The prevailing trend among the biggest and best teams is to play with pace, high pressing,
and often positional play – the attempt to win superiority in certain areas of the
pitch with overloads or freeing a team’s best players to attack weaker, isolated defenders
through patterns of movement and the occupation of certain zones.
To counter this, some teams have used a passive low block. Generally, a low block is a sign
of weakness. While some teams, like Mourinho’s Inter Milan or Simeone’s Atletico Madrid
have found success with one, this is because they’ve partnered it with lethal counter-attacking
in transition and very high quality defenders. But teams who employ a low block don’t usually
challenge for honours; it’s more about security.
But when we talk about a low block, what do we mean? ‘Low’ simply describes the area
of the pitch, the defensive third, and all teams will have some instances where they
have to defend this area and even energetic pressing sides don’t press as aggressively.
The low block in this sense therefore requires a degree of passivity, retreating towards
the goal and attempting to compact space regularly, and the absence of a press in the opposition’s
defensive third.
How best to approximate a low-block statistically? According to Opta, these five teams had the
lowest average start distance of each of Europe’s top five leagues – that is, the average
distance in metres from their own goal that a team’s open play sequences start.
Another approximation might be the percentage of a team’s pressures that occur in the
attacking third. This data from FBref.com/Statsbomb shows that three of the sides in the above
table are also in the bottom ten for percentage of pressures in their attacking third, or
the opponent’s defensive third.
So, the kind of teams that might be described as having a low block as a function of system
rather than situation defend deep, start their attacks deep, and are more passive the higher
up the pitch they are without the ball.
On the pitch, teams playing this way will look to congest the middle and compress the
space vertically. This means, in effect, that they try to leave as small a gap as possible
between the defensive and the midfield lines, and will often drop the attacking line back
as well.
This makes them hard to attack.
So how do you beat a low block? Given the relative absence of a high press, it’s tough
to draw these teams forwards to leave space in behind. Set-pieces can work, of course,
but they can against any team. It’s worth noting, though, that looking at assists conceded
from set-pieces in the Premier League last year, Burnley, Wolves, and Newcastle, probably
the three most low-block system teams, conceded below average numbers of set-pieces
Having a go from outside the box makes more sense, as the back line has retreated, and
if you can get a shot away – more on this later – it can be effective. Burnley conceded
18.0% of their goals from outside the box, Newcastle 13.8%, and Wolves 7.5% – the average
was 11.9%, so only Wolves bettered that. And all three teams had good goalkeepers last
season.
There are two main ways to score against a low block, though: playing with width and
playing through. The first is easier and can also generate chances for long shots. As low
block teams like to be compact, this can leave space in the wide areas, both close to and
further from the goal line.
There are two ways to exploit this: the first is to break quickly into the wide areas and
look to have runners coming from deeper positions that take defenders by surprise, often from
positions between the two defensive lines.
This has two possible effects. Either the nearside full back stays narrow to protect
the shape, in which case the attacker can get a cross in.
Or the nearside full back goes out to block the cross, which leaves a space somewhere
else. This could be the channel between that full back and the nearside centre back, which
can then be attacked.
Or it could be on the far side of the pitch. As the defensive line moves horizontally across
to maintain spacing, this can allow for players on the far-side to enter the box unmarked.
A cross pulled into the centre and then quickly played out, or half-cleared to an opponent,
can then find a player in space to attack the far side.
This can also be achieved by quick switches of play. Liverpool excel at this, as do Bayern
Munich – stacking one side of the pitch against a low block, drawing the opposition
over, and then hitting a switch pass that finds the open far side, attacking it at pace.
Playing through is harder and requires technical players who can find space between the lines
and achieve quick interchanges. Again, movement is key. You need players arriving at pace
into the danger area, even if part of the passing move is one static player who receives
and passes on. Finding space between the lines is hard, and so players have to arrive between
the lines as the ball does, then burst beyond, before they can be closed down.
Both of the above situations can also generate chances to shoot from distance – a player
arriving at pace can shoot from in front of the last line of defence, which can obscure
a keeper’s view – and players who are found in wide areas can have shooting opportunities
cutting quickly inside, as the defence try and scramble back across. Again, this can
pose issues for keepers with deflections or an obscured field of vision.
It is definitely possible to score against teams playing low block systems – Lecce,
one of the teams mentioned above, had the worst goals conceded record in Europe’s
top five leagues last year [2.24 per 90]. Being hard to break down is an alternative
to trying to attack when you don’t have the quality, and this can also extend to the
defence. But it’s a conundrum faced by better side regularly – a consequence perhaps of
the financial disparities within the game - and that’s why these sorts of attacking
moves have become increasingly common.