Read Part 1 here.
Read Part 3 here.
This Part 2 will look at Sporting’s build-up from deep under Amorim, first of all laying out Amorim’s main structures and intentions in this phase of play, and then analysing how it worked out on the pitch and interacted against different opponents and presses.
- Build-Up: Structure
- Build-Up: Intentions
- Build-Up: Outcomes and Variations
- Vs Man-to-Man Press
- Vs Hybrid Press
- Struggling to Access the Centre
- Pressing the Double Pivot
- Build-Up: Evolutions
- Triple Pivot
- 4-2-4
- Summary
Although the 3-4-3 formation usually allows teams to occupy the pitch in a very standard way (players in all 5 attacking corridors), Amorim makes a couple of slightly unusual adjustments which we will look at.
Build-Up: Structure
Building from deep areas in a 3-at-the-back formation can sometimes provide a problem for teams as it’s hard to know what to do with the third CB after two split either side of the GK. Usually teams will push their wide CB into a FB-position, in turn allowing the near WB to go high, switching momentarily to a back 4 structure.
Amorim, however, pushes his centre CB into the midfield pivot to achieve the same ends. The domino effect of this is that it allows one of the #6s to go higher between the lines, leaving the remaining #6 to form a double pivot with the CB and create a 4-2 build-up structure at the back.1 This is how almost every top team builds from the back at the moment which would help Amorim should he suddenly find himself in top level clashes next season.
In front of the 4-2 base, one #6 (who is normally more attack-minded) occupies one half space while the #10 on the far side will drop to occupy the other half space, forming a central box with the double pivot to try and overload the middle. Of course this is a natural benefit of the 3-4-3 formation anyway but by pushing the CB into the box, Amorim frees up an extra player to play on the last line, meaning Sporting can have 2 forwards in a 4-2-2-2 shape who can pin the opposition defence and threaten in behind.
Build-Up: Intentions
In situations where the opponent don’t commit fully to match up man-to-man, or when a forward follows through to the GK, the CB stepping into midfield can form an option to split the first line and break the press. In the situation below, Atalanta have committed enough players to press the other 2 CBs and one pivot player, but the creation of a second pivot player through Diomande stepping up creates a free man to bypass the pressure.
As teams gradually adjusted their pressing to send an extra player and deny Sporting the central overload, the narrow double pivot became more of a wall to bounce passes from the CB into the space out wide. Against these teams that pressed more aggressively, Sporting used this wall to help attract pressure through lots of short passes – supported by dropping the WBs very deep in order to draw the opposition FBs/WBs far away from the back line – and in turn create space further up the pitch for the two #10s or the two strikers ahead of them.
A lot of these passing patterns when building from the back are quite automatic and built on clear repetitions, but they usually end in playing a long pass upfield rather than generating a free man around the ball – for instance, patterns often end with a pass into the WB, which triggers an immediate first time long pass around the corner into the channel.
They don’t necessarily have to go in behind immediately from the direct pass from deep, although that is an option as Amorim has typically opted for a physical striker that likes engaging in duels and running the channels. The other alternative is to find one of the two #10s in between the lines, using the striker’s movements to pin the defensive line back and create space in front.
As mentioned previously, the two #10s are typically composed of one actual #10 (who tends to be good at dribbling in small spaces, like Marcus Edwards or Trincao) and a #6 who has moved up a line in the 4-2-2-2 shape (originally the role was made for Matheus Nunes, who is also an excellent dribbler who can receive and retain under pressure at all angles).
Therefore, the most ideal scenario is to get one of these two playmakers on the ball between the lines with two runners ahead of them to immediately threaten in behind. This can also happen indirectly from a longer pass, as the close positioning of the front 2+2 means that they are compact and well placed to contest second balls and counterpress from the long pass.
The goal below against Atalanta is the perfect example of an ideal build-up under Amorim. They play from the back and find the near-side #10 (Trincao in this case) who drops to receive and then retains the ball and finds a team mate.
Then WB is then able to attract pressure with a bounce pass and dropping deep, creating space for Trincao to receive in between the lines, having lost his marker who got attracted to the ball. He has runners ahead of him in all directions and one of them exploits the space created by the deep build-up to run in behind and score.
Build-Up: Outcomes and Variations
So that’s the ideal situation for Amorim and his idea of using build-up as a tool to create space to attack immediately, but let’s see how it has fared against different presses over the last few seasons.
Vs Man-to-Man Press
One of the most common challenges Amorim faces is a team which presses this set-up largely or completely man-to-man. This typically involves ST following the CCB into midfield, the wingers pressing the WCBs, WBs jumping to the WBs, and the CMs following their respective men onto different lines. To negate the central box, one of the CBs has to step up to mark the #10 who drops between the lines.
Most commonly, this is done by teams who also play 3-4-3 like Benfica in 2020/21 or Atalanta this season.
Amorim’s primary solution in these situations is trust his players to win their 1v1 duels through individual superiority and try to create the platform to maximise their strengths.
For instance, the CCB pinning the ST centrally forces the opposition wingers and WBs to jump to press, leaving huge spaces in the wide areas on the back line. This is the ideal situation for his front players like Goncalves (23 goals in 2020/21) and Gyokeres (36 goals in 40 games so far this season) who are powerful runners and love attacking large spaces. Therefore, these man-to-man approaches often play into his original intention of playing short passes to attract pressure.
Alternatively, as we saw against Atalanta, Sporting will try and play short passes until they can find the feet of one of their #10s. They will typically be marked and pressed from behind as they receive, but given the profile of the players he puts in those positions, players like Edwards or Trincao are often able to secure the ball regardless and outplay their opponent with a dribble.
Of course, this is where Sporting sometimes run into problems in big games against strong teams, as discussed in Part 1. If Edwards’ close control isn’t with him, or Trincao is up against a dominant physical CB, or Gyokeres can’t overpower his marker with his physicality, Sporting run out of solutions to consistently retain the ball. Since the deeper players are conditioned to play long after they’ve attracted pressure, the game ends up being direct quite quickly, and if those forward players don’t manage to retain the ball, Sporting don’t really have an alternative.
It’s a high risk – high reward gameplan since the situation is dangerous should his players win their duel and take their marker out of the game, but the downside of it on a bad day is very frequent turnovers, and given that Sporting don’t press consistently out of possession, this leads to long periods of important games where they don’t have the ball.
Amorim does try to create better conditions for his forward players – they frequently make double movements to try to create separation to receive, and work together to make opposite movements to disorganise a back line – but teams who focus on man-marking won’t worry too much about leaving gaps in their lines at the back.
To evolve his build-up at the highest level, Amorim will have to find other solutions to generate superiorities against man-marking should direct play not work. Of course, better players will help an approach such as his where he wants players to win their individual duels, but Sporting have (/had) quite a few technical players in deeper areas who could have been used to outplay the press another way (e.g. Nunes, Inacio, Porro etc.).
Vs Hybrid Press
Sporting also face teams who are not willing to forgo a spare player offering security at the back and therefore deploy a form of hybrid press. This tends to take two forms. Firstly, teams will press with one fewer player, using one player to affect two opponents simultaneously by pressing one and covering the other with his cover shadow, and then only jumping to equalise the numbers on specific triggers. Alternatively, teams will initially press with players splitting two opponents to direct the ball towards one side of the pitch before then latching on to cover the nearest players around the ball.
For instance, Porto’s press in their 2021/22 Classico directed play towards the right side and then locked onto the near-side players while cutting off the switch via the GK. If these teams apply this with enough intensity and compactness, they can make the situation temporarily man-to-man and create the same issues as above for Sporting.
Sporting struggle even more in these situations as their primary option of going long is weakened by the fact the opponent has extra players back as cover, meaning Sporting struggle to secure the first or second ball in an underloaded area of the pitch.
However, they sometimes can find success by accessing the far side of the pitch via bounce passes through the double pivot or the double #10 centrally. Since these bounce passes can be completed under pressure, Sporting don’t have to evade the man-marking in order to do so and then can find the free players on the far side who can easily gain territory.
Struggling to Access the Centre
This generally doesn’t happen consistently, however, as the supporting movements to create passing angles don’t occur quickly enough, with large distances between players and not enough support around the ball for quick combinations. This is partly due Amorim’s choice of narrow 4-2-2-2 shape, with a block of eight players (CBs-CMs-#10s-STs) in a vertical corridor centrally, meaning it can be easy to isolate the one wide player on each side.
As the WB receives, the closest safe passing options (back to the CB and into the near double pivot player) are cut off. Due to the system, the only other player who can support in the half space is the near #10, but this diagonal passing lane is usually cut off by the pressing angle of the opposition winger, and he can be marked from behind at the same time. The opposition winger is able to press like this (start narrow, press outwards, block the passes back inside) because there is no threat of a pass vertically down the wing – again due to Amorim’s choice of system.
The other solution for the WBs in these situations is to try and find the ST. However, the hybrid press means that there is a spare CM who can screen these passes in front of the defence while the CB marks from behind – again creating a situation where the opposition can cut off Sporting’s key access routes back to the centre both in front and behind, essentially putting Sporting in an underload.
This ultimately stems from this 4-2-2-2 system that places more players in the ball-far half space and in turn fewer players closer to the ball. This makes it easier for opponents to cut off access back into the centre or near half space when they press from in-to-out and use cover shadows to squeeze Sporting against the touchline. When do Sporting do well against this? Like against man-marking, it’s when someone is able to outplay individually, like Pedro Porro does below – and then they can quickly hurt the hybrid press which left the weak side completely open.
Pressing the Double Pivot
Even against weaker teams, Sporting don’t find solutions around the ball and end up going direct, like in 2020/21 when they faced Santa Clara’s hybrid front 3 press trying to control the 2 CBs and double pivot by latching onto the 3 nearest players to the ball.
Even against weaker opposition not committing man-to-man like this, the most frequent solution deployed by Amorim’s side against this press was again to play direct into the two #10s or strikers with their back to goal, hoping to secure or at least pick up the second ball. Of course, they could always re-circulate across the GK to the other CB and often did so, demonstrating more patient moments in build-up, but again this would be done with the intention of creating space further up for a long pass.
This indicates a stylistic preference for this approach in build-up, rather than trying more to play through the press with short passes and combinations. Of course, this might be dictated by the quality of the players (especially in 2020/21 before the likes of Diomande and Inacio came through) but for one reason or another, Amorim is clearly currently happy to engage in a more duels-based approach rather than trying to establish control through possession.
When they played better teams, like Dortmund in 2021/22, Sporting struggled against this sort of press which baits passes into the double pivot before pouncing with two players pressing immediately – one to press the ball and one to the player where the ball is going next. Due to the larger distances within Sporting’s set-up, it’s difficult to find quick solutions in these situations, and represents a problem with Amorim’s build-up which is quite heavily based on automatic patterns which can be scouted and prepared for.2
Build-Up: Evolutions
One thing Amorim consistently does well is the profiling of his players and where to put them on the pitch to maximise their strengths. This is how he has survived numerous upheavals within his team with key components being sold almost every summer.
In the last two summers, he has lost three key midfielders in Matheus Nunes, Joao Palhinha and Manuel Ugarte.3 Amorim has continually demonstrated that he can evolve and adapt to different squad profiles, and the way he has coped with different midfield pairings is testament to this.
Triple Pivot
After losing some very technical midfielders, Sporting now play with Hjulmund and Morita in central midfield. While they have strengths, they don’t quite have as much technical security as their predecessors. Certainly, neither would be suited to playing as a #10 receiving with their back to goal under pressure, like Nunes would have done before.
Therefore, Amorim has switched to a 4-3-2-1 build-up shape with essentially a triple pivot ahead of the first line (2 CMs either side of the CCB who steps into midfield as before).
This of course changes the dynamics of Sporting’s build-up slightly, but Amorim has retained the double #10 that he sees as so crucial to escaping the pressure and instead sacrificed a player on the forward line. He probably felt comfortable with doing this as he currently has the best striker he’s ever worked with and Gyokeres has the physical attributes to work the front line on his own.
It also has a knock on effect on the WBs, who used to primarily drop deep to pull the opposition WB high. Due to the presence of an extra player deeper in this new system, the WBs now start higher, pinning the opposition back to create more space for the central players.
The dynamic between the CM and WB is well coached, and helps to offer a solution to some of the issues accessing angles back inside from the wing described earlier. In the clip below, the RCM moves high as the WB drops, a well-timed opposing movement that does enough to break the Benfica press (Kokcu wanted to pass him on and Joao Mario was worried about screening Edwards behind him). Crucially, the extra central midfielder offers another option who can support on the near side – Amorim has essentially sacrificed the ball-far ST in his old system to provide an extra option closer to the ball.
This demonstrates Amorim’s acumen in making adjustments when required, as well as his strong understanding of key units within his system and the knock-on effects of any changes. His foundational ideas regarding verticality still remain, and the two #10s underneath the #9 are still crucial elements of the play when Sporting attract pressure to go long.
In the clip below, the RWB drops deep to pull the LB with him and then plays first-time around the corner. Sporting’s double #10s help to win the second ball and then Morita tries to immediately penetrate the space behind. These scenarios shows a nice blend of Amorim’s fundamental preference for vertical play and some adaptations which both take into account what he has at his disposal and the opportunity to create advantages on the pitch.
4-2-4
Amorim has also switched to a more traditional 4-2-4 in some games this season, with the WCB moving to FB and the WB moving to the last line. This happened in a couple of the games against Atalanta (4 games against the same opponent who play the same formation in one season does inevitably prompt variations).
This may have been done partly to try and disrupt Atalanta’s expectation to match-up naturally given their identical formations, but also likely took into account that RWB Geny Catamo is very inconsistent with ball retention and passing accuracy and so removed him from deeper areas where turnovers would have been more dangerous, instead placing him higher on the last line where he is most comfortable.
This is typical of the sort of pragmatic move that Amorim is so good at, and explains how he has got Sporting punching above their weight for so long. However, on the pitch, the change didn’t quite have the desired effect as Sporting were still quite direct with their play and continued to rely (largely unsuccessfully) on individual players to secure the ball high up the pitch, without players around the ball moving to support and offer shorter options.
Summary
It’s evident that Amorim has very clear and interesting ideas in his build-up, and is pragmatic enough to play long or short in different situations. However, it remains to be seen whether he can balance his strong preference for vertical play with times and situations where more carefully curated possession may be needed (of course, potential employers Liverpool are the archetypal team for finding this balance while still retaining their identity of fast, direct football). In particular, he must solve the issues that arise from his narrow 4-2-2-2 causing build-up to get shut off on the wings, although the new system this season offers promise on this front.
His player profiling and ability to adapt systems based on what he has at his disposal also bodes well for a future jump to a bigger team, so it might well be that with better players he would be able to focus a little more on possession.
At Sporting, however, these limitations in build-up have somewhat restricted their attacking play over the years, and Sporting have never ended the season with the most (or 2nd most) goals scored. That is, until this season, where Sporting’s attack has transformed by Viktor Gyokeres. How he copes with playing defensive teams and breaking down low blocks is another key factor which will determine if he can manage the biggest clubs in the world, so Part 3 will look at how he sets up his attack in the opposition half, both this season with a star striker and in previous seasons where he has had to manage without.
Footnotes:
- Amorim has been consistently doing this since 2020 and his idea differs slightly from the versions of it we’ve seen in the Premier League recently with Guardiola and Ten Hag. The role of Stones or Akanji stepping into midfield for City usually occurs only in the middle third once City pin the opposition back and can settle into their 3-2-5 shape, but they rarely if ever do it in deep build-up, largely because they play with a back 4 and need both CBs to split either side of the GK for the first pass. Ten Hag also builds with a back 4 from deep but pushes one CB into midfield anyway, and gets a FB to drop into the role of the CB next to the GK. This means there’s no one in a FB position, and often no one alongside the CB in the pivot either, which usually leads to United having no options for GK on the ball and end up booting the ball long. ↩︎
- They won this game 3-1, opening the scoring after a long ball led to an error from a Dortmund defender, before quickly scoring a second on the counter. So clearly their direct play can work. But the evidence from their other games in Europe suggests that it becomes a bit too hit-and-miss for consistent success. ↩︎
- The clubs where these players go onto is a testament to Amorim’s coaching, putting them in roles where they can thrive. He gave Palhinha the cover with 3 CBs behind him to eat up ground in midfield and make interceptions all across the centre of the pitch, while giving Nunes his hybrid #6/8 role allowed the Portuguese midfielder the freedom to demonstrate his incredible ball carrying, passing range and dribbling in advanced areas of the pitch. ↩︎
Third Man Runs 