A.C.Milan played the first game of their 2020/21 season away against shamrock rovers in the 2nd round qualifiers of Europa League. Goals from Ibrahimovic and Hakan Calhanoglu gave Milan a comfortable 2-0 win. Here are a few tactical notes from the game
Formation
Milan usually set out in a 4-2-3-1 formation but against Shamrock it seemed a bit tweaked varying from a 4-3-3 to a 4-1-4-1. There were quite a bit of rumors in the Italian media that Pioli is looking to move towards a 4-3-3 with the arrival of Sandro Tonali. It is always clear that for Italian teams a tactical tweak is required when playing in Europe compared to Italy because of the tendency to sit back and defend in Italy higher as compared to Europe
The Double Pivot
Post lockdown Bennacer and Kessie where very instrumental to Milan’s upturn in form. It was quite natural to see them playing very horizontally close to each especially in Milan’s half not keeping more 10-15 yards of space between in them.
However as aforementioned a formation change was present and one could see how Bennacer and Kessie were necessarily very vertical to each other. Given how Shamrock’s gameplan revolved around defending in a deep block and attacking on the counter with powerful and pacy striker Greene the vertical positioning meant the passes between the double pivot were intercepted less and milan was less exposed on the counter.
Bennacer a DLP, Kessie a B2B and Hakan a Mezzala
As mentioned above you had Bennacer play a deeper role while Kessie pushed up. A lot of the times you could see bennacer drop off from the midfield 2 and form a passing triangle with the 2 centre backs and bring the ball out of the defense acting as a Deep-Lying Playmaker (Regista). He was also working as a shield to the back 4 whenever Milan lost the ball and were countered. To add to the tactical setup, Bennacer sat back as a make-shift Centre back allowing Kjaer to overlap and make runs forward which suggests a few tactical tweaks
Kessie was the more physical presence in midfield and triggered the press whenever Milan didn’t have the ball. He was used to winning the ball back and playing quick vertical passes to the forwards
Hakan as usual started from a deeper role on the left of midfield choosing to play with Saelemaekers and theo and then join the attack as a fallback option for the forwards to pass which is very characteristic for a mezzala.
Pressing and Milan’s 1st Goal
A very important aspect of Pioli’s gameplan was the aggressive and often triangle style pressing that Milan employed. Until the first 30 minutes Milan were not pressing as aggressive as it used to against Serie A teams due to lack of competitive gametime and .
Once Milan started pressing (Kessie the initiator) Milan scored the first goal. Kessie pressing Greene and the ball went to Hakan who made an intelligent assist to Ibrahimovic .
Passing Combo’s and the Second Goal
In any pressing system as explained by Jesse Marsch, quick passing combinations are very important to advance the ball forward.
Milan were forming very neat triangles all over the pitch with their quick vertical passes and catching opposition players out of position and advancing the ball forward. A neat passing combination put Hakan Calhanoglu in space to unleash his shot and he scored the second goal
Measured use of Theo Hernandez
To maintain defensive shape and put numbers in attack, Milan had Theo Hernandez sit back whenever Davide Calabria went forward to join the attack. Pioli preferably choses to unleash Theo more towards the 60th minute mark and afterwards when defenders are tired and cannot handle the raw pace and physicality that Theo uses
Conclusion
It is great to see Milan bring tactical tweaks to handle teams of different stature’s while keeping the essence of it all as the same. Milan were deservedly 2-0 winners and the late introduction of Diaz and Tonali who could be seen handling the ball even under pressure make it a great sight to watch and exciting future to behold.
The Milan Blog 