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Imanol Alguacil: Underrated - Brief Thread
Contrary to what people who don’t watch La Liga say (mostly pl fans) La Liga consists of many exciting teams this season, with Sociedad topping that list (in my opinion) playing the most attractive football in the division and a case could be made for them being one of the...
most attractive teams in the continent (currently in 6th place in La Liga & 13 points off 1st place Atletico Madrid).
Alguacil can be classified as a ‘’JDP’’ coach, as Guardiola’s positional principles have influenced the way he likes his teams to play. His favored formation is a 4-1-4 but over the last few games he’s preferred the traditional 4-3-3, but just like Pochettino (and Tuchel to
some extent) these formations tend to switch during games to either a 4-2-2-2, 4-2-3-1, 3-1-4-2 and exc. It basically depends on the situation.
Alguical’s football is very attacking in nature if you couldn’t already tell, he likes his teams to keep the ball and dominate opponents through positioning to create numerical advantages, and create fluid positional plays. As players attack and defend in a collective manner.
In possession they try to make the pitch as big as possible using three key elements - height, depth & width. Using these to stretch the opponent vertically and horizontally against man marking teams (as this was the case on Saturday against Betis).
This opens up horizontal gaps for vertical transitions/build-up. Very similar to Sarri, Alguacil likes his teams to build up using vertical passes when transitioning, but unlike Sarri’s teams Sociedad don’t move the ball as quickly as Sarri demands his teams do.
Nevertheless this vertical style of play advances the ball more quicker than lateral passes which is the end goal.
Alguacil also wants his team to have multiple offensive layers in the attack by using the opponents positions as reference points to trick defensive lines.
Meaning the supportive players should always stay behind the opposition lines mainly ideally on the blindsides of the defence. To either distract the opposition’s behaviour to pressure the backline or instantly take advantage of space left behind the pressing players.
Like most coaches of his kind he requires his goalkeeper and both centerhalfs to be comfortable on the ball, as they are. Le Normand (who I rate very highly) is usually the conductor of playing the ball to the weaker side of the pitch where the right-winger and right-back are...
totally free (This space is usually created through the central overloads).
Like I said already height, depth, width are the three principles of play for Alguacil’s team to manipulate the opponent. Under these concepts players effectively position themselves to generate space to move offensive plays. Making ball progressions are easier.
An example of this would be in the Europa league group stage against Napoli, the three midfielders move at three horizontal zones between Napoli’s defensive lines, this as I already said is to manipulate the defense. Meanwhile the central overload opened the wide area for the...
right-back, leading to a diagonal pass which is made a lot by either center back as they are comfortable on the ball to reach the wide runners, as this is an easy switch past the defensive lines.
Under pressure instead of kicking long balls forward aimlessly Alguacil still wants his team to play out from the back through combinations. To provide multiple options for the ball and the movement of the full-back. Never surrendering his style of play.
The goalkeeper is always a part of the build-up, as Alex Remiro (in my opinion) is top 3 keepers in the league on the ball. He demands the keeper to be able to play long or vertical passes as well, which is useful against teams pressing high as spaces must be left behind and to
gain numerical advantage as the keeper can also use his feet to pass around the forward pressers during the high press. This is also a hint that they’re build up play is slow, something I said earlier.
Random picture of how they position themselves going forward, diamond XD:
They press in different formations (don’t have time to look through all of them) but an example is a 4-4-2 shape, Alguacil wants his team to defend with high intensity, cutting off passing lanes and leaving the wide zones for the full-backs. In a midfield three the advanced...
midfielders push higher to provide the defensive cover for the first line, or in other words they man-marked the opposition's layer of build-up. The markings are usually very tight, but they were looser in the league games for some reason. The pivot provides a layer of defensive
cover for the advanced midfielders.
Overall there were a lot more things I missed but I enjoy watching Alguacil’s Sociedad this season and parts of last because he represents my preferred style of possession football, verticality forcing transitions or long balls from opponents, and higher positioning between...
the lines and his use of ball playing defenders and the goalkeeper in the buildup.
