Well, it’s been a while since my last foray into tactical experiments. After 18 seasons of twisting and turning my tactical approach with Sparta Bucharest, I’ve taken a little bit of a different route for the latest chapter. With less than a subtle reference to the title, I’ve taken inspiration from Maximilliano Allegri’s tactical revolution at Juventus this year. Continue reading “The Mad Max: Space, Commitment & Creativity – Part One”
Category: asymmetric
Sparta | A Tactical Identity Journey: Part VI.chapter two – Space Management, Adapting and Exploiting Quality
In the last post of part VI we looked at the strategy and logic behind creating a system, specifically focusing on key elements such as style, principles, balance and strategic considerations. As previously mentioned, the second post in this part will focus on issues like adapting your system to different circumstances, how to exploit the strengths of your squad and what matters the most when it comes to achieving balance in your style of play. Continue reading “Sparta | A Tactical Identity Journey: Part VI.chapter two – Space Management, Adapting and Exploiting Quality”
Sparta | A Tactical Identity Journey: Part VI.chapter one – Attacking Football and Developing a Style
Recent tactical experiments saw me focus a lot on ideas revolving around concepts on defending and the systems I’ve focused on have been a consequence of maybe too much dwelling on that, so I’ve decided to try out something new, yet again, with my Sparta Bucharest side 
Attacking football is a very debatable term… is it GegenPressing? is it Route One? is it Schimdt’s overloads? is it Conte’s 3-4-3? Continue reading “Sparta | A Tactical Identity Journey: Part VI.chapter one – Attacking Football and Developing a Style”
Sparta | A Tactical Identity Journey – Part III: Evolve and Assess
The last couple of years have marked our successful transition from a team that has to focus on defending in order to survive the majority of the matches to one that can afford to try and test the opposition a bit more and even control play when the occasion arises. This happened mainly thanks to the much improved technical ability of the new generation of players that came through the youth ranks in the past 2-3 years. Last season was the main step up in that sense, as we shifted from half a decade of using a conservative, quite rigid system, mainly in the forms of the above shown 3-5-2/3-3-1-1-2 to a variation of 4-1-4-1 that allowed for more fluidity and variety in our football. Continue reading “Sparta | A Tactical Identity Journey – Part III: Evolve and Assess”
Sparta | A Tactical Identity Journey – Part II: integrating youth development & tactic design
After 6 years of using the 3-5-2/3-4-3 system described in the previous article in this series, as well as molding through specialized training the very young squad at our disposal to reach the desired attributes that are required by our philosophy, I decide to change the system based on a few key issues: Continue reading “Sparta | A Tactical Identity Journey – Part II: integrating youth development & tactic design”
Asymmetric 