Juventus – Napoli: Conte Twists, But Motta Sticks To The Script (0-0)
It is not unlike Antonio Conte to arrange a different game plan, but not many expected it from a team that has yet to develop his automatisms. Despite Napoli’s early ambition, Thiago Motta ensured that Juventus would gain control and neither team could produce in the final third from it.
Tactical analysis and match report by Joel Parker.
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The modern tactical story of this fixture has often toed the line of plucky but artistic Neapolitans against a dogmatic Juve defense, with success stacked in black and white. Whether it was Maurizio Sarri or Luciano Spalletti in the dugout, Napoli had always viewed itself as the creative counterpart; so Antonio Conte returning to Turin, in the form of opposition, against a relatively young coach in Thiago Motta, would take some getting used to.
It’s not like Juve had tried creative rebuilds before, but Motta doesn’t have to handle an unhappy superstar or a dismissive rearguard to lay ideas across. Before Cristiano Giuntoli, the Juve technical director whose transfer dealings laid the foundation for Napoli’s historic Scudetto victory, made late attacking acquitions; products from Juve’s Next Gen academy played a huge part in 3-0 victories over Como and Verona. Stodgy performances against Empoli and Roma saw Mottismo go off the boil but showed potency against PSV Eindhoven, even when they hadn’t shown total control.
Recovery after a traumatizing defeat to Verona has seen some impressive scorelines for Conte’s Napoli. Landing transfer targets and shooting up the table had Napoli leading Serie A, briefly, after their 4-0 win over Cagliari. However, the circumstances in which they landed victories in their three games question the sustainability of their form.
Motta made just a single change from his team’s 3-1 victory over PSV in the Champions League. Captain Federico Gatti picked up an injury during that game, so he was on the bench as Nicolò Savona came in at right-back, and Pierre Kalulu took up the vacant center-back position.
Conte made two changes with an interesting formation change. Pasquale Mazzocchi was taken out for Mathías Olivera and Leonardo Spinazzola was replaced by Scott McTominay making his first start for the club. Napoli had gone through pre-season and continued into the campaign strictly in a 3-4-2-1/3-4-3 arrangement, but the inclusion of the Scotsman saw them switch to a 4-3-3 system.
Napoli brings the narrowness
The switch of shape was not the only surprise that Conte had configured in his game plan. Early spells had Napoli in control of the ball and the narrowness of the players enabled a number of positional adjustments to be partaken (yes, this is Conte’s plan we are talking about.) In their passing structure, Stanislav Lobotka dropped into the space in front of the center-backs, whilst Frank Anguissa moved to the right of Amir Rrahmani once the ball was moved out of the defensive third. In this sequence, McTominay would show for the ball and Romelu Lukaku peeled into the right channel to drag Kalulu. Against Juve’s 4-1-4-1 medium block, the constant movement on the right disrupted Andrea Cambiaso’s defensive positioning: Napoli was able to put the ball down the line for Lukaku or open up Matteo Politano or Kvaratskhelia between the lines, and in space to turn.
3rd minute: The aims from Napoli’s narrow buildup. Anguissa’s position to the right of Rrahmani encouraged Koopmeiners to leave McTominay, who had dropped from the forward line, and Bremer had retreated to the defensive line. As the ball is played to Di Lorenzo, Cambiaso steps up and Yıldız, initially man-marking Politano, also steps up to cover McTominay. As Lukaku pinned Kalulu deep, Politano appeared as the free man between the lines to turn and run against the Juve defense.
Conte’s team could not retain the ball for long periods, but their direct approach did engineer dangerous moments where Kvaratskhelia dribbled against Savona on the semi-transition or lured Cambiaso out of the defensive line to create space for Lukaku, Politano or Giovanni Di Lorenzo to sprint into.
Another element of Napoli’s surprising arrangement was just how reliable McTominay was in not only holding the ball but progressing it too. The right-side rotations led to Juve dropping its defensive line and McTominay had space to dribble into once he had shown for the ball. McTomadona produced a couple of excellent carries and an impressive volleyed pass over the top of Cambiaso towards Politano, who should have produced a more dangerous attack if the Italian winger was not so one-footed, turning back to circulate the ball.
Napoli had the progressive movements to quickly get up the field, but that is as far as it went. Both Lukaku and Politano had difficulties turning the ball back inside, Cambiaso nullified Politano’s crossing output very effectively. Attacks finished at the dribble, with Kvaratskhelia and Lukaku producing uncharacteristic performances in front of goal. Once Juve recovered its defensive shape, there was no breaking through in Napoli’s circulation.
Juve spacing creates an open-game
Ultimately, this was a game that Juve was supposed to control – possession of the ball at least. Napoli kept its narrowness in their defensive formation, a flat and narrow 4-5-1 structure, with the ball-sided center-midfielders stepping up and Lobotka/Anguissa covering the space behind to make a 4-4-2 formation.
Motta has established a flexible system through the positioning of Cambiaso, not only inverting to become part of the double pivot but pushing forward to join the triangle of Teun Koopmeiners and Kenan Yıldız. With Manuel Locatelli working very closely with the center-backs, the distances increased between Juve’s first line of the buildup and the attack, which is a lot more fixed in its positioning, even if Cambiaso, Koopmeiners and Yıldız were all exchanging positions. With Savona sticking close to the center-backs, Juve was predominately in a 3-box-3 set-up, but the various movements meant there were few options between the lines and their shape entered a 4-1-space-4-1 arrangement.
25th minute: Buildup up issues from Juve and Napoli’s defensive organization. As Lukaku pressed, Bremer’s closed body shape invited Politano to curve his run in the pressing trigger and close off the potential overload on the left side of the Juve buildup. Locatelli is surrounded by both Politano and Anguissa, so Bremer’s only option is to move the ball to Savona and Kvaratskhelia can step up, knowing McTominay has McKennie covered. Circulation soon runs back to Kalulu.
This raised tempo issues in their buildup, the attack had been instructed to stay high and Motta’s team where transfixed on moving the ball to Locatelli, who funnelled the ball through to the attackers on the left side. Another key part of Motta’s arrangement is the defensive line dropping much deeper in circulation, to vertically stretch the field and encourage the defensive block to open itself out. However, this was more of a hindrance as opposed to helping the buildup progress, as center-backs only had Locatelli to bounce off, and receive the ball in closed positions, unable to spread play quickly enough.
Furthermore, Napoli did not open itself as much as Juve expected and when Conte’s team moved into a more man-orientated plan, between a high-and-medium block, the midfield and defensive line did support the press effectively, a massive improvement compared to some of Napoli’s earlier games this season.
40th minute: Deep buildup from Juve against Napoli’s high block. Lukaku nor McTominay engaged with the center-backs in the box and Juve attempted to stretch the pitch as wide as possible, most notably through the two halfspace occupiers, Koopmeiners and McKennie, hugging the touchline for the wingers to come more central. Savona is encouraged to play the ball into a very narrow area as Yıldız dropped towards the ball, but the pass misses his target (Anguissa’s interaction was deemed a foul by the referee, but Napoli’s high block constantly forced Juve to pass longer into these kinds of spaces.)
The spacing in Juve’s buildup led to Napoli transitioning against it on multiple occasions, with the same results as the attacks that they generated in the first twenty minutes. Juve ended up holding onto possession more than their opponents but was working with blunt tools to try and pierce through. Crosses from the left were the only source of box entry, although Napoli still appeared shaky in defending these moments. Alessandro Buongiorno’s missed header saw the ball cannon off Nicolás González and just missed Dusan Vlahović in the process. Koopmeiners produced a flick on himself on the next cross, the perfect zone for Olivera to deal with the two-versus-one that had been created at the back post.
The game entered more into a transitional phase after half an hour as Napoli was able to enact buildup phases of their own. Goalkeeper Alex Meret was replaced by Elia Caprile due to injury, but Juve could not test the former Leeds United academy product any more than they did against Meret. Napoli got closest at the end of the first period, an indirect free-kick from Politano inches away from Lukaku’s head in the six-yard box, but both teams had failed to ignite an attacking spark.
The game we expected starts to unfold
Vlahović had an ineffectual game, just six touches in the first half, but being replaced by Timothy Weah as the teams came out was still a surprise. Napoli continued to follow Juve’s defenders deep into their half, via the counterpress, but already Juve was starting to control the ball longer and sit just inside the halfway line in their circulation.
Napoli’s defensive block dropped off as a result, and after Politano’s surging run led to a shot over the bar, their ability to create attacks was even more limited as Juve held the ball longer. Di Lorenzo’s man-marking against Yıldız was a lot stricter, almost in the far-sided channel at times as the objective was to keep the Turkish attacker in that zone. Despite the massive space this created between Di Lorenzo and Rrahmani, Juve struggled to capitalize on one or two phases where Weah dragged Rrahmani out of the defensive line and Koopmeiners third man run was not picked up by Politano or Anguissa.
65th minute: Bremer moves the ball forward to try and encourage the Napoli midfield to step out. Koopmeiners shows for the ball but is followed closely by Anguissa and McKennie’s lateral support run is tracked by Rrahmani. As a result, Bremer is forced to move the ball back to Cambiaso and Juve’s buildup is forced back to the halfway line.
Di Lorenzo would be supported by Politano dropping off to double up on the outside, or Anguissa moving inward to fill the gap between him and Rrahmani. Napoli had now fully entered medium-to-low block mode after the hour mark, and Juve’s avenues through the compact lines were very limited. A Cambiaso dribble through the center showed promise, turning past Lobotka and slipping past Rrahmani with Koopmeiners in space, in the box. He tried to wrap his shot around Buongiorno, but put the ball in the stands in the process.
Conte completely rotated his front three with twenty minutes left and Napoli’s man-orientated counterpress was still capable of forcing Michele Di Gregorio into going long for Buongiorno to win the aerial duel. Creating these turnovers, either through long keeper distribution or one of the midfielders dribbling into problems, relieved a lot of pressure for Napoli, but creating shots from it was not possible due to Juve being quick to reset and Napoli still having to dribble from the halfway line.
The only other change from Motta would be to replace Weston McKennie with Khéphren Thuram, but Juve was still no closer to breaking through Conte’s organized troops. A game with no highlight package, but plenty of tactical elements to unpack.
Takeaways
Juve still appears a work in progress. Having spent months attracting Koopmeiners away from Bergamo, it is interesting that Juve did not go through the same efforts into trying to secure Riccardo Calafiori’s services before his move to Arsenal, someone who would provide a lot more solutions to the deep buildup issues that they faced. Motta is still trying to bring in some elements of what made his Bologna team so interesting, but his model for Juve appears to be a 3-box-3 shape with more diverse double pivot positions. They are still yet to concede in Serie A, but their offensive work still needs a lot more work.
Although Napoli had produced very little attacking work of their own, their work off the ball was a lot more encouraging here. Conte’s tactical rotation did have benefits, McTominay instrumental to progressing through the lines and producing transitional threat, whilst the extra midfielder did block out routes to the halfspace attackers. Without European football, perhaps we can expect more of these game plans to be produced by Conte.
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