Marinos: Methodical creation of space in between the lines

The Marinos gameplan was all about creating space in between Sydney’s lines - both vertically and horizontally. They did this using 5 principles:

1. Front three players pin the Sydney back four

Onaiwu stayed central and kept the centrebacks busy with his movements, meaning that they could not easily come out to cover the space behind the midfield.

Endo and Nakagawa both played very wide, hugging the touchlines even when the ball was on the other sides. When the ball was played to them, the fullbacks had to come out to close them down, opening up a channel between the fullback and centreback.

This meant that the back four were always kept busy, and were not able to easily help out the midfield by covering without leaving space for the attackers to exploit.

2. Underlapping fullbacks

The fullbacks Bunmanthan and Matsubara both had license to join the attack. While they were happy to join the attack on the outside of Endo and Nakagawa when they were positioned slightly narrower, their main contribution to attacking moves was more towards the centre of the pitch.

They came central to provide numbers in the middle of the pitch for circulating the ball, or to cover for the central midfielders when they ventured forwards to supplement the attack. It’s important to note that they weren’t simply filling in space in midfield - they were extremely capable of playing passes into dangerous areas.

Here’s an early example: