Uruguay’s diamond from a coaching perspective

Uruguay has found a winning formula during the World Cup 2018, setting up in “4-diamond-2”. Used on occasion during its qualifying campaign, this system is the one on which La Celeste relied on to get the better of Russia (3–0) and Portugal (2–1) to reach the World Cup quarter-finals.

This article means to suggest how such a game model can be implemented from a coaching and training point of view.

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Notes: I have chosen coaching drills that involve a group of players of 16 + 2 or 3 goalkeepers, which corresponds to a realistic session group. These drills are not exhaustive in the training process as a whole, they will of course complement other related drills (games, exercises). However, I chose to propose the drill which seemed to me to be the most able to transmit the desired coaching material. In each process with opposition, there is a target team (in sky blue) and a sparring team. Each team has its own “gameplan”, aiming to generate tactical issues to solve from the target team. I would suggest taking particular care towards the respect of the (any) organisation set, so that it…