too deep. You definitely want the Bernard to pick up the ball in the pocket between the defence and the midfield before looking for through balls, the overlap of Ismaily (I would put him on an attack duty btw) or dribble himself at the defence. IW/S would probably see him being too deep and wide for those areas.

[zlatanera]

Wide Playmaker for Bernard? He'll get back into a line of four in the defensive phase (may leave that flank vulnerable in the initial stages to a counter though) but when the team has possession he comes inside - you get the opportunity for Ismaily to overlap, I don't know Bernard's traits but his skillset suggests he may run with the ball anyway. 

[juusal]

On 16/03/2018 at 10:25, zlatanera said:

Wide Playmaker for Bernard? He'll get back into a line of four in the defensive phase (may leave that flank vulnerable in the initial stages to a counter though) but when the team has possession he comes inside - you get the opportunity for Ismaily to overlap, I don't know Bernard's traits but his skillset suggests he may run with the ball anyway. 

I thought of this as well, but because of the attacking duty (WP/S would just be way too passive and too low in the system) he would defend pretty wide rather than getting inside. That's why I would probably prefer AP/S on the AML position.

I might be wrong though, the best way to see how it plays out is obviously to try.