we analyze the secret of the success of Shakhtar – football.ua

Get down to work! “Why did it bounce?” – Anticipating the statements of some fans. Let’s go directly to some statistics:

– The miner hit 4 hits, of which only one hit the target. Furthermore, only one hit came from outside the penalty area. At Inter, 4 of the 12 shots hit the Pitmen’s goal. 8 shots from within the 16-meter zone, half of which came from the 11-meter mark or closer.

– All the hits of Luis Castro’s team in the xG metric were converted to 0.01, this is very little. Interestingly, since the founding of the metric, have Pitmen ever removed an indicator close to this or even lower? Probably not. It’s hard to believe. Inter also created 1.7. That is, the team played enough for at least one goal. And even more.

– We congratulate Anatoly Trubin with a great performance. We will talk about it separately below. The WhoScored portal, as well as InStat, recognized the young goalkeeper as the best player of the match, and this is not an entirely normal situation. Trubin saved his team too often.

Trubin became the best player of the match Shakhtar vs Inter according to Whoscored

– Shakhtar players only made one pass to the opponent’s penalty area. Inter has 15 such programs.

The list goes on. But despite this, the score is 0: 0, Shakhtar is the leader of Group B, which was described as “fatal” after the draw, Luis Castro’s team has 4 points.

The coaching staff of the Ukrainian team decided not to change the squad, who beat Real Madrid, and played for Vorskla at UPL. It is true that in the 10th minute Dentinho had to be replaced due to injury … Shakhtar came out in a 4-1-4-1 combination, where Marlos and Marcos Antonio had the role of insiders.

Shakhtar – Inter. Our qualifications

Compared to the game against Gladbach, Antonio Conte made five changes. Alessandro Bastogne, who replaced Alexander Kolarov, took the position of the central defender closer to the left flank. Ashraf Hakimi appeared down the wing from the right in place of Matteo Darmian. Ashley Young came out on the opposite flank, not Ivan Perisic. Kristan Eriksen, who played in the Milan match, stayed on the bench and in his place came Marcelo Brozovic. It is true that the Croatian did not place himself in the attacker’s position, but he played much lower. Well, and Lautaro Martínez replaced Alexis Sánchez in front. 3-5-2 by Antonio Conte.

Great chapter on attacks on buildings

In this part, we will talk more about Inter’s preparation. First, there were some interesting points. Second, it was Shakhtar who had to adapt to Inter, and not the other way around. In the first phase of the attack, one of the central midfielders was brought down by the third central defender, and one of the defenders climbed higher on the edge. It all depended on the attack vector. If Inter attacked with the right wing, then Brozovic sat lower and D’ambrosio went ahead. If he left, Bastogne went on the attack and Vidal took his place.

Another important point! If D’ambrosio created amplitude by standing on the edge of the field, as in the chart above, then Hakimi went to the mid flank and vice versa. In the opening minutes, the Pitmen defended 4-1-4-1. Later, they would trade to 6-3-1, where Solomon and Tete fell in line with the quarterbacks.

The second phase of the attack is shown here. Bastogne climbed higher on the flank, Young is on the semi flank.

Thus, Inter sacrificed a player in midfield to create a majority on the wing, most often on the right.

Another interesting point. Conte’s team not only tried to create a majority on the flank, but also tried to open space for Hakimi to enter. Here is one of the episodes at the beginning of the game.

Inter leads the attack with the left wing: Vidal goes down, Bastogne rises higher on the edge. Consequently, the Shakhtar players move to the right. An important clarification: in this situation, Solomon and Tete still do not play the role of wings. The Milanese create an overload on the left, while Hakimi is left alone on the opposite flank. Vidal makes a perfect side pass.

By the way, Inter attacked more frequently with the right flank, 46% of all attacks. Left – 30% and in the center – 24%.

After the initial 10 minutes, Shakhtar had to defend with a 6-3-1 pattern. As we wrote previously, Tete and Solomon fell in line with the defenders. However, Inter found opportunities to expose Hakimi.

In the chart above, we see that D’ambrosio has risen higher in the mid flank, Solomon is playing along him. Thus, Kornienko plays in a narrower position. The young defender must keep an eye on Barella as he spawns in his area. Hakimi is in the widest position.

An identical episode.

What is Miner? In yesterday podcast we said the miner parked… This is not entirely true. Time to improve. Why isn’t it really a bus? For the double-decker “Ikarus”, the Donetsk team held the ball indecently – 42%. Castro’s team completed 426 passes with 82% accuracy. Shakhtar managed to build his attacks in the first phase with a short pass. Let’s say more: it was good to go from the first phase of the attack to the second. You cannot say that Inter have included some kind of crazy pressure.

Now there will be complex issues. Company StatsBomb calculates an indicator such as Pressure. Deciphering, this is the pressure of a team on opposing players when receiving, controlling or “releasing” the ball… With this metric, you can evaluate the intensity and quality of Inter’s pressure in different thirds. So, Conte’s team pressured Shakhtar players 120 times and did it successfully only 38 times – this is the average… For comparison, in the game against Gladbach, Inter applied pressure 157 times and 44 were successful.

But let’s get back to yesterday’s game. The miner, by the way, made 137 pressures, 39 of which were successful. But here is an important clarification: 56% of the Pitmen played in their third of the field, that is, in the moments when they were defending.

The miner’s counterattacks

In the match with Real, Shakhtar played six counterattacks, two ended with punches. Yesterday not everything was so rosy for the Pitmen. And here the problem for the Orange-and-Blacks was that in the transition phases, when you need to quickly return from attack and take positions during defense, Inter are too good.

“I saw Shakhtar vs Real Madrid, and today they played the same way. They sat in defense 6-3-1, but they managed to score three goals and win. They have strong counterattack players, and I’m glad we created many chances. and he was not lost, “says Conte after the game.

Inter were very afraid of Shakhtar’s quick counterattacks. The scheme itself with three more centrals and two more full-backs makes it more difficult for the opponent to counterattack, there are no areas to run. So in yesterday’s game, neither Solomon nor Tete found much space.

Separately about Anatoly Trubin

Trubin is 19 years old and yesterday he defended “zero” against Inter. Also, Anatoly was recognized as the MVP of the match by InStat and WhoScored. You have 4 saves on your account. By the way, namely these 4 shots in total took out 1.4 xG – this is very, very good. An incredible goalie play when it comes to hitting. But there is another component that is important in modern football: kicking. And here are the big problems. Yesterday Anatoly gave 27 long passes, of which only three were accurate… More than once Inter picked up the ball in an outer half of the field and, while the Shakhtar players were in half position, they made their attacks and only miraculously failed to score.

summarizing

The miner defended himself a lot, in an unusual way. Castro changed, changed his style, abandoned his usual philosophy, playing with a low block. This brought the result: 4 points with two tops and the obvious favorites of the quartet. But! Shakhtar did not yield short plays in their own half of the field and in the central zone. On the other hand, there was absolutely no counterattack, Inter were calm and quickly fell back. In a positional offense, absolutely nothing either. Despite Shakhtar defending a lot, the Pitmen were lucky not to concede at least one goal. I’m sure Inter played enough for at least one goal. But these are Inter’s problems, not Shakhtar.

Statistics given by StatsBobm (taken from the Fbref portal) and WhoScored