How to stop Pirlo? What If Prandelli plays 3-5-2? Some questions looked at as Germany take on Italy in the Euro 2012 Semi Final.

Pirlo's supreme confidence and form emphasized by this superb 'paneka' penalty

Here we are again, after the epic clash in 2006, Germany and Italy meet yet again in a semi-final of a major tournament. Germany certainly have some score to settle, they've never defeated Italy in a major tournament yet and if there was ever a better time in terms of the disparity between the quality of the two teams, now is it. Germany have the better squad but what Italy have is the mental edge, experienced winners and, most of all, Andrea Pirlo. 


It has been an amazing last twelve months for one of the purest deep lying playmakers in the history of the game. After being cast aside by the club he served for over 10 years, AC Milan, he joined title rivals Juventus eager to still prove that he had the quality that once helped Milan win two UEFA Champions League's under his service. With a new start, and hard working players in Arturo Vidal and Claudio Marchisio around him, Pirlo certainly proved his class as he played the biggest part in Juventus' 'invincible' win of the Seria A, creating a plethora of statistical behemoths. Heading into the 2012 European Championships, everyone knew that if Italy were to have any chance of winning the trophy, Pirlo would have to carry his club form into the tournament and the Italian has done well and truly that with a string of superb performances, his best yet coming in the latest victory against England. Now its time for the German's, impressive as ever themselves thus far, to try and do something neither Spain, Croatia or England have been able to do. Beat Pirlo and Italy. 


Who marks Andrea Pirlo?


As said before, Pirlo played his best game of the tournament against England in the quarter-final, but that was arguably his easiest as well because of the way England choose to play defend Pirlo i.e not defend him at all. It was amazing show of ignorance towards the ability of the midfielder, or maybe it was just a show of tactical ineptness from the England camp. Being a deep lying midfielder, Andrea Pirlo, likeother players of a similar mould, was expected to find pockets of space away from opposition defenders in order to give receive the ball. It can be difficult for the opposition to always stop players like Pirlo from receiving those passes due to the fact that they can sometimes come very deep and away from the attention of the opposition midfielders, the further away from the center circle they receive the ball, the bigger victory it is for the opposition midfielders. But, what the opposition certainly have to be to able to do, in order to fully stop the effect of deep lying playmakers, is to close down the space available to them so that they can not get the time to pick easy passes since they are masters of that craft and can create a threatening situation with one 60 yard ball. This, essentially, was where England terribly failed and were severely punished due to it. 

The three panels to the right, from top to bottom, show a sequence of events which almost lead to an Italian goal, all of which came from England showing a clear lack of understanding as to how to defend a player of Pirlo's position, let alone caliber. The first panel shows the end of an England play and the start of an Italian as Pirlo receives the ball inside the England box with Wayne Rooney (white circle) and Glenn Johnson (red circle) in reasonably close proximity to Pirlo with Rooney closest, yet the striker shows no eagerness to close

down the midfielder. The second panel shows the same play a few seconds later with Pirlo now moving into the middle of the his own half, again with absolutely no pressure within 10 yards. Here we now see Glen Johnson (again red), actually back tracking away from Pirlo rather than trying to close down the space in front of him. We also see Steven Gerrard (yellow) within the frame who is also back tracking away from Pirlo in order to mark Montolivo behind him. Wayne Rooney (white)

is yet again seen jogging inside the Italian box. The last panel shows Pirlo playing the pass over the English box towards Mario Balotelli who ended up missing a very good chance. The amount of space Pirlo is seen given is absolutely criminal and it was no surprise that he was able to use this space to create a great chance. 

It's clear to see here that England got their tactics, if they even had any, against Pirlo completely wrong, which brings the question, how do you stop Pirlo? One of the more obvious answers at first would be to pick someone to man mark the midfielder but this is where we see complications arriving not only due to Pirlo's fantastic ability to find open spaces but also the Italian tactics set up by Prandelli. Both formations used popularly by Prandelli during his term as Italian coach, the 3-5-2 and the 4-3-1-2, involve a heavy dose of central midfielders to work around the playmaking ability of Andrea Pirlo; very similar to the tactics set forth by Juventus manager Antonio Conte. As mentioned earlier, Juventus midfielders Arturo Vidal and Claudio Marchisio played vital roles in the success of their club team and the success of Andrea Pirlo. Both midfielders are known for their high energies as box to box midfielders and their movement around Pirlo was used to distract midfielders away from Pirlo, thereby giving him more room to find that killer space. Even in the three panels shown above, we can see the presence of Ricardo Montolivo bringing double mindedness into Steven Gerrard as to whether to close down Pirlo and risk Montolivo getting more space behind him or allowing Pirlo room to pick a pass. 


Joachim Low will almost certainly continue with his 4-2-3-1 formation with Sami Khedira and Bastian Schweinsteiger (declared fit to play) sitting behind Mesut Ozil to form the central midfield. Therefore, one difficulty with man marking in central midfield already comes forth with Germany being a man down in the vital area, thereby theoritically leaving Italy always with a man free incase that tactic for defending is followed. Along with that problem, another problem which will arise from man marking a player like Pirlo is his movement off the ball. A heat map of his movement vs England will show a vital component to the art of deep playmaking, which the Italian has mastered.

(c) UEFA.com

The heat map shows the how regular Pirlo was at coming close to his own box in order to get the ball, we can see from the panel's above an on game example, that brings many complications for man marking. As stated, it is likely that Germany are going to be out numbered in central midfield but even then you would logically assign a central midfield to man mark Pirlo, most likely a high energy player like Sami Khedira or Bastian Schweinsteiger. The problem in that strategy arrives when Pirlo will invariably come deep close to his defence to collect the ball. If someone like Schweinsteiger or Khedira were to follow Pirlo that far into the Italian half, it would take them well out of central midfield and therefore would not only still leave Germany outnumbered in that vital area in midfield but also now with a key defensive player out of position, giving space to the more attacking midfielders (Marchisio and Montolivo) to receive the ball and create quick attacks. 




With that hypothetical situation, it would seem as if the best way to counter Pirlo would be to use the zonal marking tactic but that would mean moving some of the defensive responsibilities towards the attacking players including Mesut Ozil and Miroslav Klose (or Mario Gomez). We've seen how this tactic could back fire in the England example as Wayne Rooney was clearly seen neglecting the chance to close down Pirlo, generally you would not expect attacking players to show much eagerness to defend. While Miroslav Klose has certainly shown an eagerness to close down close by opponents when the needs arises (as has Mario Gomez in recent years), a problem comes forth with Mesut Ozil's lack of defensive work rate. Ozil is similar to Pirlo in a way that one of his greatest strengths is his ability to find pockets of space away from defenders but his constant movement off the ball when on offensive effects his work rate off the ball when defending as he usually is not able to bring the same energy to close down when his team loses the ball. This brings an interest, and controversial, argument forward:


Kroos for Ozil?


At first this might seem to be overreacting, and could well be come the match on Thursday, especially considering the performance of Mesut Ozil vs Greece but the presence of Kroos well certainly not only help Germany deal better with the presence of Andrea Pirlo deep in the Italian half but also the greater presence of Italian central midfielders. The important difference between Kroos and Ozil for this match would be the defensive work rate and positioning of the two, illustrated in the below comparison of the heat maps of the two players over the two Champions League ties between Kroos' Bayern Munich and Ozil's Real Madrid (attacking is from left to right for both players):

(c) ESPN Soccernet

As clearly shown, Toni Kroos takes up a lot more defensive positions than Ozil due to him being a more natural central midfielder while Ozil is more of an attacking midfielder. Over the course of the previous season, Toni Kroos came up with much better defensive statistics than Ozil such as greater tackles per game, 1.6 (2.5 in the UCL) vs 1.1, and interceptions per game, 1.5 vs 0.6*. With Toni Kroos, Bayern are seen to play more of a 4-3-3 formation rather than a 4-2-3-1, which they would play with Thomas Muller as the third central midfielder, with Kroos providing a pivot for Schweinsteiger for play around (explained here). The greater eagerness of Kroos to defend and play deeper could allow not only for Germany to have a more willing midfielder to close down Pirlo but also provide an extra pivot for Sami Khedira and Schweinsteiger to work around in case the team would require more energetic closing down of Pirlo, rather than the case stated above where Germany would close a great deal of defensive presence if either one of them decided to move forward to block an early pass from Pirlo. A third positive effect from playing Kroos would be in the form of having greater control in central midfield as Kroos could provide more support for the Schweinsteiger and Khedira when they are on the ball. A negetive effect of having Ozil as an AM can be in form of there being a greater distance between the two deeper midfielders and Mesut (an example being Bayern Munich with Muller compared with Kroos, explained in the same link above), thereby making it more difficult for Ozil's supporting central midfielders to receive a pass. This problem can be exploited if the opposition team put numbers inbetween the two deep midfielders and Ozil; something Bayern Munich did in the Champions League tie and Italy could do with their packed central midfield. 


The issue of Germany lacking defensive presence when either one of Schweinsteiger or Khedira push forward to close down opposition midfielders leaving only one defensive midfielder to block out opposition attacks can be used with respect to Germany putting too many players in attack and thereby being exposed to counter attacks through the middle. Germany haven't had that much problem defending through the middle as of yet and both Khedira and Schweinsteiger have had a fair amount of license to go roam into forward positions but neither of the teams faced thus far have the offensive strength in the center as Italy. Holland, for example, played with two pure midfield destroyers in Van Bommel and Nigel De Jong while only having Sneijder as a midfielder with a consistent attacking threat, that therefore meant that Germany were able to deal with threats down the center as long as one of Schweinsteiger or Khedira was present in a defensive position, thereby giving the other a free license to go forward. The case simply is not the same with respect to Italy and their bag of central midfielders, as the following series of heat maps will show:

The same case presented itself with Germany were faced with Denmark who played with Zimling and William Kvists as defensive midfielders while Jacob Poulsen acted as a box to box midfielder. 


It would seem highly unlikely at first thought to see Low make a major change such as this but with his latest stunt of pulling out two experienced players and Germany's best player of the group stage for the quaterfinal vs Greece, one can not be certain of anything especially when considering the quality that is present on the bench. While Kroos might not have as big a reputation as Ozil, the Bayern player had more success than his compatriot in Europe's biggest club competition and had a tremendous season overall himself. Though each player has their different qualities, there is not a great overall disparity between the two.     


Germany's width vs Italy's narrowness:

Italy's average positions vs England (c) Whoscored.com

It's a battle between two different philosophies, one to dominate the center and hold possession while the other is to play as direct, quick football with interchanging of positions and the use of wide players. The statistics couldn't prove the difference better with Italy amongst the top three in terms of percentage of attacks started from the center (32%) while Germany rank as the second lowest (24%)* in the tournament. Italy have played two formations thus far, the 3-5-2 which they used to combat the second highest team in terms of central attacking, Spain, and the 4-3-1-2 for other teams; due to the difference in the way Spain and Germany have played in this tournament, it would seem certain that Prandelli will play the 4-3-1-2 as the 3-5-2 would render Italy's wing backs completely useless since they would see themselves defending against Germany's wingers and wing back rather than actually having the license to attack. 


Reus and Schurrle vs Muller and Podolski: Offense vs Work Rate, Experience vs Youth


Since it seems almost certain how Italy will be setup, the question on the German side would be how to combat the narrow tactics. Joachim Low would not have to go too far away from his usual tactics but one question that will be burning inside him is which players to use out wide. Thomas Muller and Lukas Podolski, two stalwarts for the German side over the years, started the first three matches of the tournament with limited success and were replaced by young upstarts Marco Reus and Andre Schurrle, both of whom put in good performances with Reus being particularly spectacular. It will essentially be Reus vs Muller and Schurrle vs Podolski come Thursday's decision time and while there are differences in their quality and style of play, with Schurrle and Reus being more spectacular and direct in their dribbling, their positional play (particularly Muller and Reus), as evidenced by the matches played thus far, has not been that different:

Blue: vs Greece, Orange: vs Denmark (c)Whoscored.com

Looking at both sets of images. Their average positions are very similar but their heat maps do show some slight changes in movement. For Reus vs Muller, it can be seen that both players were seen taking up central positions quite often to support the movement of Ozil whose movement from the center to the right gives an opportunity for the right wingers to come centrally to their more preferred areas of operation (both Muller and Reus and natural second strikers). Reus' movement vs Greece was more varied than Muller vs Denmark offensively, though a lot of that has to do with Reus switching to the left hand side following Schurrle's substitution, as was Schurrle's in comparison with Podolski. While there aren't that many disparities between the two offensively, there is a noticable difference in the defensive movement of the two players, this could be the all important issue to think about come the semi-final eventhough Italy rarely attack through the wings.


 That being said, both players, especially Reus (his work rate is talked about while analyzing Borussia Monchengladbach's tactics here), have been known to work their socks off the ball to help the team but against Greece they had shown a bit of naiveness in their ignorance of defensive duties, which Greece tried to make full use off as they, while averaging 38% in the first three matches, put up 42% of their attacks down Germany's right hand side where Jerome Boateng is stationed at right back, who also plays an important part in this debate. Boateng is quite easily the weak point of Germany's defence therefore we could see Italy again trying to exploit that gap so the need for Muller to be there for his extra work rate could be essential. But then again, would Germany need two defenders to cover for one Italian wing back? It all depends on how Low sees his strategy for the match, if he goes for the more cautious approach and prefers both Podolski and Muller for Schurrle and Reus or go for the more direct, exciting though naive partnership of Reus and Schurrle. 


The everlasting debate, Miro Klose vs Mario Gomez:


It's a pretty good situation to find yourself in when you have the choice of playing one striker who has scored 47 goals in 51 starts over the course of the past 12 months and another striker who has 64 goals in 120 matches for your international team; even then, choosing one can be the biggest headaches for a manager today. Klose vs Gomez presents a debate not only of two different strikers but two different methods of football, Klose represents the more technical side of the mastery of striking while Gomez is still trying to hold the flag for the old school strikers whose job it was to simply score. Klose has been a favourite for Low over the previous seasons but his lack of fitness following the tournament dealt the manager's hand and Gomez was picked to start the first three matches, he ended up scoring three goals. Even then, many were still believing that it was a matter of time before Klose reached match fitness and was ready to start and lo and behold he was given his chance against Greece and did not disappoint leaving with a goal and a generally good all round performance which illustrated the difference between him and the Bayern Munich striker. The debate between the two strikers has been dealt with before on this website in more detail here.


Again, the question comes down to how Low wants to play since both strikers are almost guarenteed to do the job they are given. Klose has already had recent success against Italy, scoring a fine goal in a 1-1 friendly with Prandelli's side last year, while Gomez will be facing this side for the first time. Maybe the answer for Low lies in the qualities of the two Italian center backs who will most likely be defending his striker, Giorgio Chiellini and Leonardo Bonnuci. Chiellini's strength has been physical and aerial while his weakness comes from his lack of speed and turning ability so therefore trying to deal with him in a direct sense might not be the best option, i.e playing Gomez. With Klose's maneuverability of the ball and his ability to exchange quick passes with his fellow team mates, he would seem to be the best option to have to move the immobile Italian central defenders out of position and try and exploit space in behind them. Klose's partnership with Ozil and Muller, a combination of speed of thought, movement and passing (explained in the article above), has been an offensive key for Germany ever since they first started playing together in the World Cup and that partnership could be the key to unlocking the stubborn Italian defence. 


Formation and Final Thoughts:

4-3-3 with Kroos and Muller coming into the side

The inclusion of Kroos will definitely be a surprise to many if it does happen, especially considering the form of Ozil against Greece but in order to counter the strength in the middle for Italy, the presence of a more solid central midfielder is essential for Germany if they are to prevent Italy from winning the key area in the middle. Playing Kroos instead of Ozil could break the fantastic partnership he has with Muller and Klose but on the evidence of the match against Greece, Reus and Klose have already created quite good communication amongst each other. Reus down the left would also be another surprise given that he has yet to feature in that position in the tournament except for a few minutes against Greece, during which he scored his goal. With all the talk of having width, the placement of Reus down the left might seem counterproductive but with the lack of form of Podolski during this tournament, and the form of Reus during his club season with Borussia Monchengladbach and against Greece, it would be difficult to leave out the young attacker. The width for Germany can come from the advancement of Lahm down the left or from Reus himself starting off wide and then cutting onto his stronger right foot as Schurrle did against Greece. Also, placing Reus down the left would put him alongside a more accomplished defender in Lahm so Reus' possible naivety defensively can be countered. Klose for Gomez is a none question given Klose's playing style and that he performed well in his first start of the tournament against Greece. 

Overall, the clash between Germany and Italy looks set to be a classic, as it always is with both teams playing contrasting styles of football and having very equal starting teams in terms of quality. Both Prandelli and Low have shown their tactical acumen during this tournament and therefore the battle will not only be on the pitch but also on the sidelines. 


*Statistics provided by www.whoscored.com