Football Italia: Season 7 – Unstoppable Force

Season Seven: Unstoppable force

With the season dawning on me, I wanted to, once again, prepare long-term by looking at the positions and runs that we have across the season:

Feeling that November and December – minus the ties against relegated Empoli and Como – would be the best for us, with January and February looking much harder, I wanted to prioritise some squad rotation and identify key fixtures to try out some tactical things. What has actually happened though has been beyond my wildest dreams.

The season kicked off with disappointment as we were, by far, the better team against Serie A Verona – competitive rivals of ours. We entered extra time and, as I was preparing for the impending penalty shootout, looking to see out the tie, they scored from a pretty horrendous defensive mix up. We created nearly 3xG and Verona’s two came from just over 1xG. Pretty heartbreaking stuff but, honestly, in a season where the league is everything to us, it’s not the biggest disappointment.

Our league season kicked off against the nearly-bankrupt Cagliari side, who finished third last year. We ran absolute riot, creating 3.87xG and, despite allowing them 1.12xG themselves, were so strong going forward, imposing ourselves from the first minute. A hattrick, on debut, for Colidio was the icing on the cake. We followed that up with two slightly more cagey wins, still winning on xG and feeling pretty comfortable, but lacking a little bit against lower blocks and more tenacious midfielders. Zapelli opened his account with us in with a double against Benevento but, realistically, after creating nearly 6xG from these two ties, I’d have liked to have scored more! Against Cosenza’s 4442 diamond, I moved the DLP(s) back to an A(d) in order to give ourselves a bit more stability over a strong team from last year and, again, we battered them thanks to braces from Zapelli and Biagioni, who – despite were intended to be battling for the striker slot, co-existed as a striker and a second striker.

We were a bit more clinical against Venezia, scoring four from 1.81xG but my move from a DLF(s) to a F9(s) gave me more movement in build up and allowed even more space for Zapelli to find, as he added another two to his tally – cementing himself, already, as a strong signing for us. The most boring of draws came against Lecce as, combined, we just about scraped 1xG before a run of 3-0 wins, firstly over Perugia, where Vinci got himself scoring as we were, honestly, again, a bit wasteful from 3.89xG, and a win over Bari where they didn’t even muster a shot. Recently relegated Pisa came to town in another of those tough games for us but we blew them away – Patino started the scoring but two cutbacks, finished – firstly – by Owusu and then by Colidio means that Pedro Santos ends this little run with seven assists and two goals in 9(1) appearances, 1.01 goal contributions a game from the left wing back role. He’s been absolutely excellent so far, becoming an out ball and aggressively attacking down the flank:

Overall, I have really been impressed with the attacking fluidity of those in charge of getting forward, creating and scoring. I don’t feel that I have a true 9 at the club at the moment, instead have lots of eights and tens, which is my ideal. There is a lot of fluidity, game to game and where the players play between these roles and, when compared with all players who’ve made at least one goal or assist so far this season in the Big 5 T2 (Championship, Serie B, 2.Bundesliga, Liga HYPEMOTION and Ligue 2) leagues, my players really do stand out:

I wanted to see whether we were being extremely fortunate – ending a couple of years of being extremely unfortuante – by comparing shots on target and chances created, something we’ve always been good at, with actual goals converted and assists. Whilst Lucenti fits into the category of wasteful shooter or inconsistent assister (two goals from 1.3xG and one assist from 1.92xA – so the latter), he’s currently the only one. Despite my rave reviews about Santos, he’s considered as an overperformer at present, with seven assists from just 3.04xA but, everyone else is having lots of shots but scoring lots of goals and/or creating lots of chances and seeing them converted. The perfect attacking performance!

That leaves the table like this…

We’re flying and, whilst we do face some of the top teams over the next games, have such a command on the league with a ridiculous offensive and defensive record. I am delighted with our start and the extra work on morale, interactions and tactical tweaks seem to really be paying off!

Forza Biancoscudati!