Pressing became the new passing, and as the gospel of pressing developed in scale and complexity, sterile possession in defensive areas became a target to be hunted down. So what is this vision? Let’s start with a little potted, broad-brush tactical recap: about a decade ago, Spanish-style possession football – what your mate down the pub still probably knows as tiki-taka – was gradually supplanted by a more chaotic, aggressive game based above all on high pressing and quick transitions. ‘His impact in England will be massive,’ Manchester City’s manager has said. ![]() Roberto De Zerbi gets a hug from Pep Guardiola. “They propose a type of game we’re not used to,” Guardiola said after a 3-1 Manchester City victory achieved with 48% possession. And there are times when watching them – as with his groundbreaking Sassuolo team – when it is possible to wonder whether we are witnessing the next little shift in the game, the vision that bumps football a little further up the road.Īnd if this feels like something of a leap for a club sitting eighth in the Premier League and a coach who has been in the job less than six months, then when Brighton visited the Etihad Stadium in October, Guardiola was convinced that he had watched something entirely new. This is the rich blueprint that De Zerbi is beginning to implement at Brighton. His final thesis at Coverciano, the Italian national coaching academy, was entitled “ Il mio modello di gioco”. De Zerbi was more interested in bolting on his own ideas, fusing Spanish passing football with German pressing with Italian tactical strength to create something distinctive and fresh. Every grinning wannabe who rolls off the Uefa pro licence course wants to be Pep Guardiola. ![]() Unimpressed with the cultural charms of Romania’s second city, he spent his evenings watching football exhaustively – Guardiola’s Barcelona, Mourinho’s Internazionale, Van Gaal’s Bayern – but with a critical eye. It was while seeing out his playing days at CFR Cluj that the idea of becoming a coach began to gestate into something more.
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