Lionel Scaloni World Cup WINNING Tactic
On 18th of December 2022, Argentina won the FIFA World Cup after 36 years.
On 15th of July 2024, Argentina won the Copa America consecutively, after winning it in 2021.
The master of these achievements – Lionel Scaloni.
Of course, the players did most of the work, but Argentina always had extraordinary players. In recent years, they seemed to lack someone who could guide them to trophies.
And that someone became Lionel Scaloni. His naming as the next Argentina football national team manager unleashed a wave of criticism in the country, including the legendary Diego Maradona.
Not good when not even God himself likes you.
The criticism came mainly because of Lionel Scaloni lack of experience as a football manager, at least at the required level. The only other managerial experience he had was being the Argentina U20s manager.
His appointment, at the time, was also viewed as a lack of vision from the Argentinian football federation’s side.
But Lionel Scaloni proved everyone wrong.
And he did it in the best way possible, turning his doubters into loyal followers, especially after the World Cup win. A trophy that eluded the nation ever since Diego Maradona left the field.
The former great football player of Deportivo La Coruna implemented a simple looking tactical setup, but one that played on his team’s strengths.
A 4-4-2 on paper, but one that can easily become a 2-4-4 in attack.
Starting with a sweeper keeper on support duty in goal. It’s not mandatory for the goalkeeper to be a sweeper one, but in a world where every player counts in possession, he must become a passing option at times.
A back four made of two central defenders on defend duty, one wing back on support and one wing back on attack.
Lionel Scaloni prefers his central defenders to just defend and not participate in the possession game. But his wing backs are a different story.
They must provide the width of the tactic, help their teammates when they are in trouble in the middle of the field.
Also, the left sided wing back is asked to go further forward than his right-side teammate. This is in a bid to release the winger and help him tuck inside, to apply pressure in the half spaces.
The midfield four are a winger on attack, a mezzala on support, a box-to-box midfielder and an inverted winger on support.
They are setup like this as their movement is the core of the tactic. If the midfielders interpret their roles well, the tactic will be unstoppable in attack.
The box-to-box midfielder is told to take more risks, get further forward and move into channels.
And the attacking duo are a trequartista and an advanced forward. The trequartista is required to relinquish his position on the pitch and move around, dragging some of the defenders onto him.
While the advanced forward is required to do the opposite and look for space to attack into.
As mentality I chose positive. Attacking could also work but be mindful that the attacking duties will make the players more aggressive on the ball.
In possession, fairly wide attacking width, pass into space and play out of defence. Argentina relies heavily on their wingers’ and forwards’ movement. Thus, the pass into space option is used.
However, if the team you play against sit deep, tick this option off as there is little to no space to pass the ball into and either let the players decide or ask them to work the ball into the box, to crowd the box and look for the mistake or the opportunity to score.
Shorter passing directness and a slightly higher tempo.
In transition, counter-press, counter and distribute the ball to the defence through short kicks.
And out of possession, a mid block and a standard defensive line. What Argentina did great in the 2022 World Cup was to defend.
Sitting in a mid block required the opposition to pass the ball around in a bid to drag Argentina out. And when this did not work, they were forced to either play through balls which had little to no effect or to take the Argentinian players on, which resulted in 50-50 chances of success.
Trigger press is more often and trap outside, to make the team compact in defence.
In my save, I moved to Bayer Leverkusen, in the Bundesliga. And in my first season, also using this tactic, we finished 2nd in the league. Scoring 98 goals and conceding 48. We even managed to win against Bayern München once – 2-1.
But the greatest result came in the UEFA Europa League. Where we won the trophy, in a poetic way in my save, against Ajax, my former club.
Lionel Scaloni brought to Argentina a key missing element – stability off the ball. And this helped them win the trophy that they missed so much.
Lionel Scaloni faced a lot of criticism, but his feat proves that if you have principles and you stick by them, rallying the team around you, results and trophies will come.
Argentina wrote another piece of their history under their manager and let’s see what they can do next.
