Spezia have caught the eyes of tacticians all season and made it into the mainstream on Saturday night when they dominated Serie A leaders Milan all over the pitch and comfortably defeated the Rossoneri 2-0. It was a stunning win, not only because Milan had scored at least twice in their last sixteen games, while also having the best away record in the league. Also, Spezia have struggled at home, but thanks to their furious pressing, vertical possession and flexible tactics they managed to earn a famous victory.
This tactical analysis will look at the tactics employed by Vincenzo Italiano and why Spezia will find it tough to hold on to their tactically fascinating coach. Specifically, this piece will examine Spezia’s pressing vs Milan, their flexible defensive systems and some of the mechanisms of their positional attack.
Defensive tactics
Aggressive man-oriented pressing
Against Milan, Spezia played out of their normal 4-3-3 formation and pressed aggressively in a man-oriented manner. We can see this in the image below. The striker Kevin Agudelo has been joined in the first line by left-sided central midfielder Giulio Maggiore with the two of them oriented towards either Milan centre-back. The remaining two central midfielders, Matteo Ricci and Nahuel Estevez (both in yellow), picked up Milan’s two central midfielders. Please note that the highest of the two here is Ricci, who’s starting position is as the defensive midfielder. Right-winger Emmanuel Gyasi had easy access to Milan’s left-back.
A key component of Spezia’s pressing is that they try to overload the areas of the pitch where they press. In doing so, they can outnumber the opponents in a particular area and press from various directions. One such example can be seen below, as Agudelo back-presses from the front while Estevez steps up from midfield to press Franck Kessié from behind. The Ivorian is focussed on escaping Agudelo’s press, allowing Estevez to appear from Kessié’s blindside and steal the ball.
The image below highlights how Spezia overload the area around the ball to create numerical superiority when they press. Agudelo presses the ball-carrier Alessio Romagnoli, Gyasi waits to pounce on a pass to the left-back Theo Hérnandez whilst Ricci and Estevez pick up the two central midfielders coming to the ball. The Spezia player closest to the goalkeeper is Maggiore, who could have just stayed with Milan’s right-sided centre-back but instead moves across to support the press. This action highlights the flexibility of Spezia’s pressing; they are man-oriented at times but act in a more ball-oriented (focussing on the area where the ball is rather than the opposition players) manner at other times. As such, Italiano’s side is very flexible.
The image below highlights another such situation where Spezia overload the area around the ball as Agudelo moves across to create a 5 vs 4 advantage around the ball.
This type of movement from the striker Agudelo to support the press on the other side when he has finished his pressing action is an example of back-pressing. The image below highlights how the Colombian moves across to minimize the space Milan has to play in. In doing so, Agudelo helps Spezia prevent progression through central areas as Milan can’t play through the press. However, Milan are invited to play the ball backwards. This is likely encouraged in order to create a new opportunity for Spezia to press the ball.
Below we can see that the ball has been played backwards, Maggiore goes to press Simon Kjaer and Agudelo remains in a covering position to prevent a vertical pass. Instead, Kjaer plays the ball across the penalty area, thus inviting an opportunity for Spezia to press again.
Against Milan, Spezia pressed in this aggressive manner throughout the game. It was very unusual to see how they used their midfielders, especially how Italiano used his deepest midfielder in possession, Ricci, to press Milan’s deepest midfielder. Thus, Ricci was often Spezia’s furthest defender in their first pressing line alongside the striker and Maggiore.
Flexible positioning behind the press
Obviously, since they pushed their central midfielders so high, space appeared behind the first two pressing lines. To deal with this, Italiano instructed his defenders to follow Milan’s attackers in a very aggressive manner. In the image below, Spezia right-back Luca Vignali (red circle) has moved into midfield to press Rafael Leao. Meanwhile, Spezia’s centre-back Martin Erlić (yellow circle) has moved into midfield to mark Hakan Çalhanoğlu. Right-winger Gyasi instead drops in as a situational right-back in a very spread out back-three.
The image below highlights this again as Erlić (yellow) steps in to mark Çalhanoğlu. On this occasion, however, Vignali has moved inside as a situational centre-back while Gyasi drops in as right-back again. Also note the deep positioning of Saponara (green) on the left.
Milan tried to solve this issue by having Kessié move wide, as seen below, but that didn’t matter as Spezia then just dropped Gyasi deep to deal with Hérnandez while Estevez still focussed on Kessié. Again, Erlić has left the defensive line to move into midfield in order to mark Çalhanoğlu and prevent Spezia from giving up a lot of space behind the initial pressing lines. By defending in this way, Spezia become uncomfortable to play against since they are furiously aggressive but also very compact.
Below is another example of Spezia’s flexible defensive system. Here, Gyasi has dropped in to create a back-five while the three central midfielders are spread out horizontally together with left-winger Riccardo Saponara. Notably, Ricci (the defensive midfielder, remember?) is wide on the right pressing Çalhanoğlu. Also, it’s worth noting that Agudelo has again back-pressed to create numerical superiority around the ball (3 vs 2).
Gyasi’s role wasn’t straightforward either, as he sometimes moved inside to defend the space given up by the pressing movements. We can see this in the image below. This role was also fulfilled by Saponara on the left, who sometimes slotted in as left-back and sometimes as a central midfielder.
Italiano’s defensive system against Milan was extremely flexible and incorporated man-oriented as well as ball-oriented defending. The positioning of his players was also extremely flexible, as it depended on the dangers of each situation whether the players defended opponents or space behind the first pressing line.
Compact ball-oriented defending
The main testiment to Italiano’s coaching quality is his ability to coach different ways of playing. As touched on above, he can even combine man-oriented and ball-oriented defensive systems simultaneously. In previous matches, such as against Juventus and Napoli, Spezia have defended lower in a more compact manner with an obviously ball-oriented nature. The image below highlights how they often set up in such games. They adopt a compact defensive shape where they look to block passes centrally and steer the play into the wide areas. The wingers do not always defend the wing areas, but rather help the central midfielders block passing lanes centrally. This is obviously in stark contrast to the roles played by Gyasi and Saponara against Milan, as discussed above.
What Spezia often do when defending in a more ball-oriented manner, such as away at Napoli, is that they try to steer the play wide using the wingers to act in different ways. As the image below highlights, the right-winger pressed the Napoli centre-back towards Napoli’s right wing. The ball was then moved across to the other centre-back, who was pressed by the central striker. The pressing was still angled towards Napoli’s right. As you can see, Spezia’s left-winger remained deeper to encourage the pass out to the Napoli right-back. When the ball then arrived, Spezia could easily overload that area and press the ball aggressively whilst maintaining a compact, ball-oriented defensive shape.
A key component of Spezia’s ability to keep a compact defensive shape, regardless of how they press, is the high defensive line they hold. As you can see below, all four defenders are positioned on the half-turn, allowing them to move up as well as down seamlessly based on how the ball is moved. As such, they can keep a high line and deal with runs in behind should the ball be played in behind them. If they would defend with their bodies turned up field, they might not be able to deal with the threat of balls in behind as well as they are now.
Attacking tactics
Triangulation
Like most teams playing out of a 4-3-3 shape, Spezia look to create triangles and diamonds all over the pitch. Italiano uses this triangulation concept as a key part of his positional play. For starters, the players are positioned on various horizontal and vertical lines to create as many opportunities for passing connections as possible. We can see their starting positions below.
When the ball is with the goalkeeper, Spezia’s centre-backs split wide while the full-backs move high and wide. At the same time, the defensive midfielder drops in to create a diamond with the goalkeeper and the two centre-backs. This is done to create good access to all zones across the width of the pitch and gives Spezia a chance to break the press of the opposition by playing through their first line into the defensive midfielder.
Further up the pitch, the two central midfielders form a triangle with the defensive midfielder and often look to position themselves behind the opposition’s midfield line. As seen below, the wingers, such as Saponara (yellow) on the left here, maintain maximum width to create spaces centrally for the central midfielders and the striker to find. Additionally, Italiano seems to want his defenders to drive into space when possible in order to attract pressure that Spezia then look to play through.
As soon as the full-back is in a position high enough to attack the space behind the opposition’s full-back, the winger moves inside to drag the full-back with him, thus opening space for the full-back to attack. Below, Gyasi moves inside, receives the ball, lays it off to Estevez who can then play it in behind for Vignali.
This rotation down the wings is one example of the type of triangulation combinations Spezia try to create. The presence of the defensive midfielder allows the centre-backs to move forward and create the passing triangle seen above with the winger and the full-back.
Combination play
When progressing the ball in central areas, most of Spezia’s attacks go through their regista Matteo Ricci. The Italian playmaker has the type of classy passing range we expect of deep-lying playmakers in Serie A and excels at playing passes through the lines. One mechanism Italiano’s men use consistently is the one highlighted below. When Ricci turns, the right-sided central midfielder often makes a movement towards the wide area to drag a player with him in order to open up a passing lane to the striker. When Agudelo plays there, he often looks to drop off and receive between the lines.
Another key concept in Italiano’s positional play is the use of third man combinations. We can see one stunning example below where Spezia have attracted pressure on their right wing. Estevez plays it into Gyasi who instantly lays it off to Agudelo. The Colombian then plays the ball into the path of Maggiore.
Here we have another example. Agudelo plays the ball into Maggiore who directly continues the move by playing the ball into Gyasi.
Underlapping full-backs
Spezia also benefit from a very stable and organised positional structure. The role of the two full-backs highlights Italiano’s thinking in regards to positioning his players in possession. On either side, full-back and winger rarely occupy the same vertical line. However, where most teams maintain width with their full-backs as the wingers move inside, Spezia often reverse the roles. We can see this below as Simone Bastoni (green circle) stays narrow as Ricci switches the play while the winger Saponara (yellow) stays wide.
When the ball enters the winger, the full-back often underlaps the winger by making a run on the inside of the opposition full-back. This channel is usually open as the striker more often than not pins the ball-near centre-back.
Spezia’s underlapping full-back runs.
We can see a similar example below, but with a different purpose, from the game against Milan as right-back Vignali makes a run inside to open up space for Gyasi out wide.
The two full-backs often balance each other’s movements too. The image below highlights Spezia’s positional setup when attacking the penalty area. Here, the right-back Vignali (yellow) puts the ball into the centre while left-back Bastoni (red) has moved inside from the left wing since Vignali has moved higher. This is done to be better prepared in the event of a defensive transition. Indeed, the narrow positioning of the ball-far full-back also helps to collect second balls if the cross is cleared. Alongside the two midfielders (green), Spezia have three players helping to sustain the attack while three players still attack the cross.
These types of balancing movements are always examples of clever coaching from a tactician who prepares for every aspect of the game. Vincenzo Italiano is certainly one such tactician, as his Spezia side show every week.
Conclusion
Vincenzo Italiano has created a tactically fascinating side that is equally interesting to watch with and without the ball. They can press with a furious intensity, as they did against Milan, they can drop back into a more compact defensive structure, and they attack in a very structured yet fluid positional manner. They’re good to watch and they have started to get results which will hopefully keep them up. As this tactical analysis of their tactics under Italiano has shown, Spezia are a team you should tune in to watch while Vincenzo Italiano is a name you should remember. His defensive and attacking ideas make him interesting for teams at the highest level since he has shown that he can coach different styles within and between games. Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him coach a top club in Italy very, very soon.
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