last 16 of the Champions League.
The young coach has earned himself a great
reputation at a very young age. Some of the
players are still older than him, but it’s clear
that they are already led by a wise example,
nonetheless.
The three players at the back for Die Roten
Bullen are floating and very much part of
the build-up play at the Red Bull Arena.
They move up and down from a defensive
midfield position to create options and
different angles for short passing and
cleverly moving the ball from side to side,
in search of the killer through ball and a
change of pace.
The principles aren’t a lot different from
what has been seen from the best teams in
Europe in the last decade but the approach
today is similar to the one that has helped
Sheffield United reach the upper echelons
of the Premier League under Chris Wilder.
Wilder’s centre-backs interchange with
other positions in an untraditional way.
Leipzig are proving that adding even more
tactically-aware players can make the
system even more successful.
Some elements of Nagelsmann’s style are
timeless, though. Brazil are widely accepted
as the first team to use attacking full-
backs, at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden
and, since then, no team has been truly
complete without that wide option – be
they orthodox full-backs or another take on
the same idea.
Nagelsmann has that at his disposal at
Leipzig and only having one player out wide
helps free up space both behind and ahead.
The central players can move out to the
sides and invite the centre-backs up a line
and crowd the centre.
The full-backs might not be regarded as
defenders in the same way as they used to
be, but they are vital to help control one of
the most important aspects of the modern
game; how to win the ball back and how
you lose it. It’s not too dissimilar from chess.
Nagelsmann might have inspiration from
some of the old heroes of German football,
as both Ottmar Hitzfeldt and Felix Magath
were avid chess players.
“I find it useful for a footballer to play
chess,” Magath once said and he was
supported by the former Manchester United
manager Sir Alex Ferguson, who also
considered the mother of strategic games
very useful.
The parallel between the two strategic
games are highlighted mostly by how you
try to control the middle of the board and
the midfield in football. Ferguson revealed
in his autobiography that he ‘would force
every player to learn chess’ if he was able to
start his career from scratch.
Nagelsmann looks like he could be a good
chess player, as he is basing his game
plan on how his players act in the middle,
sometimes with four or five players always
connected, only separated by a few metres.
It helps them regain possession efficiently,
but also change formation fluently.
When Leipzig have the ball at the back,
the players inside the opposition’s half are
always moving and it might seem like a
3-1-1-5, but quickly turns into a 3-5-1-1 again
when the ball is lost. The few touches and
their movement in the middle makes sure
they drag the opposition towards the ball
and into the centre to create enough space
to send the ball down the right or the left.
One of the attacking midfielders duly links
with the three-man defence, allowing one
of the deeper midfielders to spread the play
wide with one touch and then turn with
pace and intensity – and a host of options
in the opposition’s box.
Only the lack of precision might be what
has stopped Leipzig from completely ruling
German football by now, but if they are
allowed to continue with their model, they
might be able to combine – to a certain
extent – Guardiola’s tiki-taka football from
Barcelona with Klopp’s transitional style
from his time at Borussia Dortmund.
Attractive football attracts fans and heaps
of them have joined one of the carriages
behind the Red Bull locomotive. Their fifth
investment in the world of football has
turned out to be the most successful of
them all. And despite a business model
causing controversy in Germany, judging
only by what the football team presents
us on a weekly basis – it has been rather
entertaining so far.CHAPMAN’S
WAY
One of the early tactical originators
was Herbert Chapman. Martin Mork
explains the legacy of the title-winning
Huddersfield and Arsenal manager.Herbert Chapman created the W-M
formation as an adaptation of the 2-3-5.
In a time when two full-backs – now
known as centre-backs – behind a trio
of what were then called half-backs,
the former Arsenal coach would push
the two full-backs out wide and invite
one of the half-backs to drop deeper
and create an M-shape in defence. He
added another defender to counter a
new offside law in the 1920s and helped
Arsenal win the league twice with his
revolutionary formation.
The Italian maestro Vittorio Pozzo
answered by changing the letter
and make the defenders part of
the attacking play, creating a W-W
formation by tweaking Chapman’s
M-W slightly. The triangles of these
formations can be spotted in many
of the most recent innovations. When
a team player with a No.10 behind
two strikers – or a holding midfielder
supporting two more attacking
teammates – they too are exploiting the
options of the triangles, a direct line
from Chapman and Pozzo to today.
Whether a team lines up in 4-3-3, 4-4-2
or 4-2-3-1 – or some variation thereof- the system is just on paper. Players
move fluidly, looking for passing options
and space to exploit – and that is what
was espoused by Chapman and Pozzo
and continues to be today. The best,
most successful formations are the ones
that encourage fluidity, regardless of
how they line up on the team sheet.
TOP, OPPOSITE
PAGE:
He’s younger
than some of his
players but Julian
Nagelsmann’s ideas
are driving RB
Leipzig forward
BOTTOM, OPPOSITE
PAGE:
Claude Makelele
TOP:
Chris Wilder’s
Sheffield United
have taken the
Premier League
by storm with
their unorthodox
approach
BOTTOM LEFT:
Andrea Pirlo
BOTTOM RIGHT:
Sir Alex Ferguson
believed chess
strategies could be
successfully applied
to football tactics
RIGHT, SIDEBAR:
Herbert Chapman