by Sabre » Thu Jan 01, 2009 2:25 pm
This thread was much needed. I think zonal defence must be discussed. If we understand zonal defence, we understand how Liverpool plays.
I'm happy to read that everyone around here seems to understand the zonal defence both in set pieces and open play, so this is an excellent opportunity to discuss deeper the zonal defence, as there are aspects of it that I don't recall to have discussed in newkit ever (I'll mention them at the end of the post).
The first thing I've done is to read the thread, and I'll answer briefly two questions raised above
1) No, as much as I'm Rafa truster I can't say he's the father of any new idea: most if not all the concepts Liverpool uses effectively are Arrigo Sacchi's ideas. We're talking about zonal defence as a whole here, which wasn't invented as we know it before Sacchi.
2) Yes, we have evolved in that department.
Second, some opinions.
It seems common knowledge already the most basic concept that in a zonal defence each player takes care of a zone. It's been mentioned aswell that indeed all the zones are not the same, there are dangerous zones, safer zones, and blind zones, last of those are not taken care of. I don't think it's necessary to discuss this bits any further because most posters in newkit have one time or another posted how this works.
If you see how Liverpool plays when we have the ball, you might notice that our defence pattern always attack the ball. You won't see Liverpool taking always care of one dangerous midfielder of a top european club, you'll see how our defensive patterns always focus on the ball.
When your defender is facing the player with the ball, the interesting part of zonal defence occurs behind this player. The players behind the defender closing down, can form a diagonal line of players, or "safe pyramids" or triangles (or wedges, I wonder how is this said in english). When you're able to do this all the time, then you're defending well.
What to do all the time? looking for those safe patterns. What to do to the opposition player? press him without tackling (the important thing is not to be dribbled) to win time, time for what? for getting the defensive patterns. This is where I disagree whoever says Kuyt's way of pressing is not useful, he does a hell of a work so that later Alonso and Mascherano are where they should, and in the propper pattern. Kuyt's work IMHO helps a lot our zonal defence in open play. But that's just my opinion.
Many teams start well doing that zonal defence in Spain, but they don't have a work horse, so in min 50 and later they're caught in unsafe (with the defensive pattern mounted) positions more often and thus are more vulnerable. Liverpool is difficult to score against for any top team of the world because we're able to defend well almost all the 90 minutes, and at great intensity.
Uff, but let's discuss more things later, there are a lot of things to be discussed in this thread, that are undiscussed. And with no stats. I'll answer the Stu's question later aswell.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
Last edited by
Sabre on Thu Jan 01, 2009 2:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
SOS member #1499
Drummerphil, never forgotten.
, useless. Now he is our defensive coach, obviously he was brought in to teach the players how to play the system. Someone should bump those old threads to see the gems some came up with. 
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