23 May 2011

Juventus has just spent the past two seasons being managed by 3 different managers (Ciro Ferrara, Alberto Zaccheroni and Luigi Delneri). This revolving door has resulted in ‘The Old Lady’ finishing 7th for the past two consecutive seasons (2009 – 2010 & 2010 – 2011); conceding 56 goals (-1 goal difference) and 47 goals (+10 goal difference) in the league respectively. Luigi Delneri has just been sacked. Antonio Conte, ex – captain and a fan favorite, has just been appointed the manager of the club.

21 May 2012

In just his first season in charge, Conte has engineered a historic campaign breaking records along the way. Juventus won the season without conceding a single league defeat (W 23 D 15 L 0), conceding only a miserly 20 league goals (+48 goal difference) in the process and only losing one game in the entire campaign, the Coppa – Italia final to Napoli (0 – 2). This lead to Conte being compared to Mourinho, in the terms of how he sets up his team, his brilliant tactical understanding of the opponents and the personal bond he forms with his players.

Let’s have a look back at how Antonio Conte revolutionized Juventus.

Times at the Old Lady were turbulent. Its most famous son, Del Piero, was in the twilight of his career. The defense was bruised and scarred having not only conceded 47 goals in the league, but looked short of ideas and rather uncomfortable on the ball. The troubles of the back were matched only by the inefficiency in the midfield. The midfield lacked creativity and none of the midfielders reached a respectable number of assists or even chances created. Up front goals had dried (only 57 scored from 38 league matches, 1.5 goals per match) and peculiarly the forwards were good in only creating chances but lacked in delivering the final end product.

Conte had an enormous task on his hand when he assumed charge as the head coach of Juventus. The summer saw busy transfer activity as Conte set out to bring about major changes to the first team squad. Stephen Lichtsteiner, Arturo Vidal, Alessandro Matri, Simone Pepe, Mirko Vucinic , Emanuele Giaccherini and Caceres were, among others, brought during the summer, some permanently while others arrived on loan. A heavyweight addition to the team was Andrea Pirlo. Released from AC Milan at the termination of his contract, Juventus were quick to secure his services. Pirlo had a huge impact both directly and indirectly during his first year at Juventus. We will visit Pirlo later in the article but it can be said, without a doubt that Pirlo’s time at Juventus continues to be a testament to one of the best Bosman transfer of the past decade.

Along with the new personnel came a new approach, a new philosophy to the decaying Juventus approach to football. During his playing days Conte was known to be a very combative, energetic and a versatile footballer. He set out to create his Juventus side into a persona of his own. More focus was laid on building the attacks from the defense and passing the ball around. Juventus’ three defenders – Chielleni , averaged 65.5 passes per game with 87.3% passing accuracy, Bonucci , averaged 48.2 passes per game with 88.4% passing accuracy and Barzagli, averaged 51.9 passes per game with 89.1% passing accuracy under Conte. Under the previous management, Bonucci and Barzagli were averaging below 40 passes per game with only Chielleni averaging a bit more than 40. Defenders usually finish with a passing accuracy of greater than 90%, in the range of 92% – 96%. This proves statistically that Conte had given his defenders the license to initiate attacks from the back.

Moreover, Conte showed great flexibility and an obsession with tactics – perfection of both in setting up his side and in understanding that of the opponents. Against a 4-2-3-1 (Lazio) and facing just 1 striker, Conte picked a 4 man defense and started with a 4-3-3 formation. While playing against a 3-4-2-1 (Napoli) and wanting to have more control of the midfield while not leaving his defense exposed to the deadly trio of Cavani-Lavezzi-Hamsik, Conte picked a 3-5-2 formation. In his later years, as a Juventus manager, he stabilized to a 3-1-4-2 formation with Pirlo playing as a deep lying playmaker, but in his first year Conte juggled a lot between 4-3-3, 3-5-2, 4-4-2, 4-2-3-1 and 4-1-4-1.

Juventus leaky defense which had conceded 47 and 56 goals over the past 2 seasons was the first and the biggest challenge that Conte faced. All champion teams have one thing in common – irrespective of how many goals they score, they don’t concede much. Anomalies may exist, but this can pretty much be treated as a thumb rule.

Lichtsteiner slotted in the right back position directly after transferring in from Lazio. Vidal had a dream debut season as a tough tackling, box to box midfielder. He averaged 5.4 tackles per game and a further 2.2 interceptions per game for the season. Pirlo (2.1 tackles per game and 1.7 interceptions per game) and Marchisio (2.3 tackles per game and 2 interceptions per game) were disciplined in their defensive duties and helped out the defense. Conte put out a well drilled and oiled defensive machine, consisting of Chiellini (3.1 tackles per game and 3.6 interceptions per game), Bonucci (2 tackles per game and 1.8 interceptions per game) and Barzagli (1.8 tackles per game and 2.7 interceptions per game) with Buffon returning from injury being a massive addition, week in week out. Buffon kept career high 21 clean sheets in the season resulting in Juventus conceding only 20 goals during the entire season. Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea only conceded 15 goals in his debut season. No wonder, Antonio Conte was compared to Mourinho.

However, Conte failed to address the problems at the other end of the pitch. Juventus scored only 68 goals during the entire league season, an increment of only 11 goals from the previous season. Only Matri (10 goals) reached double figures in league with Marchisio (9 goals), Vucinic (8 goals), Vidal (7 goals) and Pepe (6 goals) among others chipping in. In essence the situation was productive for any manager as different players were finding their way to the score sheet, but Conte would have wanted their frequency, especially the forwards, to be a bit higher.

As far as the midfield went, it was a renaissance played live. It was expected from Conte who was himself capable of playing all over the midfield during his playing days. But the extent, to which his midfield flourished, both defensively and attackingly, took the Serie A by storm. Outgoing Felipe Melo and Aquilani were replaced by Arturo Vidal (bought from Bayer Leverkusen) and Andrea Pirlo (Bosman transfer from AC Milan).

The midfield trio of Vidal, Pirlo and Marchisio displayed an interesting identity. Pirlo would sit deep and play the regista role. Pirlo would spray long passes (11.2 accurate long passes per game) from the deep for the attackers upfront and also help keep possession of the ball (86.4 passes per game with 86.9% passing accuracy) by circulating the ball around. Pirlo finished the season with 13 assists to his name to go along with 3 goals. Moreover Pirlo played a mentors role to both Vidal who had just moved from Germany and young Marchisio who had come from the Juventus’ youth system.

Vidal had played both as a defender and as a midfielder in past before moving to Juventus. Conte used him in a tough – tackling midfielder whose role was to disrupt the opponents rhythm, make strong tackles, intercept plays and win back possession for the team. However Vidal wasn’t the deepest midfielder but he would also supplement in attack as well as demonstrating his vision and pace. Vidal attempted an average of 2.3 shots per game with 1.5 key passes per game; finishing the season with 3 assists. Marchisio was primarily used in much more of an attacking role than Vidal. However, Marchisio could also play in both attacking and defensive roles and would compliment Vidal well. Marchisio averaged 52 passes per game with 85.7% passing accuracy with 1.4 key passes per game; finishing the season with 3 assists.

Winning the league title in your debut managerial season is every manager’s dream. Achieving it without losing a league match along the way would have been beyond Conte’s wildest expectations. Moreover, doing it with a team which was full of new players and acquisitions further exemplified Conte’s character and his belief in his philosophy of football. One can argue that the lack of European football helped form this newly found unit, but this team went ahead and was unbeaten for another 11 matches in the next season. Truly, this Juventus was ‘Invincible’.