Coppa Italia 2015-2016

[ACM2023]

Who was captain today, btw? De Jong?

yes.

[nefremo]

Finally a coach with balls who calls it how it is!

[Ryo]

Just re-watched the match (first half anyway). The understanding between the front three was phenomenal. Honda's through ball for Adriano to score, Adriano's dummy for the ball to roll to Honda for HIS goal, and a whole handful of short passes that led to shooting opportunities (which all three players took but unfortunately didn't score with), were all executed with aplomb. Honda does so much better in the hole. That's pretty much the difference between using him as a winger and using him in his natural position. He did well to connect our midfield with our attack.
Oh, and for the record, Bacca's goal definitely should have stood. Adriano wasn't even interfering with play, and when the pass went to Bacca, he was definitely not offside.

Not only forwards, but also our defenders and midfield were playing with short two touch passing at the most. I noticed the team were playing on a strict 5 second rule or something. Players were running around to free themselves and each other up for a pass, and were doing it quickly. I know the quality of our opponents isn't really the best, but I could still liken them to relegation dogfight clubs in Serie A. The way we played today was such a stark contrast to how we've been playing the past two years.
Two years ago, heck even four or five months ago, we would be constantly sitting around for a counter, and if we had the ball for extended periods of time, the players wouldn't know what to do with it. De Jong was forced to be our superman and gather all our balls, which was a really tough job when you're going at it 1 vs 4 or 5 players.
Today, I saw everyone chip in, including the forwards, on the pressuring and defense. To be perfectly honest, I don't think I've ever seen De Jong look so comfortable just pinging balls around and running without the ball in his entire Milan career. The less we make De Jong work on stupid menial retrieval tasks, the more energy he'll have when he needs to make that ACTUAL match-saving tackle. Same goes for everyone. It's much easier to instigate the attack than to react to it, and actually takes less energy as well. In this, I believe that Miha is doing well, and his philosophy actually works for our team.

Of note, I would say that Ely and Romagnoli were rock solid at the back, and Ely even found time to bomb up (see 18th minute) to help in the attack. He actually dispossessed their defender from the front and passed the ball to our midfielders, and then stood up there WAITING to help in attack.
Now what I loved about that, despite him suppose to be at the back, was that he wasn't running around like a headless chicken. I actually believe that it was a Miha sanctioned move. Ely stood with the Perugia defenders and waited for an opportunity to be the extra attacker during the play, and when the move didn't materialize (all of 20 seconds or so) and he knew for sure that he couldn't help out, THAT's when he started heading back to his CB position. His teammates also acknowledged he was there with a purpose as well (just that that particular attacking move didn't work), and did try to make a play with him there.

I believe Miha's tactics fit very well with the way we want to play. I also believe that at least 10 out of 11 of our starters today did well to execute said tactics (Jack really was trying way too hard, next time we should try Poli or Mauri).

For me, this match wasn't so much a Coppa match as it was a gauge for how we will be playing against smaller Serie A teams, and I must say that it was a great confidence boost.

For once I'm actually excited at dominating a match with possession (and the goals to compliment it) that doesn't always go sideways and backwards, and am actually looking forward to us facing smaller teams.

Another test passed.