Hatayspor vs. Galatasaray: Domè’s first game — the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
We certainly saw some improvements in Galatasaray’s build-up but other problems in rest defense and goalkeeping caused another disappointing collapse for the team.
Domènec Torrent was appointed as the new Galatasaray head coach 5 days ago, one day after the end of the 4th Terim era. As you know, like Guardiola and Cruyff, Torrent represents a playing style known as positional play (Juego de Posición in Spanish). This style requires the team to work as a collective unit to move the ball from defense to offense through simple short passes that are allowed by different types of superiorities. Galatasaray showed not perfect but certainly promising build-up organizations and, I unfortunately don’t have the numbers, made me feel like the team played a game that they achieved the highest number of 10+ pass sequences.
On the other hand, Omer Erdogan was certainly aware of whom Hatayspor would play against. His game plan was simple but effective. His team played a direct, route one football which can create a lot of problems for reckless teams loving possession. Yesterday, Galatasaray was not careful with their rest defense as they haven’t been for the whole season.
And finally, at a game both teams played with their 2nd goalkeeper, the largest margin between two teams occurred in goalkeeping quality. Poor goalkeeping for Galatasaray, not only with simple shot stopping but also with distribution, sweeping, communication, and command of area, was probably the most important factor on this hearth-breaking result.
I will try to explain how these three factors; build-up play, rest defense, and goalkeeping, affected the result of the game with some more details in this article.
The Good: Playing the 3rd Man
“The third man is impossible to defend against.”- Xavi Hernandez
An essential part of positional play is playing out of defense. Galatasaray hadn’t been giving good signals in this area for a long time before Torrent, but Torrent made a quick impact on it. Although Galatasaray didn’t start with a significant difference in formation or line-up, the team showed more quality in progressing the ball from 1st to 2nd zone through short simple passes. The key enablers of the improvement were forming triangles and utilizing the 3rd man combinations much more frequently and effectively than before.
Very simply, if there are 2 opponents; one defending the ball, one defending the target player you want to pass the ball, you naturally cannot pass the ball to your target player. However, if you have numerical superiority, and have 3 players against 2, you cannot be defended. Even one of the opponents marks one teammate, the other shadow marks the third player, a quick one-two can dissolve the opponent and help you to make the 3rd man free and available to receive the ball.
From the first seconds of the game, Torrent’s intention was clear on playing the ball from the back. Hatayspor had two players in front line marking the Galatasaray player having the ball and shadow cover no.6, while the other slides closer to no.6 to mark if no.6 considers to move. In such a situation, it is not possible to pass the ball to no.6, who was Antalyali today.
Hatayspor defended with a high-block high-discipline 4–4–2 in the first half. Although they were not having an assigned marker for Antalyali, two players in the front line slid quite well. When center-backs (CBs) played the ball to full backs (FBs), we could see the other man-markers; wingers on FBs and double-pivots on no.8s.
However, even though Hatayspor frontline was trying to do their job with high discipline, Galatasaray could make Antalyali available in many occasions through making him the 3rd man. Many times, Kutlu came deep to create a triangle between him, Antalyali, and CB, and played a one-touch pass to Antalyali. In some of these sequences, Antalyali could further continue finding the 4th man, who was the winger, Kilinc, below.
If Hatayspor winger is not fast enough to cover FBs, then similar triangles was created with FB, CB, and Antalyali.
The team didn’t only use this approach with no.6 to progress the ball. It was used in wider areas between FB, winger and no.8 as well.
And eventually, an elite goal, which 8 players touched the ball in a 14-pass sequence within 30 seconds to create, came at 23rd minute. Kerem comes deep to get the ball, Berkan becomes the 3rd man and could find the 4th man, van Aanholt, with a really good progressive pass, and finally van Aanholt finds Kilinc at far post.
Until the first goal, Galatasaray had 62% possession, which is significant for an away game against Hatayspor.
Omer Erdogan started the second half by taking more risks with a more aggressive pressing, assigning Diouf to mark Taylan. If Galatasaray brought a second pivot, then another midfielder followed him tightly as well.
This move from Hatayspor first pushed Galatasaray to play long balls from the back, which were all unsuccessful, and eventually forced Torrent to bring in Aytac Kara, who played sort of a traditional libero role. That interesting reaction helped Galatasaray to have safer build-ups with 3–2 standing (although the 2nd goal was led by Kara’s mistake during build-up).
In addition, it helped WBs to get further forward. At 67th minute, Galatasaray was very close to realize one of the most beautiful things in football for me; a goal assisted by a WB/FB and converted by the other WB/FB, at which van Aanholt almost found Boey right before Hatayspor defender intercepted.
The Bad: Rest Defense
“Football is a matter of balance. Even if you are in possession, you have to think for both defense and offense” —Domènec Torrent
Yes, the quote above was from Domè, himself, right after this game at his press conference. He had been obviously aware of the problem before the game. This has been one of two critical problems of Galatasaray alongside with build-up for whole season. The team is very susceptible to counter attacks, and it is all related to the rest defense.
Rest defense is a tactical term used to define the structure of the team in possession to ensure safety and good transition from offense to defense. Nowadays, many teams try to stay narrow at the back with 3–2 or 2–3 formation to have strong rest defense and mark opponent’s forwards zonally even if the team has the possession.
To explain how it impacted this game, we first have to understand how Hatayspor was aware of this weakness of Galatasaray and how Omer Erdogan planned to spoil it. From the beginning of the game, Hatayspor tried to find a wider player who had more time with the ball to see Diouf and flies a long ball to him.
This route one approach is something very hard to defend for teams who love having possession at opponent’s half. The team must have a settled right structure according to number of forwards opponent is using. For yesterday’s game, in the first half Hatayspor was using 4 attackers for counter attacks, then Galatasaray must have 5 people back there, each of them to be at the right position, to defend counter attacks and to regain possession to create sustained pressure. However, the team was very reckless.
For example, when Boey couldn’t win the duel and lost the ball, both FBs and no.8s stayed in final third, this created a 4v4 chance for Hatayspor. The threat was amplified with Ozturk’s wrong positioning that forced Marcao to have a 2v1 situation with Hatayspor defenders. Luckily Lobzhanidze couldn’t convert the chance.
In another example, this time after Aytac subbed in and Galatasaray started playing more of a 3–2 formation at the back, Boey couldn’t find Akturkoglu and dispossessed the ball. The double pivot of 3–2, Antalyali and Kutlu, were both too high on the pitch, unaware of their positions so that Hatayspor could move the ball to the space through 2 passes in only four seconds. Again, there was a huge gap everywhere on the pitch but luckily van Aanholt reacted faster than Saint Louis and recovered the ball.
And finally Hatayspor’s 3rd goal came from a very similar situation. Boey once again dispossessed (might be a foul called!). However, when he lost the ball, the double pivot was again very high on the pitch, and this time Galatasaray was not very lucky. Saba Lobzhanidze had a huge channel in front of him, and Antalyali was too late and slow to cover the zone. The position ended up with the third goal.
The Ugly: Goalkeeping
“I would say the ‘keeper is the most important player on the team, more than a striker, the ‘keeper is fundamental.” — Pep Guardiola
Football is a collective game. All the efforts players put can be destroyed by a mistake of only one teammate. If this teammate is an outfield player, there can be still a chance to recover his error, but if this player is a goalkeeper, there is usually nothing other 10 teammates can do. Everybody is talking about Cipe. I don’t have anything different to say on his terrible fundamental, including positioning, shot stopping, sweeping. But I also want to say a few words about his playmaking. One naive comment about him is that his kicking is not bad. No, everything about him is just terribly bad. Yesterday, so many times, the team could’ve started from the back, but Cipe without communicating with his teammates tried to pump the ball to our short attackers who were not ready to receive the ball either. In some positions this was literally just goal kicks. Why don’t the keeper tell his defenders to move high before pumping the ball? The returning ball directly creates a threat since our defensive line naturally stays very low. I can’t understand how such a person could not even play as a starter amateur league level can be Galatasaray’s goalkeeper. We saw so many bad goalkeepers, but Cipe shouldn’t be categorized as a goalkeeper to be tagged as bad or good. I really don’t know what to say.
Here is the first examples where he decided pumping the ball from the goal kick, while all teammates were expecting him to play short, and opponent created a very dangerous 3v3 by recovery.
Another example: his decision to play long without communicating with his teammates created another dangerous situation within 7 seconds after losing possession.
Conclusion
This has been the single most painful season for Galatasaray supporters for sure. However, all we need is a few wins, the team is losing their confidence and forgetting that they are a bunch of lads who have potential to grow, become better individually and collectively. I trust Domè and players 100% that they will together work very hard to change this situation. There are some positive changes already. We have a tough fixture upcoming, but we will get better and become stronger.
