Roulette Draft - Round 1 - Harms/Sjor vs. Moby/Red Viper

Harms/Sjor vs. Moby/TRV

Vs.

Tactics Harms/Sjor

The inspiration behind this side is Pep's City of last season — mainly the proactive approach, directness and an unorthodox use of fullbacks. We thought that this concept will allow us to highlight some of the lesser-known players as well as using others in the unusual roles that we think they'll excel at.

Tactics.
The basic formation City employ does not provide anything spectacular. It is instead a rather customary shape which you can find across all professional leagues in Europe. The details, however, carry Guardiola’s thumbprint. The key battle would be in midfield, where we would have an advantage in numbers (thanks to false fullbacks), workrate and even head-to-head records (Litmanen being a proven nuisance to Redondo is the obvious example).

We'll expand on the tactics and personal roles in the write up and later in the thread, so here's a few basics

• High defensive line — our defence is well-suited to it (especially Koeman, who was the master of it)
• Guardiola has instilled into his players a playing style that values “possession with a meaning”, or how each pass has an underlying intention of opening up spaces or moving around opponents. This is not Tiki-Taka, or possession for the sake of having the ball, but rather moving the ball to move the opponent
  
• Intense pressing. This is potentially Moby/TRV's weakest point — his back 3 and a keeper are far from great on the ball in the all-time context, and our pressing will definitely cause some issues. It also gives us an advantage — both teams are built to take control of the game and I believe that ours is more likely to do so
• Our fullbacks are comfortable in a narrow defensive formation, which will help with a more central threat from 3-5-2

False fullbacks.
It is something that Pep experimented with at Bayern as well, but the use of false fullbacks at City was a little bit more nuanced. From the very beginning we wanted Zanetti (with his experience as a RB/RWB/RM/CM — and that's not even counting the left wing) and Netto for those roles. I'll make a more detailed post about Netto, but he's really the perfect man with his unique skillset (played all over the wing before settling as a left-sided center mid) and a Guardiola-esque view of football.

Like with Delph and Walker, Netto and Zanetti won't be playing mirrored roles — and while both are well-capable of playing as false as well as traditional fullbacks, Netto will more often join the midfield while Zanetti will mostly provide overlaps for the attacking runs of Eto'o. Both of them possessed incredible intelligence and understanding of the game, which will help them decide on what to do at any given moment.

Spoiler: a bit more on false fullbacks

Key roles.

• Ronald Koeman is the ultimate playmaking defender who excelled in high line and played with much needed directness (not that tiki-taka crap) — he was really a must for our team despite his reputation as a defensive liability. After all, the man won 2 European Cups with 2 different clubs and the Euros as well, playing in some of the most gung-ho defensive set ups in history
• Andrés Iniesta and Jari Litmanen. They are the fulcrum of our team (Iniesta and Pep are a fantastic and proven combo and Litmanen was the star of LVG's Ajax — one of the teams that inspired Guardiola the most). Everything in Pep's system is set up to provide his 8's with the most freedom — it's not surprising that De Bruyne and Silva were the best players of that star-studded side. Fullbacks are joining the midfield to free them from defensive responsibility, as well as providing quality transition from the defense (with the help of Koeman, Basti and Yashin). The wingers and the center forward are stretching the pitch horizontally and vertically to create pockets of space for Iniesta and Litmanen to go to
• Bastian Schweinsteiger. The most complete midfielder of his generation, Basti excelled in multiple philosophies, but his unique blend of physicality, mentality, tactical and spatial awareness and top-notch passing game makes him a perfect fit. His MotM performance in the 2014 WC final is the golden standard for this role.
• Samuel Eto'o. The man had won 2 trebles in a row performing in completely different roles, so we had to secure him early. Here we are replicating his role from Mourinho's Inter, where he moved outwide to support for Milito centrally — providing graft, positional intelligence and pressing ability as well as his devastating pace, goalscoring and creativity. Zanetti is ready to cover for him when he cuts in

Bonus.

Jari Litmanen's monstrous performance against a midfield featuring Fernando Redondo and Michael Laudrup. Litmanen, nominally playing as a number 10, was marking Redondo out of the game, significantly limiting the speed of Madrid's transitions. While doing all that he managed to score 2 goals (1 was wrongly disallowed). Then Real Madrid coach Jorge Valdano after the game commented: “Ajax aren’t just the team of the 90’s, they’re approaching football utopia.”



Tactics Moby/TRV

Formation: 5-3-2

Goal is marshalled by Albertosi, one of Italy's greatest ever Keepers. Solid defence with Picchi sweeping flanked by 2 solid stoppers in Stam and Walter Samuel. Nilton and Kaltz will provide the width.

Redondo/Zito will orchester the game from the deep. A complementary pairing to get the best out of both of them.

Laudrup will be the main playmaker. Rivaldo will have a free roaming role with Shevchenko leading the line. Laudrup's ability to play deeper will ensure there is no overlaps with Rivaldo.

@harms @Šjor Bepo @Moby @The Red Viper

If neither are present, I'll present some arguments for Moby/TRV to get this going.

Good luck @harms @Šjor Bepo @Moby @The Red Viper

Also tagging @Edgar Allan Pillow @MJJ

A homage to a city side? Ewww.

This. Replace Finney with Tevez and it's entirely pukeworthy. Anybody who votes for harms/sjor is a massive false red.

What the hell is that writeup and graphic for our team.

Can you restart the game wjen TRV submits our write up? Harms himself was busy till Tuesday. It's wednesday and it's been decided that our team will be taken over?

Unacceptable. Everyone puts in equal effort to get these games done so at least be a little sensible especially when TRV updated that he was gonna submit it soon.

You already know the circumstances, this wasn't delayed out of laziness. I had to leave due to a major surgery and half my body isn't mobile right now. Finding a replacement and giving him time out of his schedule to get into this would obviously take some time.

Sorry but that's pretty disappointing and awful move by the mods.

TRV did not need to wait for harms to submit his writeup? The match draw was made well in advance and dates were agreed on Friday. I reckon enough timings (last pick was made by TRV last Thu making it nearly 1 full week) was provided to submit a proper write-up. @Indnyc made it clear that we wanted to start reinforcements on Thu and we waited till last moment to start the match.

Happy to restart the match, but your team should make sure you don't delay the draft beyond reasonable time.

Sorry for not letting your reinforcements on Thursday as previously decided, can't thank you enough on showing so much support and understanding right now.

TRV wasn't a part of the draft till few days back and agreed to take time out to take this forward. But it's okay. Carry on with the draft. Real class act.

TRV took over last Thu (a week before, when he made the last pick). Surely it is sufficient for anyone to put up a formation/write-up? I'm not being really unreasonable here.

Anyway let him submit today and I'll restart.

@The Red Viper submitting soon?

I quite like Moby's fake team.

Spoke to TRV he is out of town as well .

Harms wins this game .

Think we should continue this game and let voters decide the outcome? I quite like Moby's team as well.. Looks great and very well balanced.. Only questions in Santos is a good fit as a wing back

Finney and Etoo should be on opposite sides for me. Great idea nevertheless

Yes, a lot for Mourinho at Inter.

Whenever they had to protect a lead, it was Sneijder up top, Etoo bursting from the left flank and I think Pandev from right.

The best example of course being that Barcelona game where they were down to 10.

Quite natural from the left for me and I think Guardiola's system suits the inverted wingers more like Sane.

Yeah let it continue and treat it as an active game. I feel bad for Moby but with TRV also out of town we can't delay it further

o
Etoo stronger foot was his right one though, dontd think he will be that effective cuttingcin on his left foot.

Yeah, Kylian Mbappe has the same problem and i reckon thats why he struggles on the right.

Mbappe is very two footed, is etoo similar?

Messi played for a dysfunctional Argentina side and don't forget that he plays significantly worse for Argentina.

Think this is harsh on Moby given the circumstances. I think he arguably drafted the best team in round 1 and deserves to be presented better.

Sorry to spoil the fun, but pretty pointless match imo. We assume Moby will get in that line-up, he will try to win possession battle (instead of trying to maybe soak the pressure and get harms/sjor on the counter) and so on, and so on...

Love the idea from harms and sjor, but can't vote here.

Even Salah plays on the right while hardly cutting in. But the system is very different and the role suites them there just like it does for Mbappe too. Think Firimino or Griezmann dropping and suddenly Salah or Mbappe being most advanced. Its also a trait of direct teams where such players excel.

In a Guardiola esque possesion system, with Etoo being expected to cut in which already is different from how Mbappe or Salah function, its not the same thing at all.

Also not sure why a orthodox winger is needed. Wingers in Pep systems are there to stretch the pitch. They are not expected after that to act like orthodox wingers and ping balls in. Even from wide areas, they are expected to do what their teammates are doing at the centre of the pitch. Penetrate with pure skill and quick passing. So as long as they can drift outwide, it should be alright for me. Dont have to be on their orthodox sides. At least that is how I see Pep teams

Fair enough, my (obviously wrong) memory of that season was that etoo was playing on the left and swapping with milito.

Tbf there isnt a lot more you can do, moby unfortunately had a surgery and his replacement AM went AWOL.

Well I’d delay the game given he’s still retaining an interest (only a day or so for him to mock something up or get a new AM - not indefinitely). The obsession some people have to plough through these things as quickly as possible regardless of real life events is crazy imo.

He’s had to go in for surgery which sounds quite serious. Just seems to lack any understanding imo.

TRV was chosen as an AM more than a week ago though, after a certain point you do need to get a move on otherwise the whole thing gets unnecessarily delayed and wednesday was chosen at TRV's request.