Tactical Analysis: PSV Eindhoven vs. AZ Alkmaar (1/13/2021)
Today’s matchup is between two of the top five in the Dutch Eredivisie, PSV and AZ. Both perennial top 4 candidates, for the past few years, this matchup is crucial in deciding where each team will play in the European competitions. This match promised to be a hard-fought competition as neither team had lost in their previous five matches and neither team would enjoy fighting through Europa League qualifications. The importance of the match was even higher this year, as Vitesse have snuck their way into the top 3 this season, leaving AZ in fifth even after they won Wednesday’s match 3–1.
Today we’ll look at tactics employed by AZ Alkmaar and PSV Eindhoven, and how they influenced each other and impacted the score line.
AZ’s Tactics:
Out of Possession:
Throughout the past couple years, AZ has become somewhat well known for their 4–3–3 shape, often with an attacking midfielder behind the striker. This could also be classified as a 4–2–3–1, but their wingers usually stayed higher and their midfield stayed in more of a line, so I’d consider it a 4–3–3 personally. Lineup and shape in game:
It is worth noting quickly that Stengs and the two wingers seemed to rotate frequently, especially Gudmudsson, probably because Stengs feels comfortable in that right half-space.
This shape was very effective as it gave AZ plenty of tactical flexibility to pressure when they wanted to, as there was plenty of balance throughout the lines.
One instance of this can be found below, where AZ would isolate a winger and pressure him with a second man. Their fullbacks would attempt overlapping, but pressure from the correct angle made that difficult.
Part of this was also this concept of hunting in packs, especially right after they had lost the ball. AZ would launch into a counter-press meant to win the ball back as quickly as possible. They’d look to double team an opposition player and force him into making mistakes.
If that failed, AZ were unafraid to drop into their defensive third and close up the gaps. Most of their game was spent in the defensive third of the pitch. Action zones show almost 40% of the match was there, while 44% was in the central third. They made themselves near impenetrable by playing compact, and by playing as a unit. Center-backs mostly avoided stepping to pressure, leaving the center-midfielders to cover them centrally.
In Possession:
AZ in possession has always been one of the most dynamic sides in the league, high octane attacks with fast, skillful players who can bamboozle the defense. Today was, of course, no different. This was mostly done through counter attacking, but AZ’s clinical finishing was the real headline story from today. Well, mostly Koopmeiners… anyways.
AZ’s players absolutely hammered the half spaces. Fullbacks would drive through those half-spaces, giving them the room to lay off wide to the wingers or play it central to a midfielder or Boadu.
This was one of the main ways that AZ created, because they were much faster on the counter. Sugawara and Wijndal were able to run these channels easily, until PSV would get settled into their own shape.
Infrequently, the wingers would also contribute to this while Sugawara and Wijndal overlapped. This is a part of AZ’s game that is usually heavily emphasized, as Sugawara and Wijndal are normally attacking fullbacks. On this occasion, they held back and were used for interplay but rarely crossing.
In fact, they had two total crosses between them. The dutch left-back had both, and I think this contributed to some of their issues in the match. (They usually average 1.72 and 3.44 respectively.)
One of the least surprising aspects of the match was Koopmeiners behavior in sustained build-up. As a left-footed defensive midfielder, he frequently created a 3 chain in the back, as the fullbacks pushed high and wide up the field. This created a reverse shape, akin to a 3–3–4, or maybe a 3–3–1–3, depending on which spaces Stengs or Gudmudsson were occupying.
The right formation, the 3–3–1–3 was especially interesting as it gave AZ three focal points in their formation. Martins Indi, Midtsjo, and Stengs. Those three would dictate play through this setup, combining to push further up the field and eventually pin PSV with sustained possession.
My final comment on AZ in possession is about their wingers and Stengs, whose positional awareness and rotations were a sight to behold on Wednesday. They would rotate frequently and well, making themselves difficult to track and keeping the PSV defense on their toes. They also warped defenders to give Boadu space to run in behind and try to find space.
PSV Tactics:
Out of Possession:
Unlike AZ’s structure and tactics, PSV were easy to track and easy to understand throughout the match. They started in a 4–2–2–2, a variant of the 4–4–2, and maintained this structure throughout the match. They’d use the two attacking midfielders out wider to cover the width while Rosario and Sangare would cover central.
Often PSV would drop even deeper if AZ was pressuring and form a cohesive rectangle of eight, where Ryan Thomas and Mohammed Ihattaren would drop into the left and right mid positions.
In terms of pressure, PSV usually AZ pass around the back as much as they wanted. Their forwards mostly acted as a cover shadow to the center-mids, as they gifted space to the aforementioned defenders.
This was generally a pretty strong shape for PSV, and they limited the amount of chances that AZ were able to create in remarkable fashion. Containing the second-best attack in the league to 3 shots between 5 forwards is normally something to write home about.
In this case, uh… Koopmeiners simply didn’t care at all.
Anyways, Ibrahim Sangare, Pablo Rosario, and Ryan Thomas were very important to note in this phase of play. While he was great on the ball, Sangare didn’t always make the correct choices with his positioning and, at times, could be erratic.
For example, in the clip below, Sangare steps all the way from the anchoring position of the midfield to pressure the goalkeeper. While he does force a clearance, he has also vacated his space. The same space the keeper has just launched a ball into.
Fortunately, in this instance, Rosario was back there to cover if need be, but that was clearly not his role all game. Sangare was clearly the anchor man for Roger Schmidt’s squad and these kamikaze sprints at the defense were… ill-advised maybe?
This is where Thomas was very useful though, as he’d frequently drop from his attacking midfield position down a bit next to Rosario, covering for those moments where Sangare turned into The Hulk and wanted to smash.
In most instances though, Rosario was used to engage the AZ midfielder or forward, as long as they were within the AZ defensive third or the central third. When they got to the AZ offensive third, the rules changed a bit. PSV made an effort to sit back a bit deeper until AZ made the effort, so pressure would only come to force them out of a space. For example:
The midfielders and defenders would collapse into the player who was receiving the ball. This would force them to dribble out of those dangerous areas, or lose the ball. Rosario and Sangare especially did a great job of this throughout the match, pushing the AZ attackers out of danger zones.
They also made an intentional effort to defend zone 14, which can be seen below.
This is commonly known to be one of the most dangerous areas on the field, and recognizing that, Schmidt made entry near impossible. This made Boadu’s link-up life pretty difficult, and he was forced to make runs into wider, less dangerous areas of the pitch.
In Possession:
When they had the ball, which was a majority (60%) of the time, PSV did a pretty good job of creating chances for themselves. First, we need to start with their build-up structure.
Similar to the way that AZ used Koopmeiners, one of their defensive midfielders also dropped into the defensive line. In PSV’s case, it was Sangare, who split the defenders while Max and Dumfries would move high.
In this specific instance, PSV’s defenders were given the ability to move forward into the half space and look for passes to their forward line. This was especially prudent because both Boscagli and Teze are quite good on the ball, and could pick out a pass after driving forward.
Meanwhile in the attack, forwards interchanged frequently. Specifically Zahavi, Ihattaren, and Thomas. For easy visualization, it functioned similar to the FIFA version of the 4–2–3–1 formation, where the 3 forwards were all “attacking-midfielders”.
Meanwhile, Malen would mark the space between the center-backs, making darting runs in behind or manipulating the defenders so that Zahavi could find his own space.
The PSV midfielders also had a cool way to contribute in the build-up instead of standing stagnant or looking for small pockets between players. Usually it was Rosario, who would play a pass off someone and move forward, losing his marker and creating space for himself to receive again. This can be seen below.
Obviously Max opted to pass it back to the center-half (the right choice) but Rosario was able to free up space for Ihattaren to move into. If Gudmudsson hadn’t pressured so well, this could’ve created a quality scoring opportunity for PSV.
One of PSV’s strongest weapons throughout the match was Zahavi and his runs behind. An intelligent player all over the pitch, he was able to find pockets of space to run into behind the defense.
Teun Koopmeiners.
2 goals, 1 assist.
That’s it. That’s the entire section.
The Way the Tactics Affected the Outcome
Both teams were clearly structured well in their defense, and neither team really created many quality chances. In the end, goals would have to come from individual mistakes, and specific instances rather than some sort of tactical genius from one of the managers.
BUT, that does not mean their tactical setups didn’t influence this end result.
To open the scoring, Koopmeiners put a penalty past Yvon Mvogo to make it 1–0 in the 31st minute. This came off the back of a foul by Mvogo himself, on Myron Boadu.
In this clip, we can see exactly what I mentioned prior about the half-spaces and Boadu’s runs. Stengs pushes forward in the half space, albeit moving central, and plays the ball against the direction Boscagli was headed. It’s dangerous to leave that much space between your lines, and Midtsjo was able to exploit it with the initial pass to Stengs.
This eventually causes a pretty poor challenge from Mvogo, and Koopmeiners buries the penalty as you’d expect.
About 10 minutes later, Koopmeiners decided he’d had enough, and put in a second one. Comfortably goal of the season, I can’t even dream of something that would top it. Unbelievable finish.
Third goal was a quality free kick from PSV that came off a silly challenge in a silly location. AZ won’t be happy to have conceded that one, especially after defending so well the rest of the match.
Finally, in the 90th minute, PSV’s defensive structure breaks down for a second time. Koopmeiners finds him in space out wide, and he’s able to finish, probably thanks to the deflection from Teze.
And while it is true that PSV fans can be frustrated that they gave up a couple of lucky goals and a penalty, it has to be understood where these goals really came from. The first was a mental lapse causing way too much space and an easy through-ball. The second was near identical, but in a different area of the field.
PSV certainly didn’t play bad enough to lose this game, but they definitely didn’t play well enough to win it. A draw probably would’ve been a fair result, removing the ridiculous goal off the corner and if PSV had finished one of their chances a bit better.
Individual, Irrelevant Player Comments:
Jordan Teze: First up is the 21 year old center-back from PSV. Played a monster game today, despite conceding three goals. Seems like his talent might be finally catching up to him. This is going to be great news for PSV.
Ollivier Boscagli: Very impressive performance, add him to the ever-growing list of talented French center=backs.
Ibrahim Sangare: He’s got a LOT to iron out positionally. I think he was the root of a lot of PSV’s issues. But, he is clearly very talented on the ball, and I feel that he will become the player we expect him to become.
Donyell Malen: Despite not getting much attention today, Malen put in another solid game. Sure-footed and smart with the ball, he’s returned from this knee injury better than he was when he left because of it.
Owen Wijndal and Yukinari Sugawara: Impressed by both, technically sound on the ball as always but impressively aware of their defensive duties today. They were a major reason why PSV struggled.
Myron Boadu: Similar to Sangare, it’s clear that he’s still got room to grow, but the talent is clearly there. His runs are up there with some of the best, and as he gets more time on the ball, I expect him to be a very good player.
Teun Koopmeiners: I talk about him probably more than I talk about my girlfriend. This guy is probably my favorite player in the world right now, and I’m so excited to see what is in store for him the next couple years. Born leader, immense technical ability, phenomenal understanding of the game… Koopmeiners has the world at his finger tips and I’d be surprised if there was a single team in Europe who didn’t want him. He took over today and won AZ the game by himself.
Marco Van Ginkel: Congratulations on returning to football after 983 days. Really cool to see him take the pitch again today.
Would appreciate feedback on this organization, I’m still trying to figure out the best way to convey my thoughts after a match.
— John
