Why Shakhtar Kashtru is not a modern European team – football.ua

In early November, after losing to Borussia Monchengladbach with a score of 0: 6, Shakhtar set a new club record – the biggest home loss in European competition. Three weeks later, the Pitmen left for Germany optimistically for the second leg. However, this optimism began to literally melt at the beginning of the game: already in the 17th minute, the “colts” took the lead and, by the break, the score was already 3: 0. As a result, four and 10: 0 later of two parties. Again. 10: 0.

Such “epoch-making” results, whether we like it or not, are driving global thinking. Watching the game in Germany, which looked more like a one-way highway, we found ourselves thinking: “But Shakhtar does not change at all. Shakhtar play as they played 3-4 years ago. Shakhtar do not want to keep up, do not want to improve and therefore cannot progress. Shakhtar is NOT a modern European team.” .

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It is important to understand that we are now talking about the team and not the club as a whole. And in this context, the main part of such accusations, of course, falls on the head coach. The person from whom the team’s philosophy of play comes.

Speaking of the absence of changes and improvements in the game model of the Donetsk team, first of all, we refer to proactive defense methods. It is about pressing and counterpressing. Today, in November 2020, these two aspects of the game are defined to some extent in football. If a team has worked poorly in high pressure, if its structure is not refined or is absent, as such, this is a reason to speak of obsolescence. And in the Champions League, being outdated = not very competitive.

Today in Europe it is very important to be able to attack defensively and defend by attacking. This is perfectly proven by Gladbakh Borussia himself. With the arrival of Marco Rose as head coach, this team began to play according to completely different principles, based on the same push and counter. The effectiveness of these principles is clearly manifested not only in matches against teams of the Shakhtar level, but also against teams of the Royal and Inter level.

In the positional defense phase, the team has three positioning options, three blocks: high, medium and low. The high block is the most difficult, the most risky. But having worked out the structure of high pressure and starting to apply it, this gives the defending team a number of advantages. When you start picking up balls in someone else’s middle of the field, your chances of scoring percentage increase automatically, since you’re cheesy, much closer to someone else’s goal, and more chances to take the matter on strike. High pressure is one of the most important keys to gaining an advantage in two of the most important elements of football: space and time.

Having pressed the opponent in the middle, you get the advantage that your players do not need to exceed the additional tens of meters to reach someone else’s penalty. We have the advantage of space. We can turn this advantage into time: you win the most important seconds. These seconds are your advantage, for example, in the fact that your opponent does not have time to rebuild. Back pressure carries out the same tasks. It is important to catch the opponent in his transition phase (from defense to attack), showing the effectiveness of the actions in our transition phase (from attack to defense).

Shakhtar proved to be excellent in the counterattack game against Madrid, that’s a fact. But all the counterattacks developed after the ball was retired in his own half of the field. Imagine what it would be like if the miner learned remove balls also on the other side? This also gives the team variability, provides several options on how to attack.

But we have to admit that the Shakhtar of today is the same as the Shakhtar of 2018, 2017, 2015, etc. This is a team that knows how to dominate exclusively in the matches of its national championship. By UPL standards, it’s a shark. A shark that can only realize the benefits of its style in its small aquarium. But as soon as they throw her into a larger aquarium, she gets lost and doesn’t know what to do. Sometimes, purely by predatory instincts, it turns out to “devour” someone on its way, but in general, it is quite obvious that the shark is swimming for nowhere, and therefore does not know how to dominate other fish.

During the year and a half of Luis Castro’s work, Miner has hardly changed at all. This is still the same team that was with Paulo Fonseca. There are no global improvements. There are no attempts to play modern football. Often there is no variability or optionality in either the defensive phase or the attack phase. We act exclusively according to elaborate patterns that we know before.

In 2020, you won’t be able to win this way in Europe. Wolfsburg or Benfica dismantled, yes. But is this the ceiling set by a brand as solid as Shakhtar Donetsk? And it becomes very sad that the head coach does not admit mistakes. Losing without a single 0: 4 chance and saying “not in business” is really fun. And it is not even the score on the scoreboard that matters, but the quality of the football shown. Today’s miner to today’s Borussia Mönchengladbach is like the moon. Poor me.

Evgeny Kuzmenko, Football.ua