Today we share with you our analysis of the UEFA League 2020 champion, Sevilla FC. Watching Sevilla's games, we found that a very recurrent movement is their fullbacks overlaps, where we noticed that many options open up for the team. As usual, let's see the video first and get the details afterwards.
First and foremost, and as we always mention in our analyses and the training drills we propose, timing and passing sharpness are key factors in any collective movement. Playing the pass at the right time and at the right speed will provide many advantages to the team, so this first aspect must be present all the time.
One of the basic aspects of overlaps is not to accumulate too many players within a same region and/or channel. We can see how Sevilla players continuously occupy the high part of the lateral channels. This movement is triggered as a consequence of the movement of the wingers towards the inner channels/regions of the pitch, bringing defenders with them.
These attraction movements are also extremely useful when performed by other teammates, as we manage to attract defenders towards specific regions of the pitch to, then, play where that space has been generated so the full back can take profit of the full situation. It is in that moment, knowing that we are taking defenders away, that the full back will occupy a high position of the lateral channels and get the cross ready, for which the rest of the team must be ready too.
When we repeat the same mechanism/movement over and over again, it is common that the opponent picks that movement up and manages to defend it properly within a few minutes. It is for this reason that we must always have some variations to these movements such that we create a certain degree of uncertainty to the defenders. In this case, menacing the back of the back 4 is the variation. We can see how, in this case, as soon as the winger or the full back pretend to make that outside run, the defender stops focusing that much on the ball and all his attention swaps to the attacker, leading to free spaces in the inner channels of the pitch.
Finally, it is fundamental that the full back and the winger are always occupying different channels (playing at different heights). It does not matter who is in which channel as long as both are always occupied. This provides the team with more passing options and build up possibilities. Hence, it is important that the movement of the winger triggers that of the full back and that, if one goes 'in', the other goes 'out'. As coaches, it is our job to know what player we want to occupy each channel as a function of their characteristics.
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