Being a CM in the 3–4–3
Pep Guardiola made history with Barcelona. He took the level to the skies in ball possession football. He got trophy after trophy. The entire football world was affected. Some coaches have tried to implement a similar style. They got the ball more and more, but many of them failed because they didn’t know what to do with the ball.
We have witnessed short-term victories of those who approached the game with pragmatism. You know, action-reaction. Mourinho did crazy things with Inter. Chelsea won the Champions League with Di Matteo. Leicester won the EPL title, with 41% of ball possession, but these were not sustainable successes. Mourinho is in existential pain now. The trophy holder Ranieri was sacked after a year. Where is Di Matteo?
And the Back-Three formations… Conte’s famous 3–4–3 formation worked very well. Gasperini created his own order with Atalanta. Simone Inzaghi sets up his own kingdom with 3–5–2.
However, the scene also had an invisible side because It doesn’t matter what you play, it matters how well you play.
When Fenerbahçe signed with Vitor Pereira at the beginning of the season, new hopes began to sprout in the fans. They are especially excited when they learn that their team will play with the back-three this season. There has never been such an attempt in the history of the team. The season has started. Criticism began with the loss of points. Pereira was playing almost every game with a different starting line-up. The media declared war against the back-three formation. As a result of the pressure by the media, the team switched to the back four. And the story ended in disappointment.
There were many reasons for failure. Especially some factors off the pitch, such as the cold war between the chairman and the coach, or the pressure for success, made the sad picture even sadder, but I want to focus on the pitch.
The subject of this blog-post is squad building in 3–4–3, specifically CMs in 3–4–3.
The Right Players
Like any formation, 3–4–3 can be performed in different ways. Chelsea of Conte had their plan based on sitting deep and fast attacks. Chelsea with Tuchel likes to play with high press and high possession rates. Whatever, playing with back-three gives you an extra defender, but it also lacks a creative player at the front. The 2 midfielders have the backbreaking responsibility of controlling the center of the pitch very well. They need to balance between the offense and defense.
As I will touch on that subject shortly, teams that play 3–4–3 or its variations often have duos playing constantly. For example, in the 16–17 season, Chelsea’s CMs were mostly Kante and Matic. Alternatively, they had Fabregas.
There are Freuler, Koopmeiners and de Roon at this position in Atalanta.
However, Fenerbahce had a wide variety of options.
Fenerbahce could not find a stable duo. This issue was one of Pereira’s most criticized issues. The Portuguese coach made radical line-up changes in almost every match. As you can see from the table, he could not make his decision clear about the midfielder duos. Gustavo was the most preferred player, although he was often subjected to severe criticism from the fans. Despite the fact that there are many options in that position in the squad of the team, the desired level could not be reached.
Luis Gustavo, Jose Sosa, Miha Zajc, Mert Hakan Yandaş, Miguel Crespo and Max Meyer…
Wasn’t there any player suitable for 3–4–3 among so many options? What does the 3–4–3 formation expect from the CMs?
The key position in the 3–4–3 formation may be the central midfielders because having two CMs carries the risk of being outnumbered in the middle of the pitch. Therefore, this situation makes it difficult to control the tempo of the game.
Conte’s Chelsea made their choice of midfielder to Kante and Matic to overcome this situation, but at the beginning of the season, it was not so encouraging. They started with the 4–3–3 formation. Kante, the only defensive player in the front of the defense, was not efficient. Matic was not able to perform the offensive midfielder role expected of him properly. Oscar, on the other hand, was nowhere near good enough. The fact that they conceded 9 goals in the first 6 weeks in the league showed that something was wrong.
With 3–4–3, one player decreased from the center of the midfield. However, the way Conte used Kante and Matic was more defensive. (Especially Kante) While this may seem like a conservative approach, the results were very successful.
Let’s take a look at the other teams playing 3–4–3 and their variants this season. Who are they? Atalanta, Sporting CP, FC Midtjylland. What’s the style of their CMs? When we add Fenerbahçe’s players to the list, we will see successful and unsuccessful examples and understand a little bit about the reason for Vitor Pereira’s midfield duo preference that change almost every match.
By the way, it’s really hard to find a team that plays with the 3–4–3.
The intensity of defensive action in the midfielders of all 3 teams other than Fenerbahçe is close to the average or above. Gustavo, Sosa and Mert Hakan have insufficient numbers defensively compared to other players playing in the 3–4–3 formation. However, I must emphasize that, for example, can’t the two players I’ve mentioned play together, of course they can play. Against weaker teams, more offensive players can be used. However, there are two important points here. As you’ll notice, teams playing with the back-three don’t have such players. Also, although Kovacic and Loftus Cheek did not actively disrupt the opponent or make defensive actions, Tuchel only used both in one match.
We encountered a similar picture. It is clear that at least one player on each team is very skilled in ground duels out of possession, but Fenerbahçe seems like an outlier (negatively).
In our previous comparison, we left out Crespo and Zajc because their defensive quantities are above average. Crespo is also in a good position in this comparison. The same cannot be said for Zajc. His tackling ability is just 9 out of 99!
As I mentioned at the beginning, the 3–4–3 formation wants perfect balance from center midfielders. We got the defensive numbers done, so now we can focus on the attacking contribution.
Attacking Output Rating: It is a measure of contributions to xGF per minute that a player’s team is in possession of the ball.
Naturally, some players contribute more offensively, while others contribute less. I should point something out here. Some players appear to be playing in the CM position according to the SmarterScout algorithm, while others appear as DMs. For example, the numbers of Matheus Nunes playing in Sporting, Evander playing in Midtjylland and Mert Hakan playing in Fenerbahçe are adjusted according to the CM position. Even this output tells a story because one of the duos that Sporting and Midtjylland use the most, is in the front and the other is in the back.
If we get to Fenerbahçe, only Crespo’s offensive contribution is low, but it can be compensated by his partner. Just like de Roon in Atalanta.
Ball retention ability: the likelihood that a team will keep possession after a player touches the ball.
Everything appears to be normal for each team and player, but a player mustn’t lose the ball or in other words, he has to retain the ball in order to increase the team’s chances of scoring or prevent them from conceding a goal. Only one player attracts the attention in the graph. He is Crespo who we found good compared to other numbers.
Here is the question.
Which two players would you prefer, if you put yourself into Vitor Pereira’s shoes?
This discussion was common every time Fenerbahçe lost a game. I often saw that some fans wanted Sosa and Zajc to be preferred because they are more technical players and can contribute more to the attack as they are more suitable to possession-based game, but we noted that due to the nature of the 3–4–3 formation, midfielders must have excellent balance defensively and offensively. That’s why Sosa-Zajc is a duo far from energy and mobility.
I don’t want to skip that Sosa is 36 years old, Luiz Gustavo is 34.
When we look at the last 3 seasons, the time to stay in the game is decreasing. They are physically incapable of providing the dynamism that the 3–4–3 formation expects from the CMs.
I can say that Crespo (Vitor Pereira wanted him) was the most suitable player for this system in Fenerbahçe’s squad (Although he is insufficient in attacking), but he could not be included in the squad for European matches due to Financial Fair Play.
We are coming up against a bad squad building. Fenerbahce’s squad is made up of individually talented players, but each player is like pieces out of a different puzzle box.
Vitor Pereira can be criticized on many issues, but the coaching choices of Fenerbahçe in the last 3 seasons reveal how wrong the planning was.
Before I finish my blog post, I would like to talk about the CMs of the teams that played 3–4–3 in EURO 2020.
Denmark and Switzerland, which are among the successful teams of the tournament, preferred the players we can call defensive.
Let’s just say, that’s the nature of 3–4–3.
