Date : 19/03/2016
Venue : Stadio Olimpico
Competition : Serie A 2015/2016, Matchday 30
The starting line ups:
Internazionale started with Samir Handanovic under the posts, behind a four man defense that consisted of D’Ambrosio, Miranda, Murillo and Nagatomo. Brozovic and Medel were the two CMs with Perisic and Biabiany providing the team’s width on the wings. Up front, Ljajic played behind the sole striker Eder.
Roma on the other side had Wojciech Szczęsny under the posts, behind a four man defense of Florenzi, Manolas, Rudiger and Digne. Keita was protecting the defense as a DM, with Pjanic and Nainggolan playing in front of him as CMs. Up front, Perotti who didn’t act as a natural striker was flanked by Salah and El Shaarawy.
Inter’s approach to the game
With the game being the match of the season for Inter, it was natural to see their coach, Roberto Mancini, taking a no risk approach. They were more than content to sit back and defend waiting for an opportunity for a counter-attack to arise.
Those counter-attacks primarily included long diagonal balls to the wingers, and not to Eder who could never have competed for headers against Roma’s CBs, either immediately after the ball was won or with a cross that changed the side of the game, inside Roma’s defensive third.
When it came to building the game up from the back, Mancini’s conservative approach could clearly be seen, as all four defenders were staying in an almost straight line in front of Handanovic. It was a shape that made everything difficult for Inter as it was much easier to be defended against by Roma and the team was also not positioned good enough in order to give good passing options to the ball carrier. This meant that Inter could create spaces and free men, only due to some clever movements by Ljajic (mainly) or Brozovic.
Of course these “bad” positions in the build-up were taken because Mancini didn’t want to leave his side vulnerable, trying to eliminate situations in which the nerazzurri FBs would move high up the pitch, lose the ball and then see Roma’s incredibly fast wingers move in the space behind them.
And as it proved, he was right, as in the 31st minute D’Ambrosio moved up the pitch, lost the ball and the immediately saw 4 opposition players ready to take advantage of the right wing, just as in the image below.
On defense Inter sat in 4-4-1-1 without pressing high, although high pressing occurred in some occasions when the ball returned back to the Roma CBs.
Eder was responsible for cutting the connection between the two Roma CBs, thus forcing them to move towards the wing and have the option to play on only half the pitch (laterally), while Ljajic was marking Keita cutting off the nearest passing option. With the ball moving towards the wing, Medel and Brozovic were responsible with tracking the movements of the nearest options to the ball carrier (usually Pjanic and Nainggolan).
As for the wingers, different approaches to their marking could be seen, something which was really interesting.
On the right, Biabiany was always positioned more towards the centre in order to invite a pass towards the wing where Digne and El Shaarawy were. This happened probably in order to not allow connections to be created between the two opposition wing players and Perotti who was always moving towards Inter’s right side in order to create combinations and numerical superiorities.
Perisic on the other side, however, was almost always trying to cut the passing lane to Salah, probably because Mancini did not want to left Nagatomo isolated against the Egyptian, leaving passing lanes towards Roma’s half-space (the space between the wing and the central area) more open.
You can clearly see above, many of the defensive aspects of Inter’s game. Eder is forcing Rudiger to play through the wings, Ljajic cutting the option of Keita and also Biabiany being positioned more centrally to allow a pass to the wing.
It was a defensive structure that had also a lot of flaws.
Sometimes, for example, although there was a huge distance between Inter’s CMs and the ball carrier, Medel (primarily ) and Brozovic would start sprinting in order to press despite the fact that their opponent had a lot of time and space to react, thus not only unsuccessfully pressing but also destroying Inter’s defensive shape.
Another example of a destroyed Inter defensive structure can be seen above. Manolas joins the midfield with a run with almost the whole Inter midfield in a moment of panic moving towards him and leaving a huge space between them and the defensive line for El Shaarawy to receive the ball.
It was a move that luckily for Inter was not repeated, maybe because it was considered too risky by the Romans.
Inter’s corner kicks
Mancini also changed his team’s way of defending corner kicks for this match, moving away from a “strict” zonal marking and employing a mixed marking defending, with everyone defending in a zone except three players who were man marking Keita and the two excellent on the air Roma CBs, Manolas and Rudiger.
Roma
Roma, did not change a lot in their approach to this game (except from some pressing patterns) compared to the previous ones under Spalletti.
They defended high up the pitch trying not to allow Inter to build their game from the back.
On offense, Perotti had his usual free role, moving towards the flanks and also interchanging positions with the two wingers. The Argentinian was very important in connecting the attack with the rest of the team taking very clever positions to receive the ball.
For example, as you can see in the below image, he takes advantage of Medel’s and Brozovic’s man oriented marking as they both tried to cut the nearest central passing options to the ball carrier and a space opened between them where Perotti cleverly moved to receive.
As for Salah, his option was of course chosen many times, as Roma wanted to take advantage of his speed with long balls behind Inter’s defense.
Second Half
The second half started with Roma’s FBs both moving high up the pitch simultaneously when on offense, a difference compared to the first half where only the ball side fullback was moving upwards, in order to stretch the pitch more and give more options on offense.
It was something for which Roma was punished, however, as Inter won the ball in the 54th minute and took advantage of the space behind Florenzi to score and move up 0-1.
Spalletti’s response was immediate, as he brought on the pitch Dzeko in the place of Keita.
Now Roma played in 4-2-3-1, with Pjanic and Nainggolan behind the front four. Perotti was once again free, but his role was mainly to move towards the right and create numerical superiorities on the wing, in order to enable Roma to make good crosses to Dzeko via the free man.
It was these movements that forced Ljajic to move many times towards the wing to the help defensively.
From the 60th minute on, the match became much more unorganized with both teams trying to catch their opposition on the counterattack. Inter became much more unorganized on their offense, attacking mainly through personal actions and improvised combinations, while on defense, the above mentioned problems with pressing became more obvious.
Roma eventually found the net on the 84th minute via Nainggolan who created the final 1-1.
Conclusion
Mancini’s very careful and almost conservative approach, despite its flaws, almost paid off. Roma, who were playing for two results, got what they wanted and leave Inter in an incredibly difficult position for next year’s Champions League qualification.
For more Tactical Analysis, Inter and not Inter related, you can follow me on Twitter, @ThanosChelas.
