Switzerland – Italy: Holes From The Holders Made For Freulerfreude (2-0)
Holes can be traditionally found in Swiss cheese, but it was the Italian midfield that adopted such vacant spaces. On either side of Nicolò Fagioli, a versatile attack was able to drop in, connect and build attacks that saw the holders dumped out of the Euros.
Tactical analysis and match report by Joel Parker.
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When Mattia Zaccagni curled the ball into the top corner to send Italy to Berlin, echoes of Alessandro Del Piero’s strike struck through the core. Perhaps this was the moment that ignited tournament ambitions, but Luciano Spalletti’s press conference was a cold reminder of the complexities involved.
Frustrations grew at the questions surrounding a “pact” between him and to keep the players happy, after a changed structure in the Croatia game. “I did my thesis on 3-5-2” Spalletti announced, biting back at journalists questioning the change. Harmony might be good between Spalletti and the players on the surface, but the tactical framework is a mess. The saving grace, Riccardo Calafori, was suspended for this crucial knockout; the Italians needed to find solutions quickly.
Switzerland rarely gets mentioned pre-tournament, despite their big scalps against big opponents being very impressive. Spain in 2010, drew France and Brazil in 2016 and 2018 respectively, before they knocked France out in the previous Euros and only lost to Spain on penalties. They were two minutes away from inflicting a defeat on the hosts, Germany; Murat Yakin’s team have shown that they are a very awkward outfit to face.
Yakin made a bold change to make up for Silvan Widmer’s suspension. The wing-back came out, replaced by attacker Ruben Vargas. How the Swiss would reshuffle the pack was not clear before the game, the Bologna core was established with Michael Aebischer left wing-back, Remo Freuler next to Granit Xhaka and Dan Ndoye making runs in the attack. The addition of Fabian Reder saw the Swiss overload on German attackers when they received, how they would operate here was going to see another adaptation.
Spalletti made even more unusual changes to his team. Jorginho and Federico Dimarco where also out, so Nicolò Fagioli and Gianluca Mancini came in. This saw Matteo Darmian pushed to left-back and Mancini next to Alessandro Bastoni. Stephan El Shaarawy was added to the attack, whereas Bryan Cristante was also introduced into the midfield. The final changes saw the return of Gianluca Scamacca and Federico Chiesa to the attack.
Italians unsettled
The Swiss had taken lessons from the ‘Group of Death’. Spain dictated the game against Italy through their pressing, whereas Croatian counterpressing was the most dangerous aspect against the Spalletti buildup unit. From the start, Switzerland had embraced possession control versus a 4-1-4-1 off-ball structure. The 3-2 buildup, that was produced from Yakin’s 3-4-2-1 shape had already exposed the massive spaces behind Nicolò Barella and Cristante, who had joined the narrow Chiesa and El Shaarawy, and left Fagioli with acres to cover.
In the final third, they continued to compress Italy into one area of the field. All of the Italian buildup was encouraged down the right side, Giovanni Di Lorenzo took up a slightly narrower position with Cristante more towards the touchline. Chiesa took up different positions on the next line with Ricardo Rodriguez manmarking the winger, but Italy struggled to break into their fluency, with no third-man runs, meaning that Chiesa would receive against a defensive overload.
10th minute: Counterpressing from Switzerland. After an attacking buildup broke down, the loose ball ran to Mancini and Vargas encouraged the Roman center-back to play inward. Both Aebischer from left wing-back and Remo Freuler pressed on the receiver, Fagioli. He played to Cristante, Aebsicher adjusted, and Chiesa was connected, but Freuler dropping towards Barella meant that two players were on the next receiver. Chiesa tried to drag the ball around Rodriguez, but the center-back blocked and Freuler picked up the loose ball.
Even though Italy could make vertical options in some phases, the exchanges constantly fell into a similar theme. Yakin’s team closed off the rest of the field by their center-midfielders pressing outwards and Chiesa collected the ball with a triangle of Rodriguez, Xhaka and Aebischer all within his proximity and facing away from play. Possession would funnel back to Cristante with a large distance to try and connect, loose balls fired straight back into Swiss circulation.
Revealing the Swiss Army knife
Spalletti’s team had shown some signs of stability just before the twenty-minute mark, but Switzerland had firmly established their control of proceedings. In the deep buildup, they expanded in their usual fashion – Rodriguez pushed up into a left-back area and Aebsicher drifted inside to create a versatile midfield. This allowed Xhaka to move more centrally, Freuler to drift more towards the right and the Italian midfielders had a positional dilemma. Scamacca failed to shut off the pass to Xhaka and the captain embraced the massive amounts of space left for him.
Further up the field, Dan Ndoye and Vargas held width as Aebsicher and Fabian Rieder drifted around the spaces next to Fagioli. In circulation, Switzerland had a variety of movements that broke a badly prepared Italian midfield. Unsure how to cover Xhaka, Cristante was encouraged to press and as Aebsicher moved back towards the left side, he took Fagioli with him and Xhaka would make a run into the space behind, Barella unable to move inward as he had to cover Rieder.
20th minute: One of the variety of buildup moves that cut through Italy’s defense. As play moved towards the left, Aebischer drifted out from a central spot and took Fagioli across. With Vargas free and Barella pinned, Xhaka’s run made him a free man between the lines and Vargas moved the ball back inside for the sequence to continue.
When Aebischer stuck towards the touchline, Vargas making an inside run opened the lane directly to Breel Embolo and with Darmian stepping inward to support Bastoni, Ndoye was left in space to enter the box from such patterns flowing. Such dynamics created the first big chance of the game, only in this phase, Vargas dropped towards Aebischer and a lofted ball over the top found Embolo making a run against a diagonal Italian defensive line. Embolo shaped up to curl the ball into the top right, but the huge Gianluigi Donnarumma made another massive save in this tournament.
22nd minute: Another buildup move from Switzerland. Xhaka was now in the first line of the buildup, with the same dynamic being created and a two-versus-one forming around Fagioli. A poorly staggered Italian defense made it easy for Akanji to break the lines and for two Swiss players to overload the left side.
As the game continued, Italy had not learned their lesson to plug the holes around Fagioli. As well as Xhaka progressing from deep, central center-back Manuel Akanji not only had similar abilities in slicing through opposition lines through his passing but had the best view to see where the Italian midfield was tilted towards. A badly organized defense meant that lowball towards the frontline was accessible and Switzerland eventually found the right formula to take a deserved lead.
After the ball circulated back to Akanji, Italy’s midfield was still tilted towards its left side and Embolo peeled onto the right to create a passing lane. Embolo flicked and headed past Mancini to Ndoye, with Rieder free on the left side. The defensive line reset with a gigantic space between Mancini, lured towards the edge of the box, and Bastoni, defending the center of it, with Embolo positioned between him and Darmian. Enter Freuler, who has made similar runs in Serie A all season, crashing the box, taking a touch and his deflected shot beating the goalkeeper at the near post.
Stalling Spalletti is punished
Having faced problems in and out of possession, Spalletti did not shuffle the pack at half time. His change was like-for-like, Zaccagni replacing El Shaarawy and before he could take a touch, Vargas was allowed to rotate inside and bend an incredible shot into the top corner from just inside the box.
Despite the second goal, the game state did not directly change. Italy continued to be very loose in possession, even when the Swiss had dialled down their pressing intensity. Now Yakin’s team was more established in a 5-4-1 medium block, which dropped even lower when needed. More of the ball was afforded to the Italians, but Spalletti’s team did not enter the 3-box-3/3-2-4-1 formation that they had established in the previous games.
53rd minute: Poor dynamics from the Italian attack. Bastoni (Darmian was in this position more, but Bastoni had reset after carrying the ball) tried to connect with a high ball towards Scamacca. As the ball was played wide from Darmian and the wing-back stepped up, Zaccagni tried to run outwards down the channel and Barella made a run towards the box, but Bastoni opted to try a longer connection. Schär made the interception.
Instead, Fagioli and Cristante operated on the same line; Fagioli was a lot more advantageous on the ball. Different positional arrangements were made between the fullback and winger, one attacking inside and the other outside on the channel. In the center, Barella tried to make runs off Scamacca, but Italy had not repaired their problems in possession. A narrow Switzerland midfield meant they could get the ball to the fullbacks, but moving the ball other than sideways was a problem with Fabian Schär and Rodriguez supporting the wing-backs moving wider to engage.
It was past the hour mark when Spalletti made his next change, Mateo Retegui coming on for Barella, a fairly weak change when Italy had no access between the lines. As a result, they turned to crossing the ball to try and fashion chances, which produced a huge moment for Scamacca. From Cristante’s central dink into the penalty area, Zaccagni had sprinted between the center-backs and flicked the ball into the path of the striker. Scamacca could only prod the ball onto the foot of the post, the only big opportunity that they could produce.
Spalletti added more players without adapting their approach further. Switzerland remained in a very comfortable position, still capable of playing through their opponents when they pressed higher but keeping compactness when possession was out of their hands. Italy’s tournament wound down to a timid end.
Takeaways
Crashing out implies that it comes as a shock or that the performance was adequate enough to progress through. Italy had shown cracks when they faced teams that could take the ball away from them, scaling back their own ambitions in possession to make the defense more “solid” and once that was compromised, there would be no way back. A dismal end to the holder’s defense of their crown.
The Swiss progress in impressive fashion. It seems bizarre in hindsight that Yakin was close to not coaching them through this tournament, as recently as a few months before. Switzerland goes through with a number of layers to their game: fluid rotations, two strong progressors that can be part of the first line and a very compact defensive block when the time arises. England or Slovakia are next in the quarter-finals.
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