Changing press and crucial susbtitutions: Tactical analysis of Juventus 1-2 AC Milan | OneFootball

AC Milan made a winning start to Sergio Conceicao’s tenure as the head coach, coming from behind to beat Juventus 2-1 in the Supercoppa Italiana semi-finals.

Things didn’t start well for the new manager though, as Juventus took the lead in the 21st minute. Mbangula picked out Yıldız on the opposite side of the pitch, who unleashed a powerful shot that beat Mike Maignan at the near post.

It looks like the game was heading one way given that Milan didn’t register a shot on target until after the hour mark, but then Locatelli chopped down Christian Pulisic inside the box, with the American converting the spot kick to level.

The comeback was completed just four minutes later when substitute Yunus Musah’s cross towards Tammy Abraham was deflected into the net by Gatti, and the Rossoneri had Matteo Gabbia to thank for a late block.

Though he has only had a few training sessions with the team, there were already some signs about how Conceicao wants to organise his side, and Rohit Rajeev picked some of them out in a tactical analysis.

Two-phase press

Quite similar to Porto, Conceicao had his charges defend high using a man-marking system. However, once Juventus tried to bypass the press, Milan would sit back in a 4-4-2 or even a 4-5-1 and defend using a zonal marking system.

Milan – again like Porto under Conceicao – used a ball-oriented pressing system where the position of the ball was used to determine where the block of players would be on the pitch quite contrary to the man-marking system of Pioli.

But Conceicao – more like Pioli – played very narrow choosing to protect the centre of the block and forcing the opposition to play through the wide areas or switch play quickly.

In possession

On the ball, Milan used a 3+2 system while building out from the back with the goalkeeper acting as the extra man. While doing this Milan placed their midfielders in a way that their full-backs would be free to carry the ball forward.

The wingers – Alex Jimenez and Christian Pulisic for this game – would tuck inside pulling the Juventus’ full-backs inside the pitch giving space for Milan’s full-backs to burst forward and cross or cut inside.

The Juventus goal

Juve’s goal came as a result of gaps in Milan’s pressing. One of the most important parts of Porto’s system was to be compact and not have any space between the lines.

With only four days of work on the training ground with the new coach, Milan have not perfected the art of closing down spaces and Juventus took advantage of this.

By creating an overload on the wings they forced Emerson Royal to even the numbers and Fofana went to cover Mbangula and this created a space between the lines which the winger exploited brilliantly.

Impact substitutions

One of the important alterations that Conceicao made was bringing on Yunus Musah and this saw the coach tweak his tactics. Compared to Bennacer, Musah carried more bite in defensive phase of the game.

He helped in more ball recoveries and helped the team to solidify the centre of the pitch. Once Jimenez went off for Tammy Abraham, then Musah would sit back and helped Theo Hernandez to act as a LW/LWB and add more zest to the attack.

A very underrated part of the second goal was Alvaro Morata making the off-the-ball run pulling Kalulu out of position giving space for Musah to run into.

Set piece analysis

One of the best chances of the game came from a corner, which has been analysed in the clip below. You can see the subtle changes from Paulo Fonseca’s instructions.

Now we move on the throw-ins. Like Fonsec,a Conceicao also uses a spare man to prevent the pass back to the player taking the throw. All the other Juventus players are marked with man-on-man marking.

Truly a Game of Two Halves

Since the game, it has often been said that it was a game of two halves, in terms of performance, and the stats back this up, with Conceicao visibly and statistically getting more from his team. Referencing stats from SofaScore, Milan dominated the ball in the first half, holding onto nearly 60% of the ball and playing almost 300 passes.

Whilst this could have been seen as positive, there was nothing done with the possession. The Rossoneri failed to create a big chance, play a single through ball, and despite making seven more final third entries, they failed to have a single shot inside the box, or better yet, on target.

As we know, Conceicao then berated his squad, stating that they were playing like the ‘old Milan’, and asked for changes, which duly occurred.

In the second period, the Portuguese coach switched to a more direct 4-4-2 system, which he often used with Porto, and this shows with the Diavolo falling behind in the possession statistics in the second half – having just 39% of the ball.

With less of the ball, fewer passes were made (156), but the Rossoneri created three big chances, averaging one every 52 passes.

In addition to this, Milan had almost five times more shots (9) than they did in the first half (2). Which is certainly a positive sign.

Conceicao discussed tiki-taka in his opening press conference and how he would prefer to play a different, more direct style of game. The second half showing certainly proved this, with the first 45 leaning more into the former style, rather than the ideologies of the Portuguese head coach.