The wholly predictable yet still disheartening defeat at Atalanta on Sunday was, apparently the final straw. Paolo Vanoli has decided to make a change, according to various outlets: out goes the 3-5-2
and in comes a 4-3-2-1. And just like that, Fiorentina will go onto win its remaining 25 league games, securing a spot in the Champions League, as well as hoisting the Conference League, and the angels will sing us to sleep.
Sorry, I’ll reel it in a bit. I wrote in the aftermath of the Atalanta game that Vanoli needed to shake things up because the players were still locked into the same roles they were under Stefano Pioli and were thus sleepwalking along the exact same path, so I’m pleased that Vanoli’s in agreement. Normally, changes made just for the sake of changing something are bad, evidence of a short-term mindset that inhibits long-term progress.
13 straight without a win isn’t normal, though, even by Fiorentina’s standards. There’s no stability to undermine. There’s no continuity to lose. At this point, it’s time to start mashing every button in the cockpit and hope that one of them arrests this nosedive, a nosedive that, like any airplane hurtling face-first at the ground, has a well-established destination.
Ex-Fiorentina forward Ciccio Graziani commented on Radio Bruno today, “It’s not formations that make you win games, it’s the players on the field,” and he’s right. Just deciding that eleven people are going to stand in different places accomplishes nothing. There has to be an overarching strategy (how are we going to score, how are we going to keep them from scoring) and a mutual understanding from everyone on the team of how everyone is going to help accomplish those aims.
A formation can be useful shorthand but doesn’t determine all that during game play. Players have different roles in and out of possession or at set pieces and transitions or for any number of different circumstances. Indeed, that’s how the best teams operate: guys move from one place to another, rotating with each other to unsettle opponents or close them down.
Take Pioli’s 3-5-2. At various times, it became a 3-4-3, a 3-4-2-1, a 4-4-2, and a 4-3-1-2 depending on what was going on. Everyone pushes forward or drops in, pinches to the middle or spreads wide. Thinking of formations and positions is deterministic, forcing events on the field into our own conception and ignoring what’s actually going on so that we can pretend to have a grasp of the inherently chaotic nature of the universe around us.
Positions, too, change, depending on both the team’s approach and the nature of the players themselves. To take an example from Fiorentina’s recent past, both Felipe Melo and David Pizarro were defensive midfielders. How they interpreted that role, both in regard to their own abilities and in relation to their teammate’s qualities and coach’s instructions, rendered them about as different as any two players could possibly be despite sharing a positional designation.
Okay, that’s enough esoteric stuff. Looking at the more real consequences on the pitch, I see a several questions that this move to a back 4 will ask of Fiorentina. I’ll start with the defense and move forward, then tack a couple squishy/abstract points onto the end of that. Let’s run through it.
The middle defender won’t be on an island as much
Pablo Marí does two things really well: physically compete in close proximity with opposing strikers (tackling, aerial duels, et cetera) and stick to his job without trying to add anything extra. None of Fiorentina’s other defenders have both those qualities, so that made Marí undroppable despite his flaws because Pioli/Vanoli could trust him to do the least glamorous job in the sport: man-mark the opposing center forward alone.
This allowed the outside defenders (Luca Ranieri and Marin Pongračić) to pick up the opposing deeper forwards, usually wingers or number 10s, and provided extra bodies in the middle to make the Viola difficult to play through, at least in theory. This only works against opponents playing a single striker, but that’s most teams nowadays.
It sounds like Marí’s the defender who’ll go to the bench. That’s fine. He’s been bad, prone to fouls and bad mistakes that have overshadowed his supposed solidity, and his technical deficiencies mean he’s a liability on the ball. The one thing he offers that is completely absent from the rest of the squad is aerial ability: neither Ranieri nor Pongračić is good in the air, and nobody farther forward is much better except Robin Gosens. Fiorentina’s been the worst team at defending set pieces in the league and removing the best aerial defender in the side will make the side even more vulnerable.
That won’t work with a back 4, obviously. The two centerbacks will now be responsible for communicating with each other when they’re passing off the opposing lone striker, or both staying man-marked if the opponent plays 2 real center forwards. Vanoli will now need different qualities from his defenders; I don’t know what exactly those will be because I don’t know how exactly he’ll want them to defend, but Pioli’s module—the central guy man-marks the striker, the outside guys step up—is gone, and that echoes all the way up the pitch.
The fullbacks’ job just got harder
After spending 2 years getting rid of every wide attacker on the roster, Fiorentina relied on its wingbacks to an extraordinary extent last year. Robin Gosens responded with a fantastic campaign (8 goals, 10 assists) and Dodô, despite lacking the gaudy numbers, was even more important to the team. Raffaele Palladino realized about midseason that the team needed them to freely bomb on to have any chance of creating a functional attack and decided to throw an extra defender behind them, moving to a back 3 to provide extra cover and stability.
With Gosens hurt (but possibly returning against Sassuolo) and Dodô in a funk, Fiorentina’s offered nothing from the wide positions this year and shifting to a back 4 won’t help. The fullbacks will now be farther from the final third and have extra defensive responsibilities with the elimination of that extra defender. As the demands on them increase, they’ll need to be spelled more often, leaving more opportunities for Niccolò Fortini, Fabiano Parisi, and Eddy Kouadio.
Losing a centerback also means that the fullbacks will be tasked with pinching in and tracking runners into their own box more often. Those extra tasks at the back will spread them thinner and allow opponents to target them. Dodô and Parisi are both vulnerable in the air, while Gosens’ lack of lateral quickness means he struggles to stay in front of shifty attackers.
To me, this might be the biggest weakness in the formation change. The wingbacks will still bear a heavy burden going forward but their new defensive briefs will increase it, even though the players themselves probably aren’t ideally suited for the job. Maybe Luca Ranieri can put in a few shifts at leftback to help but he won’t provide a consistent threat from the wide areas the way that Gosens/Parisi/Fortini do.
The midfield might have an easier time
If I were to name a single area of the pitch where Fiorentina’s struggled the most this year, it would be the deepest midfield role. Nicolò Fagioli and Hans Nicolussi Caviglia have been worse than anonymous and I’ve hated watching both of them. Shifting to a back 4 might help them influence games more, though, because it will open up more passing angles to them.
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Purely vertical passes are some of the riskiest and most dangerous in the game, which is why everyone since Johan Cruyff has been obsessed with triangles: the simpler, lower-risk, horizontal pass allows you to keep the ball and move the opposing defenders around as you change the angle of approach, eventually freeing up the killer vertical pass. The positioning of the regista and the middle centerback makes that trickier. It can work if the team knows how to get over this hurdle but Pioli’s Fiorentina never came close to figuring it out. Everything was rectilinear, making it very easy to press.
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This is a static diagram that doesn’t reflect the dynamic reality of the game, obviously, but there’s a natural triangle between the regista and the centerbacks now. The regista has space to drop deep between the centerbacks to escape pressure, allowing them to slide wide and push the fullbacks farther up. It’s the pattern that Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona perfected 15 years ago and it still works fine. Again, a back 3 can make a regista look great—Inter Milan’s rotations at the back are both devastatingly effective and aesthetically delightful—but it requires personnel, experience, and ability the Viola lack.
Hopefully, more and easier touches will get Beans and HNC into a rhythm and allow them to exert some control on the game, control which they’ve thus far failed to provide. I’m worried that, like the wingbacks, removing another defender will require them to do more out of possession and I don’t trust either of them to be in the right place to cover or break up play regularly, but if they can offer something either going forward, their net negative impact without the ball will at least be mitigated. The wild card here is Amir Richardson, who’s probably not ready to be the starter but could offer something different.
The other two midfielders’ jobs might not be very different. The biggest change will be that they’ll be tasked with providing width now that the fullbacks are starting deeper. That suits Simon Sohm and Cher Ndour, who are both primarily off-ball players whose best attribute is their running. I worry a bit about Rolando Mandragora because he’s not as athletic as those other two but he’s smart enough to make it work and the team needs his goal threat too much to ignore him.
Where it gets tricky is out of possession. My guess is that the mezzale will have to slide across to pick up opposing fullbacks, with the trequartiste dropping in on the back side to take away the switch and make up the numbers in the middle. That will require a lot of communication from everyone since Vanoli will almost certainly keep his mentor Antonio Conte’s man-marking principles, and the ability of the mezzale to cover the wide areas ahead of the fullbacks, passing their marks down the line, could be a key tactical battle. If the midfield can stay connected, it’ll work. Otherwise, the engine room will be wide open.
Split duties for the 10s
The 10s in a 4-3-2-1 have a lot of responsibilities that vary depending on context. They might pull wide at times and look more like inside forwards. They might drop deep and encourage rotations with the midfielders, or even the fullbacks. They’ll need to thread passes through to the striker and attack the space beyond the defense to prevent opponents from collapsing onto the center forward. It’s a far cry from the old days, when the lone number 10 got a free role to do whatever they wanted.
Albert Guðmundsson, Fagioli, Jacopo Fazzini, and Edin Džeko are distinct players will compete for these jobs and will all have different assignments when they’re playing. I’d give Guðmundsson and Fagioli first crack at it, although I worry that there’s a lack of verticality and dynamism in that pairing. Both tend to move towards the ball rather than running over the top, and that’ll leave the striker very isolated.
I think the combination of Fagioli’s passing vision and Albert’s box-crashing makes the most sense but Vanoli will probably chop and change quite a bit. Fazzini’s direct dribbling ability might be useful (if he ever figures out when to stop dribbling and pass), while Džeko’s leadership and physical strength could offer a Plan B, although I doubt he’ll be able to do the out-of-possession stuff.
As I alluded to earlier, the 10s’ biggest responsibility may be without the ball. I’d expect at least one and often both to drop deep, forming a bank of 4 or 5 with the other midfielders when Fiorentina doesn’t have the ball. That necessitates a lot of running (hence no Džeko) and, even more importantly, a lot of communication. As the mezzale behind them slide out to pick up opposing fullbacks, the 10s will drop into those spaces, becoming central midfielders rather than forwards.
Back to a lone striker
It’s embarrassing to spend €27 million on a backup, but that’s where we’re at. Moise Kean, despite his league-worst finishing, is the starter, leaving Roberto Piccoli on the bench. Kean’s always looked better leading the attack alone, for what it’s worth, as it gives him the whole of the pitch to run in behind rather than keeping him to just the left or right half so his fellow striker can work the other side.
Because Kean and Piccoli are both at their best on the final line, I don’t think their jobs will change much. They’ll focus on getting in behind. Hopefully, though, the presence of not just one supporting player behind them but two will mean they’re not going it alone quite as often. The problem is that they’re both mediocre at best as passers (Kean because he wants to beat his man, Piccoli because his feet are cement bollards) so I don’t think they’ll suddenly start combining with the 10s behind them. Their job will be to get in behind. They won’t have particularly strict defensive duties. It’s just scoring goals.
Final thoughts
It’s high time that someone tried doing something different at the RBCVPFPWCKGAWTLTDOSGT, so I commend Vanoli for taking the plunge. The fact that this change won’t fix all that much and may even amplify some problems (i.e. set piece defense, width in attack) is less about any tactical levers Vanoli can pull and more about years’ worth of fundamentally flawed thinking in how to construct a roster. Yes, this is about Daniele Pradè, as usual, and about Rocco Commisso’s abandonment of his club.
Setting those aside for a moment because they’re already established fact, we’ll return to the on-field stuff. If this comes together the way I expect, it should get more out of Fagioli, Sohm, and Kean, but will stretch Dodô and Gosens even thinner. Much of it hinges less on tactical stuff and more on guys like Nicolussi Caviglia, Pongračić, and Guðmundsson playing at a Serie A standard. These are grownups with top flight experience and have no business being as bad as they’ve been, and you can’t pin that on Vanoli (or Pioli). They have to perform better.
Even if they all magically improve (they won’t), the implementation of a new tactical system always comes with some bumps; Palladino’s serial swapping last year usually resulted in a slight lag before everyone figured it out, and that was in a team that functioned on an emotional level. With this group, the question is whether Vanoli has the social currency to make guys do what he wants them to do. We’ll begin finding out against Sassuolo on Saturday.
