The match between Krasnodar and Zenit is central to the tenth round of the RPL. Vice champion vs champion. The second team in the Russian championship faces the first in the table today. Only the teams of Murad Musaev and Sergei Semak have not yet suffered a single defeat. Will the Zenit coach really risk playing with three forwards in Krasnodar, as he did in previous games with CSKA and Fakel? And why did Semak form the attacking trio Sobolev – Cassierra – Luciano? Interesting questions, hot topic. Let’s try to solve it.
When Sobolev moved to Zenit, it seemed that the former Spartak player would start the first matches in the St. Petersburg team on the bench. Still, Alexander played for the red and white only once in the new season and, after being suspended from work with the team, trained individually for more than a month. He is not in optimal shape and lacks playing tone. In fact, after the match with Fakel, Sobolev himself admitted this:
“It is clear that I can and want to play better. I try to adapt as quickly as possible. I think I need to score a goal to have full confidence. Do the three forwards interfere with each other? There is probably no such thing as us interfering with each other. I just need to fully understand what I should play. The coaching staff explains it to me, but, as they say, not all at once.”
However, Semak decided to tone Sobolev back, not by loading him with small doses of playing time, but by immediately throwing him into the maelstrom. Will it float or not? He looks like he’s drowning. In the match against CSKA, the former Spartak player played on the front line, and Cassierra (left) and Luciano (right) supported the center forward as conditional or inside wingers. This trio had to put pressure on the army’s three central defenders.
Luciano Gondú
Photo: Alexander Safonov, “Championship”
If we ignore Zenit’s positive result (1-0), the result is more or less. There was an obvious imbalance in the champion’s game; There were big problems in the center of the field. The connections between the forwards and the rest of the players were cut. Zenit left with a very motivated newcomer. If in the first rounds Glushenkov scored in every game before his injury, now Luciano hits the opponent’s goal in every game: the Argentine also scored against Akinfeev.
“We wanted to give it more flavor and freed up three forwards,” Semak explained. – We wanted to create scoring chances and we scored a goal, but there should be more attacks and chances of this type. We should play more interestingly. We search a little more. Today we decided to release such an offensive trio, Sobolev needs to get in shape through game practice.”
Despite the general failure of the experiment, Semak did not abandon the three forwards in the home match of the 9th round of the RPL against Fakel (3:1). I just corrected the diagram. Now it looked like the classic 4-4-2 with Luciano on the right wing and Cassierra supporting Sobolev from deep. The coach moved the pieces, but essentially nothing changed. In the first half, Zenit suffered on the field more than playing. Sobolev stood alone in front, as if he were alone on a forgotten island.
Mateo Cassierra
Photo: Dmitry Golubovich, “Championship”
During the break, Semak made a triple change, but, curiously, left the three forwards. The changes greatly strengthened Zenit’s game and in the 68th minute, when Sobolev left the field, the champions already led 2:1 thanks to goals from Cassierra and Luciano. In general, Semak’s decision on the Sobolev – Cassierra – Luciano trio was also surprising because the coach was left without forwards on the bench on both occasions. Only the tall midfielder Erokhin was able to add fire to the other team’s area by coming on as a substitute. He, by the way, put an end to the “insolent people of Voronezh.”
Now there is talk of a new trend from Semak: a game with “three towers”. But this is not entirely correct. Yes, Luciano and especially Sobolev are tall and physically powerful forwards, capable of breaking through the opponent’s central defenders. Cassierra, with his height of 186 cm, has never been a power forward. Semak also spoke about this when answering a question about possible transfers of Sobolev and Córdoba from Krasnodar:
“For us, of course, it is important to have a player who can win duels and play well up front, because with 10 people in the opponent’s area it is quite difficult to open the defense. Of course, I would like to have a forward who plays well on the second floor. “It definitely wouldn’t hurt.”
However, there is a feeling that the story of the “three towers” at the heart of Zenit will end in two games. Firstly, Krasnodar is not a team that sits deep in its own area and waits for it to “open up”. The “Bulls” themselves go on the attack and leave spaces in their half of the field. Therefore, in Krasnodar, Zenit needs a center forward who can exploit this space. Not at all Sobolev. In addition, using Luciano as a winger in this type of football can hardly be considered a good idea, since the Argentine, unlike, for example, Glushenkov or Pedro, will not offer himself for moving passes. He often receives balls with his back to the defender and facing his own goal. This will reduce the number of fast attacks.
But the main thing is that Glushenkov returned to the team! Maxim has already come on as a substitute for Fakel for the first time since breaking his hand and will likely be ready to play more in Krasnodar. Glushenkov and Luciano started at Zenit in such a way that they should have an iron position in the midfield if injuries do not interfere. The midfield is on the shoulders of three Atlanta players: Barrios, Claudinho and Wendel. Since with this selection of players it is impossible to move to a formation with three centre-backs (who should play on the wings?), there will only be one place left in the attacking group. Who it is, Cassierra, Sobolev or young Pedro, obviously depends on the opponent, tactics and other details that Semak knows best.
The “three towers” game is a more relevant story for Zenit in games where it needs to recover. There will also be similar cases, since Semak’s team cannot crush everyone (as the last meetings have shown), as it did at the beginning of the championship. At this point, the most important thing for Zenit is not the number of forwards, but finding a balance to increase the number of shots and scoring chances created: so far the champion has only taken the 13th shot in the RPL: 11.2 on average. per match.
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