How Thiago Motta’s Tactic is Shaking up Serie A!

2-7-2, you heard it right. A system where you see the centre-backs as midfielders and full-backs as centre-backs, while the keeper as first attacker and the striker as first defender. So what exactly is going on? Well, this is the insane tactics of Tiago Moura. Once laughed by his crazy tactics, he's now playing one of the most entertaining football in Italy. From Mourinho's counter-attacks to Joachim Löw's counter-pressing, his tactics is the fusion of five top managers' philosophies. And using these, he innovated some fascinating concepts that captured the attention of top clubs like United, Barcelona and Juventus, who shone their interest in signing him. So what exactly is the 2-7-2 system? Why do these players have weird roles in it? And what are these innovative concepts that I am talking about? Let's discuss in this video. Born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Tiago had a beautiful playing career as a holding midfielder, where he played for various top clubs around Europe, which helped him to gain exposed to different styles of play. This influenced his coaching career and tactics, where he took inspiration to build up like Johan Cruyff, attack like Gasperini's Atalanta, counter-attack like Mourinho's Inter and counter-press like Joachim Löw's Germany. And seeing his unique style, he got his first job offer from Genoa, where he miserably failed and finished at the bottom of the table. But luckily he got his second offer from Spezia, which also ended up horribly, as they were really close on getting relegated. And after these two failures, Mata finally realized that even after applying these multiple philosophies, if his team can't able to maintain a basic level of possession, then these concepts are just gimmicks. So upon joining Bologna, his primary focus became the ball. He encouraged his players to view the ball as their close friend, that they should never lose and keep it as long as possible. And this approach really silenced the critics, as Bologna became the first club where Mata's vision truly flourished and enabled them to beat top teams while still keeping possession. Also Mata's tactics gained significant attention even before his tenure at Bologna, particularly after an interview where he described his preference to play in a 2-7-2 system, where his keeper is one of the seven players in the middle of the pitch. So based on his statement, this is the only structure that you could think of, but it's definitely not how they played. Well for Thiago, he basically sees football in an upside-down perspective. Rather than starting his formation horizontally, he visualizes it vertically, where he imagines two players at the base, a midfield of seven including the goalkeeper, and remaining two at the top. And if you turn this around, it resembles a familiar 4-3-3 structure, but this 4-3-3 is really different than normal ones, as Mata prefers to overload more players in the central zone. So just like roaming midfielders, he gave both his striker and CBs roaming roles, where the striker acted as an extra midfielder who drops time to time. And unlike Man City where one CB advances further, Mata allows both his defenders to push forward alternatively or simultaneously. And if both of them advances, then weirdly his fullbacks tucks inside to take their roles, and the keeper acts as a central defender. This completely disorganized the opposition markings. As both defenders are up front, opposition really need an extra player to cover these two. And if they bring markers other than the forwards, it opens spaces for Bologna's attackers to easily exploit through long passes. So the opposition often forced to send their striker or wingers to mark these, which then allows Bologna to play out from back quite easily. But if the opposition takes a risk and play with a 3-5-2, then it would create a five-man shield in front of the back three. So to counter this, they employ a pass and push strategy, in which when the ball is with the CB, he quickly passes to his companion and drift forward taking the marker with him. This creates a new passing lane at the back, where the keeper takes his position. Which also creates a numerical superiority of 6 against 5 with the pivot dropping back. So even if the opposition's presses the backline, the advancing CB becomes free as a passing option, which indirectly puts the opposition in dilemma and eventually helps them to progress the ball with ease. And unlike normal teams who employs vertical counterattacks from back to front, Mata uses his 2-7-2 shape to execute counterattacks horizontally. For instance, they tend to shift on one side of the flanks where the ball is, and drag the opposition toward that side as well. While a player on the opposite flank stays wide, just like a forward stays higher. So as soon as they win the ball back, with no fear of offsides, they can play a quick diagonal pass towards him. This maneuver makes him a free man with ample amount of space to cut inside and create a scoring opportunity. And talking about free man, Mata assigned his striker Xerxe a free-flowing role that is more dynamic than a false 9. Xerxe's movements are not limited to vertical runs, as he also moves into spaces where you can't expect a striker to be present. And due to this, he becomes a plus one advantage during build-ups. For instance, Bologna often positions themselves into a 3-2-4-1 formation during their second phase of the build-up. This helps them to create a box structure not only in the center, but also on the left and the right sides. And this allows them to outnumber their opponents with at least one player being freely available on every pass. However, if the opposition are strong and can afford to play with a back 3, then they would easily cover all the boxes with one marker. And this is where Tiago Mata's roaming striker comes into play. Due to his unpredictable movement, he can roam into these boxes and can be an additional passing option creating a numerical superiority. This helps Bologna to maintain their ability to find open players and progress the ball into final third. When they finally get into attacking half, Mata follows a similar philosophy of Mourinho, which was to invite the opposition into their own half and launch a quick counterattack into the available space. But one problem of Mourinho's style is that as soon as they counter, apart from the forwards and number 10s, there's hardly no one that can advance quickly, which puts immense pressure on the forwards with more markers around them. So rather than completely following this concept, Mata added his own touch onto it. With both center backs advancing forward, Mata allows his midfielders to adopt more aggressive positions, where the center mids joins the front three by occupying the half spaces, while the number 6 becomes number 8. So even while inviting the opposition, they at least have 5 players almost ready to hit them on the break. This establishes numerical superiority during counterattacks. And the greatest thing about this is that it indirectly helps them to counterpress with more numbers, which is quite uncommon for a counterattacking teams, as they already have 5 players along with the pivot in advanced positions, while one of the center back drops deeper to form a back 3. And these 3 fully covers the opposition's forwards, with the advanced center back acting as a barrier against any long balls aimed at them. This helps the rest of the players to fully press the opposition and regain the ball, without worrying about the backline's setup. But when they're without the ball, they defend with a vertical as well as horizontal structure simultaneously. So how's that possible? Well, as Mata focuses more on protecting the central areas, so even when defending, both his center backs often press up high and cover the opposition number 8s to intercept, while his CDM drops deeper to cover the striker. So when the opposition attacks from the central, it looks like a 3-2-4-1, but as soon as they shift wide, both the center backs drifts back to form a compact back 5 and transitions into 5-4-1 shape. This allows the full backs to press on the wings more aggressively while ensuring central dominance, making them a really difficult side to break down. And due to this, they're the 3rd least conceding side in the league by being just behind Juventus and Inter Milan. But the main question is, what are the player roles that make this tactic so unique? So looking at the keeper, he's ideally positioned as a sweeper, who will play a pivotal role in Mata's 2-7-2 build up. And the full backs are given the defensive role, their main job is to stay narrow and take the positions of the center backs when they advance. While both the center back are libero, who dynamically move up and down the field in order to confuse the markers and allow midfielders to adopt more advanced positions. And due to this, all 3 of them are playmakers, in which the right center mid Luis Ferguson is given a more roaming role. Unlike a box to box mid who moves up and down, Luis moves horizontally where he drops wide into a full backs position when they tuck inside or takes the winger position when they invert. While on the wing, both of them are inverted wingers. Known for their horizontal counter attacks, they typically stays wide and quickly inverts as soon as there's an opportunity. And speaking about the striker, Xerxe is more than a deep lying forward, as he roams freely across any parts of the pitch to act as an extra man and helps his teammates to progress the ball forward. And when you observe his team mentality, Mata has a strong emphasis on keeping the ball, so his strategy revolves around controlling the game through possession. Also he play with a high width in order to maintain his vertical 2-7-2 system intact and take advantage of his one side overload as well. While at defense, Mata prefers a high line and close down his opposition in order to apply Yocum Lo's counter pressing strategy. And in the final third, they work into the box and run at defense. This encourages his players to drive forward with the ball, and disrupt the opposition's markers with third man combinations. And looking at passing, they usually build up with short passes and tend to move the ball on one side of the pitch, so they mainly focus their passing on both the flanks. So overall Thiago Mota has shown us a new perspective on how to see football, and his unique imaginations has introduced various new concepts that are likely to be adopted by many managers. And in the company of emerging managers like Xabi Alonso, Nagelsmann and Deserbi, we're truly witnessing a new era of football managers who are bringing revolution to the game. And similar to this, if we travel back to the mid 2000's, Sir Alex Ferguson was known to introduce a tactical revolution that made many managers to get inspired, which not only rebuilt Man Utd but made them one of the best teams in recent history. So what was the tactics that made Man Utd so successful under Sir Alex, and how did legends like Cristiano Ronaldo played under it? Let's find out by clicking this video. So hope to see you there.