The rise of the 3 man defense

by Casciavit Mon 3 Sep 2012 - 20:59

Back in the 90's and early 20's the 3 man defense was quite popular.
Many teams had success with it including the likes of the world cup 2002 winning Brazil.
2000-2001 Scudetto winning Roma
And other others.

Now teams in Serie A are using the 3 man defense teams such as Juventus,Napoli,Udinese, Bologna etc.
And Manchester City have been using 3-4-1-2 of late so do you think will see a shift from the 4 man defense to the 3 man defense? Do you think the 3 man defense will become more popular in Europe?

Want to hear your guys thoughts Smile

by Onyx Mon 3 Sep 2012 - 21:01

When attacking with 4 at the back there's 2 at the back, however with 3 man it's 3 at the back.

by rwo power Mon 3 Sep 2012 - 21:07

With Lahm tending to venture forward a lot, both Germany and Bayern sometimes look as if they have a 3-man defense at the back. And Löw tried it (albeit not so successfully, but that was as he didn't train it before and just wanted to see how the players could adapt to unforeseen circumstances) in a friendly against Ukraine in 2011. So maybe it can be used as tactical variant, but I'm not so sure if it would be the end of all.

by Vibe Mon 3 Sep 2012 - 21:23

Casillas
Kompany - Thiago Silva - Chiellini
Dani Alves - Yaya Toure - Andrea Pirlo - Di Maria
vPersie - Ibrahimovic - Rooney

Shocked

Manager: Gasperini

by Ganso Mon 3 Sep 2012 - 21:40

How dare you not mention Pep's 3-4-3 :bow:

by Art Morte Mon 3 Sep 2012 - 21:43

Yohan Modric wrote:When attacking with 4 at the back there's 2 at the back, however with 3 man it's 3 at the back.

This is what I think, too. Four at the back and your both full-backs provide wing-play.

by zizzle Mon 3 Sep 2012 - 23:15

3 man defense is becoming popular only because there's a lack of WC full backs. Back in the day a wing back like Maldini or Carlos could defend and then provide width on the attack with excellence on both ends of the floor. And while full backs are becoming a dying breed the classic wingers who can only cross and shoot have evolved into more technical/athletic players who excel in taking on opponents and are equally comfortable on the middle as they are in the wing.

Managers can only use what they have, and since footballers are evolving, then so should the tactics

by VanDeezNuts Mon 3 Sep 2012 - 23:29

zizzle wrote:3 man defense is becoming popular only because there's a lack of WC full backs. Back in the day a wing back like Maldini or Carlos could defend and then provide width on the attack with excellence on both ends of the floor. And while full backs are becoming a dying breed the classic wingers who can only cross and shoot have evolved into more technical/athletic players who excel in taking on opponents and are equally comfortable on the middle as they are in the wing.

Managers can only use what they have, and since footballers are evolving, then so should the tactics

i agree with this. severe lack of quality full backs.

by McAgger Mon 3 Sep 2012 - 23:47

When Lucas comes back, Rodger's plan was always to play a 3 man defense when in possession.

--------------Reina--------------
------Skrtel--Lucas--Agger------
-Johnson--Allen--Sahin--Enrique--

by VivaStPauli Mon 3 Sep 2012 - 23:57

Depends on your midfield imho, if you have defensive wingers, or play 3 DMs anyway, you might as well have 3 CBs at the back end, it's only a more attacking formation on paper, though, since midfielders have to drop deep and form a back-line of 5, when defending, and since fullbacks do that already in a back-4 system, the "3 man defense" is basically a 5-man-defense without proper wingbacks.

So my point is: in order for the 3 man defense to work, you need industrious players on the wings, essentially wingbacks, even if they're deployed a bit more attacking, making the system a 5-man-defense.

If you really play a 3 man backline without support from midfield as auxialliary fullbacks, or pushing 2 of the CBs wide and having the midfield act as auxilliary CBs, you'll just have your defense overrun.

So this isn't a numbers game, it's just all about the flexibility of your midfielders that are covering your defense.

Might as well just play with two fullbacks.

by StrugaRock Tue 4 Sep 2012 - 0:43

-------------------Iker
--------Hierro----Karanka----Sanchis
Salgado-----------------------------Carlos
-----------McManaman---Redondo
------------------------Raul
----------Anelka--------Morientes

:bow:

7 Spanish players :bow:

With current players I'd like to see:
---------------------Iker
--------Ramos-------Pepe---------Varane
Di Maria----------------------------------Marcelo
-------Khedira/Modric--------Alonso
----------------------Ozil
-----------Higuain------------Ronaldo

by The Messiah Tue 4 Sep 2012 - 4:06

Personally I think this depends on the team you come up against, if you come to Allianz Arena to knock horns with the greatest club at the moment you will be totally eliminated if you do not use fullback, How do you expect to handle Ribery, Alaba or Robben Lahm, it will be a field day for Bayern and all they just need to to do is pick up the ball play through the wings and score, it will be as easy as a despair fan picking up his remote control to turn of the tv while in tears.

Also coming up against dangerous team like Madrid who have C.Ronaldo playing on the wings also means that you might concede 3-4 goals in first half and by the time the manager desperately try's to gives his half time team talk in attempt to boost player moral(deliberative ignoring the fact that it's the tactic and not the players), his half time team talk will already be thrown inside the rubbish bin 5-6min into the 2nd half because Madrid would have probably score another 2.

Their only saving grace will be to drop their 2 wild men, which will then revert their tactics to 5 defenders, even with that, their morals will already be broken but maybe with 5 defenders you can still cover faces and not concede more.

All in all, I am not suggesting that it's a bad formation, but it just depends on who you play against, if you play against teams like Juvetus or other teams that looks to attack through the middle then it might be effective, but playing against the like of Bayern/Madrid is a tactical deficiency.

nevertheless since I am a formation beast, I am tempted to try out the formation with Bayern set up, although it will not be effective for us, since it can not accommodate Lahm/Alaba/Robben/Ribery or our possession base system.

--------------------------Neuer--------------------------
------------Boateng---Badstuber---Dante---------------
Lahm------Martinez----Gustavo----Schweini------Ribery
---------------------Mario-------Mario--------------------

or

--------------------------Neuer------------------------
-------------------------Boateng-----------------------
-----------Martinez--------------------Dante-----------
-Rafinha-------------Tymo-----Kroos------------Alaba-
-----------Robben---------Muller------Shaqiri-----------

or

--------------------------Neuer-----------------------------
--------------V.Buyten---Can--Badstuber-----------------
Lahm-------------------Gustavo-------------------Contento
--------------Kroos--------------------Schweini-------------
---------------------------Muller------------------------------
----------------Pizarro--------------Mario--------------------

by Dutti Tue 4 Sep 2012 - 4:30

Yohan Modric wrote:When attacking with 4 at the back there's 2 at the back and 8 in front, however with 3 man it's 3 at the back and 7 in front.

by VendettaRed07 Tue 4 Sep 2012 - 4:37

I think its at its most effective when you have someone like Pirlo in your midfield and you overload the mid to cover him and make him harder to defend and more deadly

But I think the way man city uses it, just so they can throw in another striker is wasteful and just asking for trouble imo. It is only effective against lower tier teams.

by The Messiah Tue 4 Sep 2012 - 4:40

VendettaRed07 wrote:I think its at its most effective when you have someone like Pirlo in your midfield and you overload the mid to cover him and make him harder to defend and more deadly

But I think the way man city uses it, just so they can throw in another striker is wasteful and just asking for trouble imo. It is only effective against lower tier teams.

I can't believe this is coming from Arsenal, this is exactly what I think. it's for scrubs teams that you wish to run riot on or probably it can be effective maybe only in Seria A because it's too defensive and no one will bother to exploit the wings.

by zizzle Tue 4 Sep 2012 - 4:51

The Messiah wrote:
VendettaRed07 wrote:I think its at its most effective when you have someone like Pirlo in your midfield and you overload the mid to cover him and make him harder to defend and more deadly

But I think the way man city uses it, just so they can throw in another striker is wasteful and just asking for trouble imo. It is only effective against lower tier teams.

I can't believe this is coming from Arsenal, this is exactly what I think. it's for scrubs teams that you wish to run riot on or probably it can be effective maybe only in Seria A because it's too defensive and no one will bother to exploit the wings.

and thats why Barca used 3-4-3 last season. they were scrubs alright

by The Messiah Tue 4 Sep 2012 - 4:55

zizzle wrote:
The Messiah wrote:
VendettaRed07 wrote:I think its at its most effective when you have someone like Pirlo in your midfield and you overload the mid to cover him and make him harder to defend and more deadly

But I think the way man city uses it, just so they can throw in another striker is wasteful and just asking for trouble imo. It is only effective against lower tier teams.

I can't believe this is coming from Arsenal, this is exactly what I think. it's for scrubs teams that you wish to run riot on or probably it can be effective maybe only in Seria A because it's too defensive and no one will bother to exploit the wings.

and thats why Barca used 3-4-3 last season. they were scrubs alright

Yes they were scrubs, compare to their previous performance and with the amount of time they have played their short easy passes they couldn't win anything with that set up, Barcelona only saving grace last season to a reasonable extent was that they didn't come up against Bayern.

Nevertheless I totally enjoyed how Madrid kept them in their rightful 2nd hand place.

by VendettaRed07 Tue 4 Sep 2012 - 5:08

zizzle wrote:
The Messiah wrote:
VendettaRed07 wrote:I think its at its most effective when you have someone like Pirlo in your midfield and you overload the mid to cover him and make him harder to defend and more deadly

But I think the way man city uses it, just so they can throw in another striker is wasteful and just asking for trouble imo. It is only effective against lower tier teams.

I can't believe this is coming from Arsenal, this is exactly what I think. it's for scrubs teams that you wish to run riot on or probably it can be effective maybe only in Seria A because it's too defensive and no one will bother to exploit the wings.

and thats why Barca used 3-4-3 last season. they were scrubs alright

The way Barca uses it is different. They defend with possession, if your opponent doesn't have the ball then they can't score so they don't really need the fourth defender.. City doesn't really do that. They just seem to throw multiple strikers in there just to overpower other teams with strike force and rack up goals. Its very effective. Even if they concede a few it wont matter, unless they are playing better teams. I never said it was a bad method but I just think its risky. Sometimes it puts them at risk, they came very close to bottling it last season because of silly goals they were conceding

by Guest Tue 4 Sep 2012 - 13:36

Mazzari’s system has a much more conventional look about it. It quintessentially mirrors the conventional 3-4-3, with the only difference being the role of Hamsik – who operates as a Right Forward at times and as an Attacking midfielder at times, rendering fluidity to the attacking play. The 3 man back line is pretty static – equipped to defend deep rather than maintaining a high line. The midfield of Inler and Gargano had vision and steel in the right balance, and the attack of Napoli were almost unplayable at times.Though, with the departures of Gargano and Lavezzi it remains to be seen whether this system will sustain it’s success or not.

Much like Walter Mazzari, Conte’s system is pretty much a conventional 3-5-2. The back-line looks solid, to say the least. The midfield has the perfect blend of grit, energy and the class of the 'architect'.

The key to the defense in a 3 man back-line is that the center-backs on the flanks must be mobile enough to track the runs of wingers, in case the wing backs get caught out. And the defender in the center who'll more or less act as a sweeper needs to have the ability to see the opponent's move before anybody. He should also have the ability to organize the defense. I remember reading an article on how playing a 3 man back line ( when Nesilva where still at Milan) would make the defense indomitable and would make the team get over the incapability of our full backs.

I don't think teams can play a high line with a 3 man back line, because most teams opt for offside trap which is why the flat back 4 became very popular.

by juventus101 Tue 4 Sep 2012 - 13:43

The 3 man defense can work for some teams, not work for others. For example it works beautifully for Juventus and could even work well for Barca in my opinion if they applied it correctly. But for a team like Bayern, it wouldn't work, because they would have to drop two offensive players, which would end up being Kroos and Muller most likely. Unless they play something like this, which is the only possible solution in my opinion:

--Neuer--
--Boateng-- --Martinez-- --Badstuber--
--Lahm-- Kroos-- --Schweinsteiger-- --Alaba--
--Robben-- --Gomez-- --Ribery--

But its basically just a 433, as Martinez would play as a sweeper, with Lahm and Alaba still doing a good amount of defensive work. It could definitely work though. And with Shaqiri, Muller, Gustavo, and Mandzukic rotating with Ribery, Robben, Martinez, and Gomez, that's an extremely strong lineup.

by The Messiah Tue 4 Sep 2012 - 14:34

Yes Juventus101, it's an extremely strong line-up because it's the most versatile and strongest in the world

by Casciavit Tue 4 Sep 2012 - 15:18

But do you think will be seeing more teams using the 3 man defense in the next couple of years scratch

by The Messiah Tue 4 Sep 2012 - 15:21

AL3 wrote:But do you think will be seeing more teams using the 3 man defense in the next couple of years

No

by Kick Tue 4 Sep 2012 - 15:23

AL3 wrote:But do you think will be seeing more teams using the 3 man defense in the next couple of years

Depends on whether we have more work class full backs coming through. If so, then no, If we don't have many then Yes.

Either that or more players will be converted to fullback.

by free_cat Tue 4 Sep 2012 - 15:24

none of those teams play with a 3 man defence. They play with a 5 man defence with two wing backs.

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