Date : 12/03/2016
Venue : Stadio Giuseppe Meazza
Competition : Serie A 2015/2016, Matchday 29
The starting line ups:
Internazionale started with Samir Handanovic under the posts, behind a four man defense that consisted of D’Ambrosio, Miranda, Juan Jesus and Nagatomo. Brozovic and Medel were the two CMs with Perisic and Ljajic on the wings. Up front, Eder created the attacking duo together with Mauro Icardi.
However, quickly after the start of the match, Icardi got injured. Mancini was forced to replace him and chose to bring on the pitch a midfielder like Kondogbia instead of another forward, thus changing his team’s shape also from a 4-4-2 to 4-2-3-1. Kondogbia and Medel were now the double pivot in front of defense, with Brozovic in front of them.
Bologna, on the other side, started with Mirante as the GK with Mbaye, Gastaldello, Maietta and Masina creating the defensive line of four in front of him. Diawara was protecting the defense as a DM while Donsah and Taider played in front of him as CMs. Giaccherini and Rizzo were either side of Mattia Destro, up front, who was also injured and replaced by Floccari.
Inter
On offense, as always, Mancini allowed Ljajic to take on a free role, moving where he thought was necessary in order to receive the ball or combine with his teammates, these were movements that were giving an advantage to the nerazzurri as he was overloading certain areas of the pitch, creating numerical superiorities and helping with the ball movement, although sometimes he was too close to the ball carrier, closing his view of the pitch and congesting unnecessarily a certain space. Danilo D’Ambrosio, meanwhile was responsible for providing width to Inter’s attack, while Ljajic was moving centrally, in order to stretch Bologna’s defense. Brozovic’s role was not restricted also to one area of the pitch.
Medel and Kondogbia were staying in front of the two CBs pretty much all the time, protecting them and allowing both FBs to move high up the pitch simultaneously. Kondogbia was becoming the LB at times, when the ball was on the left wing, allowing Nagatomo to move higher, without fearing that he had no cover behind him.
On defense, Inter’s sloppy pressing when utilized never became a weak point for the nerazzurri as Bologna’s defenders were not able to take advantage of those mistakes and move the ball successfully through the lines and up the pitch. When not pressing, they sat back on a flat 4-4-2, with Brozovic next to Eder.
Bologna’s pressing
What shaped the match, however, was Bologna’s way of defending and their use of a man-oriented pressing scheme.
The Rossoblu seemed content at sitting back, closing every possible passing option that Inter CBs had and press when necessary, in an attempt to take advantage of Inter’s poor build-up and force them on an endless and useless circulation of the ball between the defenders.
They started the game, with a pressing scheme in which Destro started his pressing run at the same time the ball was going to one of Inter’s CBs with the intention to force a pass to the nerazzurro FB, where Rizzo or Giaccherini could press. Meanwhile all the central options for Inter, just as the near ball winger were closely followed almost man-marked, making a pass towards these players high risk and forcing Inter on long ball.
With Destro quickly injured though and Floccari replacing him, this pressing scheme was replaced by a more passive one ( Probably because Donadoni thought that Floccari was not able to press as successfully as Destro? ).
The difference now, was that Floccari was not pressing Inter’s CBs in order to force them to a pass on the wings, but he stayed between the nerazzurro double pivot, closing central passing lanes. The wingers’ approach also changed, as they were not so attacking on their pressing to FBs anymore, but they preferred most of the times to position their bodies in a way that the only option for the opposition FBs was to pass the ball back again or make a long ball.
How Bologna pressed for most of the game:
An example of when the ball was on Inter’s right.
This way of defending and pressing seemed successful as Inter never seemed like they had prepared certain combination patterns and movements to break through the opponents lines. This lead to Inter being a lot of times cut in half, with 3 or 4 defenders together with Medel and Kondogbia being totally disconnected from the rest of the team.
There were also no movements from the double pivot to move away from the CBs and drag their markers with them, thus allowing Miranda and Juan Jesus with more time on the ball and also more space, probably in fear that Bologna would press the CBs in any case and they would be without any options for help.
However, there were many occasions that Mancini’s team broke their opponents’ lines and pressing. But how?
The abovementioned freedom of movement that Ljajic enjoyed was one solution. With Bologna’s players following their opponents only in predestined areas of the pitch (for example, the DM in front of defense, the FB on the wing or near it, etc.), the fact that the Serbian was changing sides of the pitch meant that nobody was following him or was marking him, creating this way 4v3 or 3v2 numerical superiorities on the opposite wing and creating a free man that could receive the ball.
Another solution was the sudden change of the side of the game. With Bologna, after Floccari was brought in, not pressing Inter’s defenders and always moving towards the side of the ball in order to cut every near passing option, there was always a FB on the other side with plenty of space to receive the ball into after a diagonal or horizontal cross.
An effective way to break this kinds of man-oriented defending is to combine with one-twos. Below you can see a very interesting combination that almost happened but failed due to D’Ambrosio’s wrong movement. It is another indication that although sometimes the nerazzurri have some good ideas on the pitch they cannot produce them practically on the field.
As you can see here, D’Ambrosio drags the winger with him centrally freeing the wing for Ljajic to receive the ball, the Serbian then turns and passes to the Italian who has got away from his marker.
Although these solutions were not consistently executed in a successful manner that could have been able to allow Inter to score, and Inter at times seemed only dangerous when counter-attacking, the Milanese found two goals from two corners and in the end managed to win the game.
Conclusion
Inter managed to win a very difficult team to break down like Donadoni’s Bologna. There were some good displays from some players but nothing good enough from the team as a unit that gives a lot of hope for the match against a transformed an in form Roma.
P.S. This game was another display of “How to try to lose a football match in an embarrassing way “ by Inter, who at first made this mistake:
When the last player covering a counterattack was Medel , positioned more near to the penalty area than the centre of the pitch.
Inter also conceded a goal, by this mistake by Kondogbia, who did not turn to see the Bologna player already running to press, on his right, passing to a Juan Jesus that had no time to react to the pressing.
Luckily those mistakes were not serious enough in order to lose or draw the game.
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