Philippines v Nepal: Video-Analysis
What went wrong for Nepal? Let’s take a look at the footage and reflect on what lessons the boys in red could learn from the loss
Contrary to popular belief, Nepal’s performance is very much workable. They made a few errors here and there, but that’s what friendly matches are for. Hopefully, the team will work on them. But for the sake of argument, let’s highlight a few moments where I think the team needs to address.
Communication is critical
Here, skipper Sagar Thapa (Red B) can be spotted making the run towards Rota, who seem to be free of a marker. By having no marker in front of the striker, this effectively creates the space in which Rota was allowed to control. Sagar Thapa should have more command in the back line, given his role in the team as the captain. But most importantly, players should try to never leave their mark.
As well as marking players, spaces should also be marked too. A lot of deadballs in areas with no men tend to find themselves driven into the danger area by wingers with blistering pace. Thankfully this wasn’t a problem during the match, however it is something to consider in future games.
Although Bimal Gharti Magar is still young, he has fairly good pace. Numerous mistakes from the Philippines were given to youngster, but with a lack of support up front, we cannot blame Magar. In this still, Bimal pounces on a critical mistake from the Azkal midfielder. In a moment of panic, Sato Daisuke impedes Bimal by elbowing his chest, in order to stop the attack. Needless to say, he was cautioned with a yellow (while Jagajeet was red carded for his unnecessary reaction). Had Bimal won the ball, he would be forced to attack in the final third alone, given that Anjan Bista was too far.
One good tactic is to put the brakes on, and just stop if there are no options. In a moment of panic, the defender will attempt to tackle the striker and the chances of it being a mistimed foul is incredibly high. Players must be smart in these decisions. No options in the attack? Stop. Wait for the defender to foul you. Get a free kick in a danger area. Simple.
Gaps in Nepal’s defence
The distances between the defenders have to be tight and compact – this requires loud and clear communication. The aim of the defence in this situation is to deny space to the opposition and close the gaps between one another so the ball can’t be played through. If you watch teams like Barcelona and Arsenal, they're masters of passing their way through a back four. If you're playing against a team that replicates this style you'll want to keep them wide to stop them coming through the middle.
Staying in formation
The concept of an ‘absolute formation’ does not exist in the modern game. These days, teams are a lot more dynamic and often change formations on the fly, through various ‘attacking shapes’ and ‘defending shapes’ that are based on formation.
No one can undermine the importance of staying in formation. Simply because doing so helps coaches learn how to position their team so that they can hide the weak spots, or weak players on the field during a match.
In the video still above, you can see a congested area of Nepal players in the corner. Notice that Nepal’s defence are all out of position, and as a result, are not marking a single blue shirt. This effectively leaves a generous amount of space and lot of passing options for the Philippines, as highlighted in orange. Correctly staying with your mark allows for a more efficient defending policy. See below: Nepal should be playing (and staying in) a variant of 4–4–2, in my opinion for this to work best for the players of their current calibre.
If defense has trouble incorporating the offside trap or if the opponent is playing some very quick forwards than this 4–4–2 formation may need a little change by dropping one of the center backs behind the defense into a role of ‘sweeper’. By doing this, attack will suffer with one of the outside backs having to stay back when attacking because the sweeper will not have man-marking responsibilities. If the attack is developing on the right side, the Right-Back will help the offense by running forward while the Left-Back will stay back and help the defensive line or vice versa. This is why 4–4–2 is very dynamic and easily adaptable, since playing with a Sweeper in 4–4–2 essentially quickly changes it to a 1–3–4–2 formation when the danger arrives.
With this, there can also be good options for attacking as well as defending. The two midfielders can sometimes take turns in pushing forward, this will keep the Azkal defenders guessing and make the attack less predictable. But some teams, such as England, sometimes favour a more solid approach, assigning a midfielder to have a more defensive and deeper role to cover the defence. This is referred to as the ‘4–4–2-diamond’ formation, as the four midfielders form a diamond-like shape, and it favours a team which does not have strong wingers, like Nepal. But it all depends on how fit the Right & Left Backs are, and the communication with the defence in order to close down gaps.
Nepal’s counter attacking options
One of Nepal’s main sins was their inability to exploit the defensive vulnerability of the Azkals.
Anjan Bista makes an attempt to feed the ball into the path of Bimal Gharti Magar, which is a very good decision. It’s here that Bimal must burst into life. A good striker will be aware of possession being won and look to get on the outside of his centre-half. Should Bimal find himself between defenders, they have him. Get on the outside because invariably the full-back will be upfield as possession was his. With the right pass, you now have a one-on-one situation.
Although, the situation presented here is a bit risky due to the final two defenders could easily fall back before the ball is passed along, creating an offside trap. Another option could be to play the long ball into the flanks for a winger to draw the defence into the side.
Another case was the wonderful long ball to Ranjin Dhimal (which requires good vision and awareness of space). This was very good play from Nepal, however the chance was wasted when Dhimal went for glory and took a ‘Hollywood shot’. This almost always goes wide from that angle. Dhimal should have looked for support and played the pass. You can see the Azkal defence being drawn into the flanks, away from the box, exposes gaps in the danger area. This is what you want to happen.
Stretching the defence
By stretching the defensive line, by drawing defenders out wide, you are creating gaps between the lines, causing unrest and undermining the strength and organisation of the defenders. This horizontal stretching is a very common form. Traditional wingers, the speedy dribblers on the flank, used to stretch the defence like a rubber band.
There is also ‘vertical stretching’ where you create gaps between the lines, so runners can exploit this space, which works best in counter attacks (mentioned above).
Exploiting defence: Much better Play
This quick passing play between Khawas, Shrestha, and Bista was absolutely brilliant. A 1–2 from Khawas, and flick into the free space, Shrestha charges the ball into the flanks. This is where his options are limited by the defender, he then feeds the ball into the path of Anjan Bista who attempts to back heel the ball (which could have fallen into the path of the unmarked Bimal Gharti Magar behind him). The keeper would have had no chance, as you can see in the video below, he was drawn into the far corner of the goal.
Final third decisions
In the final third, Nepal made a couple of bad decisions, which would have been excellent goal scoring opportunities. This would have been a goal, had the ball been played to the support striker. The image above, red shirts are all in the advantageous position of being behind all the defenders. The assist to the right forward should be enough to net an easy goal. But unfortunately in a moment of panic, the ball was fired comfortably into the hands of the keeper.
Another chance was when the 16 year olds started charging forward after Aditya Chaudhary cleverly intercepted the ball through a well timed header. It takes good vision to assess your surroundings, but the Azkals were making mistakes in a moment of shock. Anjan Bista was unmarked, and this would have been a golden opportunity to net another goal.
Finally, the lovely attempt to flick the ball from Anjan Bista was thwarted as the defender was right behind him. Rabin’s decision was good as the angle was near impossible to pass along to Bimal. Perhaps a back heel from Anjan to Bimal would have sufficed, of course this is extremely difficult due to the speed of the ball being passed in. Overall, much better play and placed a lot of pressure on the defence to force a corner. This triangle shape of support, and stretching the defence wide is a very good tactic against teams like the Philippines, as their defensive vulnerabilities can be observed on multiple occasions.
Ash Chetri is a contributing writer and columnist for GoalNepal. He has also written for the 2014 Incheon Asian Games blog, as well as TouchlineTalk. For questions and enquires, you can reach him via twitter: @Ashtopher
