The Tactics Behind Bayer Leverkusen HISTORICAL Season! - Xabi Alonso Analysis 

In the Atalanta vs Leverkusen game with Atalanta using a high pressing man to man system and refusing to press the goalkeeper it ended up in Leverkusen not having a spare player in build up considering the goalkeeper wasn’t pressed and in order to play the 3rd man bounce pass and to dribble to attract a player out of position to then find the player that jumped off their man it makes it merely impossible to use key possession based concepts to progress the ball so it led to them having to play a more direct approach and hope that their players could win their individual 1v1 duels in which their backs were to the goal which gave Atalanta the advantage also rotations were followed by Atalanta players as they did not pass them off to another teammate and instead followed them wherever they went regardless if it was leaving space open in the middle of the pitch so therefore the conclusion is that against man to man high pressing system in which they don’t press ur goal keeper the only effective strategy is to create a structure in which ur team has the advantage from long balls from the back and the key to that structure is to have nobody occupying the striker position so then they leave the space in the middle free for wingers to run into from long balls from the free goalkeeper the only person that seems to have figured out this long ball strategy against a man to man system is De Zerbi when they would come up against a team that would press them in a 442 going man to man against De Zerbis 4222 with a double false 9 I’m surprised most teams don’t press using Atalantas strategy as it heavily mitigates the other teams possession and they can not apply their possession based concepts like dribble to attract and the 3rd man bounce pass the only weakness to Atalanta’s system is de zerbis long ball strategy with the false 9/ double false 9

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