🟢🦁 Performance analysis
🇯🇵 Hidemasa Morita vs Juventus
▫️Out of possession : Man-marking on Rabiot
▫️Lone pivot : key moves and positioning
▫️Connected roles with Pedro Gonçalves
[BIG THREAD]🧵⤵️
🇯🇵 Hidemasa Morita vs Juventus
▫️Out of possession : Man-marking on Rabiot
▫️Lone pivot : key moves and positioning
▫️Connected roles with Pedro Gonçalves
[BIG THREAD]🧵⤵️
In the same way as Ugarte, Morita has the line pivot role in Amorim’s midfield. Pedro Gonçalves has more freedom offensively and in his moves. Morita had always to keep good distances with Rabiot and Milik, to not being pressed.
This notion of « keeping distances » is the key aspect of Amorim’s midfield. He demands consequent intelligence in Morita (or Ugarte) positioning. Wrong positioning could ease out Juventus counter press (which was good) and create danger.
On the contrary to Gonçalves (many lateral moves), Morita, in Juventus defensive third, had to stay in this position ready to recover the ball, and orientate wide quickly.
Morita recovered many balls from Juventus kicking the ball out of the defense. The control Morita had on second balls was impressive, frequently positioned at the right place at the right moment.
Morita quit his position in only one case : man-marking Rabiot. Morita did it perfectly, with such discipline and consistency. Rabiot must not turn around and have the game in front of him. With his passes, he can break a whole block.
Sporting 3-2 structure was relevant to counter Juventus build-up (which relied too much on double pivot in my opinion). Even if Morita had to do intelligent fouls, it was necessary to block Rabiot.
Morita can be positioned as lone pivot, due to the distance he can cover in defensive phase. This gives a second breath to Sporting defense. He tracks forwards without letting them enough time to shoot or pass.
In defensive phase, Morita’s relevant positioning is precious to avoid some strikes. Morita drops alongside central defenders in these situations, same way as Ugarte does. That’s how you see Amorim influence : different players, same role.
Another illustration showcasing how precious Morita is in central area to ancitipate and cut passes.
As I said, Juventus perfectly duplicated Sporting structure in first build-up phase. That’s Morita’s move around this block were key.
Given central defense, with wide passes, wanted to increase distance between Juventus forwards, Morita had to spot the right time to move between the player to receive vertical passes and catalyze build-up.
We saw Trincao dropping many times to help Sporting defense in build-up. Morita had to end up as the second pass option, whilst managing distances with Rabiot and Locatelli.
Rabiot and Locatelli had also to man-mark Morita and Pedro Gonçalves, especially Morita. This pass pattern (CB-Wingback-Morita) eased out Sporting build-up, thanks to the way Morita maintained distance with Rabiot.
Morita’s multiple scans help him to deal with individual press. The way he can transform control into a dribble is a very good asset for Amorim to catalyze build-up.
Amorim’s double pivot is at the core of Sporting build-up. Morita’s ball retention has been useful to drag pressure, and find Goncalves, with large spaces in front of him.
To conclude, Morita clearly controlled the tempo of Sporting build, even if Juventus structure was relevant to face Sporting build-up. Ball distribution has been eased out frequently and Sporting could have taken advantage from that.
Brilliant performance.
Brilliant performance.
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