Bologna’s Revolution Under Thiago Motta
The Rossoblu are vying for a spot in Europe. How have they fared against Italy’s best?
In 2008, a 25-year-old Thiago Motta joined a Genoa side that had been promoted to the Serie A only a year earlier. The move was curious: Motta, a player on Barcelona and Atletico Madrid, was joining a team that had been promoted only a year earlier. Yet, later that season, the team would enjoy a wildly successful season under the stewardship of Gian Piero Gasperini, finishing in fifth place. Motta would be sold to Inter at the end of the season, where he would win the treble under José Mourinho and be shortly reunited with Gasperini before moving to PSG and playing under Carlo Ancelotti and Laurent Blanc.
Now, over a decade later, Motta is leading Bologna — currently sitting in 4th place — to what may be their best Serie A finish in decades and to a potential Champions League berth.
Two recent high voltage encounters, against direct rivals Atalanta, coached by his Motta’s former mentor, Gasperini, and Simone Inzaghi’s impenetrable Inter Milan served as opportunities to observe Bologna’s progress this season. It also provided a glimpse into how the rossblu measure up against Italy’s top clubs and just how Motta’s tactics have been influenced by his previous managers throughout his playing career.
Thiago Motta’s Tactical Heritage
Gasperini’s teachings have made an impression on Motta’s tactics despite their short time together at Genoa and Inter. Gasperini’s teams are usually associated with high intensity pressing and quick build-up play. During his time under Gasperini, Thiago would be forced to combine with players in the “three-quarter zones” (spaces between defensive and offensive lines) instead of playing long forward passes through offensive lines. In his master’s thesis, “The Value of the Ball,” Motta writes that Gasperini felt it was necessary to not exclude oneself from an attacking action by playing a pass that would isolate the forward. One of the key takeaways for the Brazilian international was that the system allowed him to “participate in a proactive way” by enabling him, as a defensive midfielder, to get forward more often.
Conversely, Gasperini’s pressing tactics are characterized by his two strikers pressing opposing fullbacks while the trequartista — attacking midfielder — cuts off the pass to the regista (pivot). In tandem, Gasperini’s fullbacks are forced to work hard to press opposing wingers and provide assistance offensively.
Laurent Blanc had a similar philosophy. Short build up play was preferred, but he was also concerned with territorial control, not unlike Mourinho’s emphasis on exploiting weaknesses in the opposing teams positioning. But while Mourinho preferred rapid vertical counterattacks to catch defenders off guard, Blanc wanted numerical control in the middle of the pitch to increase connections between players. Motta’s tactics closely resemble those of Laurent Blanc where he’s interested in possession and emphasizes the need to occupy the middle of the pitch.
In the following diagram, shared from an analysis of Blanc’s PSG by Tom Payne, the lead football insight analyst for Bolton Wanderers, we can see that his fullbacks are given free range to move along the sideline, while the middle of the pitch is packed to create numerical superiority.
Motta adopts this principle in his 2–7–2 formation, where the two players on the wing, namely the fullbacks and wingers are considered the extremities of the team, instead of the defensive and offensive lines. Though not necessarily a radical concept — teams have begun to concentrate in the center of the field, most recently through the use of inverted fullbacks — yet Motta takes another approach by inverting his wingers. This frees up space for the fullbacks to run up and down the pitch and frees wingers to engage in combination play in the middle. Inverting wingers instead of fullbacks creates a similar system to the 3–5–2 that’s popularly used in the Serie A.
Another main aspect of Motta’s Bologna is their press mitigation strategy. When opposing teams press he asks his center backs to turn into registas. As mentioned earlier, Gasperini’s defensive strategy is for his forwards to press fullbacks when in possession and for the trequartista to press the regista. In order to counteract this Motta employs a fluid change in positioning, instead of maintaining a static backline when in possession. The center back moves forward in order to create another passing lane that the opposing offensive press wasn’t expecting. On the other hand, when pressing Bologna uses its wingers to press the opposing defense from the byline moving inward. Zirkzee then drops to the midfield to cover one of the regista while the mezzalla’s (box-to-box midfielders) such as Ferguson and Fabbian press the other mezzalla.
A Reunion with Gasperini in Bergamo
The March 3 match between Atalanta and Bologna promised to be a dynamic encounter, with two attacking teams vying for European football. Motta’s side started in their normal formation, a variation of a 4–1–4–1 or a 4–5–1. Despite beating Atalanta 2–1, the Rossoblu had a difficult time throughout the match due to Atalanta’s intensive press and Bologna’s lack of penetration offensively.
Much of Bologna’s combination play came from the left side, including the play that ended in their second goal, where Kristiansen (right-back) and Freuler (pivot) combine leading Saelemaekers (left-wing in this occasion) to drive the ball diagonally towards the goal.
Orsolini, the right back, on the other hand, appeared disconnected from the rest of the team and was much less involved in Bologna’s combination play, though this may be explained by his ability to drive towards players. In the 35th minute, Bologna almost scored similarly to the second goal. Yet, this time Zirkzee played the ball towards Orsolini behind the backs of the defenders, in an attempt to get the Italian to run at the defenders with the ball at his feet. The pass was played behind Orsolini, causing a loss in momentum.
Bologna lacked in possession, but also in their ability to threaten Atalanta. The following “passes to the box” map shows us just six completed passes into Atalanta’s box. Atalanta was able to find players at a much higher rate, as seen below. What Bologna does well is pressing their opponents. Although Atalanta had a similar PPDA (Passes per Defensive Action), Bologna was better as they allowed less passes by the nerazzurri per defensive intervention. A difference of 0.7 isn’t much, but it made the difference in Bologna’s first goal.
Motta prefers his wingers to press between the fullback and the center back. In the goal Saelemaekers executed this perfectly, pressing Scalvini (Atalanta’s right center back) and cutting off the passing lane to Zappacosta (Atalanta’s right wing back). This forced Carnesecchi to play down the middle, which led to a missed pass and eventually a penalty for Bologna. Given the outlook on the match it’s surprising that Bologna was able to leave with three points. The patch between half time and the 65th minute is where the Rossoblu won the match, yet the rest was an uphill battle.
Testing Italy’s Best
When Bologna played Inter this past saturday, passing connections between the lines seemed to click. Motta stayed faithful to his formation, deploying Freuler as a regista and a line of four just in front of him. What did change was the players that he fielded. Notably, he decided to change three players in the midfield: Orsolini was replaced by Odgaard, Fabbian by Aebischer and Ndoye by Saelemaekers. The most striking omission was Orsolini in favor of Odgaard, who is known to play more defensively than the Italian international.
Looking at the pass map, it’s notable that Bologna distributed play equally on both the right and left side of the pitch, which could be due to Orsolini’s absence. Against Atalanta, when the number seven was on the pitch, it seemed that Bologna purposely dragged the opposing team out to the left with short link up play to give Orsolini more space once the ball was switched.
In addition to playing freely on either side of the pitch, Bologna maintained control of the ball for most of the 90 minutes. Having close to 60% ball possession and almost twice the amount of touches in Inter’s half, Bologna seemed comfortable on the ball and playing close to the opposing team’s penalty area, though it didn’t always convert into concrete chances.
One aspect that I noted during the game against Inter was how Zirkzee would drop down even further than normal to receive the ball. Not only dropping to occupy spaces normally left for mezzallas, but dropping even further down the pitch. This is a symptom of Inter’s strong defensive block and Bologna’s inability to break through defensive lines. Zirkzee dropped further not because he wanted to, but because he had to.
In line with their troubles against Atalanta, Bologna was still unable to break down the opposing defense. Rarely has any team been able to break down Inter’s backline this season, but Bologna played an impressive game and at times they seemed poised to threaten Inter. An example of this is Santiago Castro’s shot immediately after getting on the pitch. Both Orsolini and Nikola Moro pressed Nicolò Barella causing the Italian international to lose possession of the ball, leading to Moro feeding the nineteen year-old Argentinian international. Against the nerazzurri, Bologna was able to have a low PPDA of 11.1. Meaning that for every eleven passes Inter made, there was at least one defensive intervention by the Rossoblu. Motta emphasizes this aspect of the game.
Although the Inter and Atalanta games were completely different affairs in terms of ball possession, Bologna still struggled to create clear chances in both matches. Thiago Motta has emphasized the importance of efficiency, calling horizontal possession “sterile” and “useless” in his thesis. Yet Bologna was not able to implement this belief against either Atalanta or Inter. Inter showed that without having the ball a team could still take their chance and lock a game down defensively (a rather typical Italian tactic). Atalanta effectively kept possession and penetrated Bologna’s back line but were unable to convert.
Thiago Motta has improved this Bologna side by transforming them into a team fighting to play in Europe. Yet, when it comes to facing Italy’s top teams, Bologna falls short. Motta emphasizes an attacking style of play while relying mainly on three players to create. Reinforcements to Zirkzee, Orsolini and Ndoye are needed. Over the transfer window it would be wise to invest in a young fullback with the same characteristics as a Dimarco and a mezzalla that could also provide an offensive outlet, such as Koopmeiners. Motta has done an incredible job at Bologna so far. Let’s see if this can continue next season with further reinforcements.
Edited by Alejandro Lozada
Credit: @BenGriffis (visualizations)
