Champions League performance insights: Inter's defensive rigour
Friday, December 13, 2024
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Working together with the UEFA performance analysis unit, Roy Hodgson explores the reasons for Inter’s defensive excellence.
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Inter conceded their first goal of this UEFA Champions League campaign on Matchday 6, but their defensive work at Bayer Leverkusen offers valuable lessons for coaches across Europe.
This is the view of Roy Hodgson, the UEFA match observer at Leverkusen this week, who believes that Inter’s admirable display of defensive organisation and discipline on Tuesday warrants a closer look.
Inter were able to achieve a consistently compact shape throughout the contest at the BayArena and, as a starting point of this analysis, the above map of their interceptions and regains inside their own half offers a reflection of their solidity.
Working together with the UEFA performance analysis unit, former Inter coach Hodgson has chosen the two video clips that follow in order to illustrate the key aspects of their defensive game. As he explained: "You're watching the ball move and watching what defenders are doing in relation to the ball moving and seeing so many good decisions being made by the Inter defence.
"For coaches there are a lot of lessons to be learned from it and the videos really enforce the message," he added.
The first video is full of details worth noting about Inter’s organisation. Almost immediately their 5-3-2 shape is clear to see and so too their above-mentioned compactness. On the first switch of play by Leverkusen, over to their left, Inter centre-forward Mehdi Taremi leads the pressure and it is striking how little space there is between him and the midfield line.
According to Hodgson, Simone Inzaghi’s front two of Taremi and Marcus Thuram worked hard together to help keep their block compact. "It was impressive how tight they were and how little space there was between the back five and the front players and that was because those two came back so much," he said.
To further illustrate this point, the graphic above contrasts Inter’s compactness within a mid-block with that of Leverkusen. The average horizontal distance between the visiting players was 37.5m; vertically, from back to front, it was just 20.7m.
As for Inter’s compactness in a low block, there was even less distance between the centre-backs and centre-forwards – just 16.8m. "It is incredible how close and compact the Inter players were," affirmed Hodgson, "and it demonstrates how good their shape was."
As the action in the first clip develops, the focus shifts to Inter’s central defenders. We see Yann Bisseck, the right-sided centre-back, step out from the back line, tracking Florian Wirtz. This is quickly followed by Stefan de Vrij protecting the space behind by following Nathan Tella’s leftward movement, before he and Bisseck then get back into their positions.
Hodgson applauded the way Inter players covered for one another and was also impressed by De Vrij’s role as Inter’s defensive leader – highlighted in the clip when we see him circled as he points and issues instructions to team-mates.
"The leadership came largely from De Vrij as he was the one who controlled the other two," said Hodgson, who recognised the contribution of wing-backs Matteo Darmian and Carlos Augusto also. "The three centre-backs were helped by the fact they don’t have to push that far wide because the two full-backs both did a very good job defensively. Really it was a back five."
Darmian comes into focus for his body shape later in the video as we see Leverkusen’s Edmond Tapsoba pick the ball up in space on the left; look at how the Inter wing-back is positioned sideways, ready to step in but also to defend the space in behind.
It is a valuable coaching point and not the last one as the sequence ends with another switch of play to the Leverkusen right. There, left centre-back Bastoni steps out to get tight to Wirtz in the pocket and then look at how midfielder Davide Frattesi is well placed to help double up with wing-back Augusto against Jeremie Frimpong.
To build on the above example of Bastoni stepping out to close down an opponent, the second video starts with De Vrij pushing into the Leverkusen half to track Wirtz.
What follows is another noteworthy defensive detail: Bastoni moves inside to cover the space behind and ends up in a race with Tella, and look at how he uses his strength to slow the forward down and allow his team-mates to get back and recover their positions
As the sequence unfolds, we see again the organisational skills of De Vrij and – as in the first video – it is apparent just how small the distances are between the lines for Inter, especially between the defence and midfield lines.
To highlight Hodgson’s point about the centre-backs’ success in staying close to one another, consider the graphic above which displays Inter’s low-block organisation via the average distances between each player – with no smaller distance than the 5.9m between De Vrij and Bisseck.
"Those three centre-backs were able to stay very close together throughout," said Hodgson. "There were hardly three or four metres between them at any time which is fantastic."
It is interesting that while they worked hard to sustain this compact shape, their wide centre-backs were never afraid to aggressively follow a player, as we see once more when Bastoni tracks Exequiel Palacios. According to Hodgson, this fit the pattern of constant positional adjustments from the Inter players.
And yet even when out of position there was never a sense of panic from the Inter players. "You can’t keep the perfect shape at all times and what matters is the ability of people to recover," Hodgson observed.
To this end, the Inter midfielders did an important job of screening, making recovery runs and protecting their back line. "It happened quite often that players came out from the back, and I thought that was a bold move to man-mark in that situation, but they obviously realised the cover was there from the other defenders and the midfield players too," Hodgson elaborated.
We see an example of how well synchronised they were when Bisseck steps out from the back line and midfielder Nicolò Barella points to the runner from deep, alerting De Vrij to the danger. As the clip reaches a close, another aspect of De Vrij’s game is highlighted – his body shape, enabling us to see how well the Dutchman is positioned both to press and defend spaces in behind.
Ultimately, though, this was an impressive team effort and the video ends with another example of their superbly synchronised structure, the whole Inter side pushing forward to keep that compact shape in response to Leverkusen moving the ball backwards. In short, it is no surprise that their opponents in Europe this season have found it so hard to break them down.
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