Jubilo Iwata 1–1 Fagiano Okayama — Death by a Thousand Long Balls?

After winning their opening J2 game before the beginning of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, Jubilo Iwata returned the previous week with a loss to Kyoto Sanga.

With high levels of possession (67%) and passes during the game (732), the stats would give the impression of a world cup-era Spain team dominating possession and wearing the opposition into submission. In the 1–1 draw, the reality was a team playing in a 4–4–2 both in and out of possession who sought to move the ball into wide areas in a direct fashion. This often looked like a team without any guile and other ideas of how to attack. The prolonged periods of possession lacked tempo and would come under the umbrella of ‘sterile domination. Their eventual equaliser in the 70th minute came from a free-kick.

This is not a criticism of the approach taken by Iwata’s Spanish coach, Fernando Jubero. As any coach or analyst we should seek to find better results from our team and game model. The article will look at the Jubilo’s strategy throughout the game and their use of longer passes, whilst also identifying aspects that could have been utilised or altered to potentially provide more efficient results.

Direct Play

In the initial stages of the game, Jubilo Iwata were overt with their attacking game plan. This involved playing long-range passes to try and isolate the wingers in 1v1 situations, predominantly down the right side to Masaya Matsumoto. From this position they would look to attack via either a cross or through a combination with the ball-near striker. As you can see from the examples below, while there were options to circulate the ball, or move the ball to the ‘free man’ who could progress with the ball, the intention however was to advance the ball forward in a direct manner.

The aim of playing the ball into advanced wide areas can also be viewed from the two below graphics. The first is the average positions from the first half, showcasing the high positioning of Matsumoto (RM) as well as Lukian (CF) shift to the right side to aid combinations between the two, as well as moving into the wide channel when necessary. The second graphic shows Jubilo Iwata’s areas of play from the 2nd half, further highlighting their use of the right wing when in possession.

While a way to advance the ball up the pitch in a quick fashion, a long diagonal pass such as the ones employed by Jubilio Iwata are not without a large amount of risk. As Silvan Steiner puts in his article on perceptual information of passing decisions in football, ‘While long passes may create new opportunities for the team (and be worth a try), they generally have a higher risk of being off-target and missing the intended receiver. Team members’ large distances from the ball carrier is perceptual information that could prevent these team members from being perceived as viable passing opportunities.’ The distance the ball would need to travel to get to the intended receiver also affords opposition players more time to travel and either intercept the ball or put immediate pressure on the receiving player. The speed and timing of the pass then is of importance when trying to penetrate an opposition line.

Lack of access to the centre

Jubilo Iwata’s build up structure also eluded to the idea of playing longer passes. With Fagiano Okayama pressing with two forwards, one of the central midfielders (typically Rikiya Uehara) would drop into the first line to create a +1 overload. While this makes sense in terms of bringing the ball out from the back, this often led to the situation of having one central player (Kosuke Yamamoto) with less than ideal connections to players in front of him.

The positioning of Yamamoto also made it difficult to play the ball through this central area. Often when either of the centre backs were in possession, the passing lane to the central midfielder would be blocked by either of of the opposition forwards. When Uehara was in possession, the compactness of the forwards to deter this pass. With the lack of connections to the centre from other teammates, the longer pass was inevitable.

More controlled progression?

There were moments however where this structure of the overload allowed the team to advance the ball in a controlled manner. Having the central midfielder drop into the first line positioned the centre backs wider and around opposition forward pressure, meaning they could bring the ball forward. The +1 overload also allowed for the full backs to position higher, meaning additional players could commit to the attack.

With the full backs occupying the wide space, the wide midfielders could now invert and position between the lines to engage more opposition defenders. The benefit of this is that with the opposition defending zonally, the positioning of Matsumoto is able to engage four opposing defenders. If the left back engages with right midfielder, then more space is created in the wide area. This would then allow Daiki Ozawa (RB) more time and space to cross or advance himself. If the centre back engages then a greater opening has been created to penetrate and provide a better shooting opportunity for Lukian.

But with limited pressure on the ball from the opposing forwards, was an overload necessarily required in the first line? Could the two centre backs have been able to bring the ball out from the back cleanly in a 2v2 situation? In a recent webinar on dualities in futsal, England coach, Mike Skubala mentions how the pressure on the ball will impact on how support from the receiving player can be provided:

‘A ball player between two [opposition defenders], with poor pressure on the ball, so the player can basically play out anyway […] So even though he’s [the receiving player] the closest player to the bad, he doesn’t really need to support it as much, so how can we make a situation where you can go and penetrate?’

This then can open the opportunity to progress even more players forward to support the attack and aid progression of the ball in wide areas. This is the intriguing part of coaching. Any coach could come up with numerous ways to deal with any opposition and attack in certain ways. These could be ideas that are commonplace or something more abstract. They are just theories and ideas though until they are tested in the context of a real game. Will the opposition be able to counter these tactics? Will the players understand them and adequately implement them during the game?

I have tried to below envisage some ideas about how Jubilo Iwata could position more aggressively without the use of an overload in the first phase, while still giving the opportunity to progress the ball through the wide areas. As Marcelo Bielsa is quoted as saying, ‘A man with new ideas is a madman, until his ideas triumph.’