Roberto De Zerbi Tactic Recreation | Football Manager 2023 |

Roberto De Zerbi likes his team to sit deep, keep the studs on the ball and attract opposition pressure. His players rarely pass the ball until the very last moment. So they need to be composed, focus very well and find the best solution.

But, before we go to the tactic, we need to consider some of the attributes the players need to perform it.

Because if your players do not have high ratings for these three attributes, they will buckle under pressure.

This is dangerous. But at the same time, it can lead to big spaces left open by the opposition.

As by keeping possession of the ball, the opponent will hardly have any other choice than to press. And what Roberto De Zerbi does best is to find the free man.

The concept of free man is the unmarked player. Usually this is best created in groups of three players, with the third player being the free man.

By attracting the opposition onto your team early in the build up phase, you force them to play with a very high defensive line, which in turn creates gaps – either after the pressing lines or behind the defense.

Besides the attributes mentioned earlier, player traits are also important.

As the match engine prioritizes player traits over anything else in the players’ decision process, it is important for them to have role related traits as much as possible.

Of course, this depends on the level of the team you manage.

Roberto De Zerbi sets up his team in a 4-2-3-1. Most of the times…As once the press starts, the team shape switches to a double pivot box.

The use of the double pivots enables the team to find a lot of space behind the first and the second line of the press.

The danger is that if the double pivots are blocked, Roberto De Zerbi’s tactic starts to crumble. This is why I recommend managing most of your games and changing your team’s shape according to the press you are facing.

In goal we have a Sweeper keeper on attack. He must become a field player as soon as the ball is in play. No special instructions for him.

The Wing backs are both on attack duty, as they will provide the width of the tactic. They need to sit narrower, to provide passing options in the build up. But as soon as the ball is moved from the defense, they must spring into attack.

The Central defenders are ball playing defenders on defend. Dribble less and tackle harder as special instructions.

The midfield pivot is made of a static role – the Deep lying playmaker and of a dynamic one – the Segundo volante. The Segundo volante is meant to be the one going forward when attacking.

Dribble less and tackle harder for him and pass it shorter and dribble less for the Deep lying playmaker.

The wingers have two distinct roles, but the right one has a card up his sleeve that makes him more dangerous than normal wingers.

On the left side, we have the Inverted winger. Attack duty and tackle harder. This player is meant to receive the ball and cut inside at the earliest opportunity or link-up play with the attackers and end up in a dangerous position.

As I said, the Winger has a more special role. And this is given by the player trait. Solly March can play in this role, but has a trait of cutting inside from the right wing.

This means that every time he has the chance, he will cut inside. If not, he will continue down the wing and drag the opposing full back after him.

Tackle harder for him also.

And the attacking double pivot is made of a Shadow striker and a Deep lying forward on support. The Deep lying forward does exactly what the name says and comes deep to pick up the ball.

By doing so, he most of the times he ends up on the same line as the Shadow striker, so this creates the double pivot effect Roberto De Zerbi masterminded for his team.

Creating this double pivot enables the wingers to go up top.

Tackle harder for both and shoot more often for the striker.

The tackle harder instruction is used a lot, the reason being that the players must be aggressive when trying to recover the ball.

As mentality, I went with Balanced as we need to pay attention to the wing backs. On Positive, their venturing timing is a bit off. On Balanced, I have noticed that they time better their attacking runs and do not create an imbalance for the tactic.

In possession, fairly wide as we need to stretch the opposition, create the gaps when they press and avoid their press at the same time.

Play out of defence and overlap on both wings.

Shorter passing directness and standard tempo.

In transition we regroup and play on counter and the ball must be distributed to the defence.

We need to create the possession in our defensive area and the counter chances in the attack. If we play with counter-press turned on, the players will spread across the pitch, too high and there will be no chance to create the possession game in our half.

Attracting the opposition onto the team is the key of the tactic.

Out of possession high line of engagement and standard defensive line.

Press much more often and prevent goalkeeper short distribution. As you can see, the pressing is created by the high line, high press instructions and the individual player instructions.

This ensures the shape is maintained, but we are hard to breakdown.

Roberto De Zerbi is a tactics’ mastermind and an innovator. The concept of the free man and creating the tactic to find him through positional play caught most teams off guard last season.

This tactic was a success for me. Clearly.

But I am very interested to know how this tactic worked for you. Let me know in the comments below!