One of the most interesting tactical aspects of Paulo Fonseca’s first three games in charge of AC Milan has been the switch in marking system compared to Stefano Pioli’s tenure.
Fonseca’s methods were always going to take time to implement because his self-proclaimed vision of high pressing and possession-based domination is not achieved overnight. What fans care more about, though, is that Milan are without a win in their first three games.
What they therefore need to see are steps forward in terms of the results and the style of play, something the players have said they are confident will happen. In the meantime, though, we can analyse an obvious change that has been made in the marking system.
What is zonal marking?
To simplify zonal marking, it is a tactical principle that focuses on defending space as opposed to going man for man all over the pitch. It attempts to control the opposition’s movement by controlling the access to space on the pitch.
This is done by creating a vertical and horizontal compactness on the field and to achieve this there should be very small spaces between each player, something that Arrigo Sacchi constantly preaches about.
This means that the team will play as a block and that whoever enters the block will be pressed aggressively while they will be little pressure outside the block. The block has to keep moving depending on the movements of the ball.
If the opposition have a specific player that needs individual attention the player will be marked individually but not as tight as man-oriented pressing system. It is usually to lead them into a pressing trap.
Advantages and risks
One of the key positives of a zonal system is that it allows the team to control the key areas of the pitch. It does allow the opposition to create overloads easily and there the team can lead the opposition to areas away from the dangerous zones.
One of the actions that elicits Fonseca teams to press is passing to the wide areas. Once this is done one of the wingers or the Attacking mid will block the passing lane for the fullback back to the center back. Once this is done the winger on the nearside or the AM (depending… pic.twitter.com/pPDm88PKmi
— Rohit Rajeev (@keralista) June 9, 2024
One of the key risks of man-marking is that, when following your man, you can get pulled out of position and this can lead to space being created for other players to run into. This gets eliminated with zonal marking and it’s compactness.
A disadvantage of zonal marking is that if the opposition play on one flank of the pitch the block tends to shift to that particular side. With quick short passes or switches of play, the opposition can catch the opposition off guard and compromise the zonal marking set up.
— Rohit Rajeev (follow @keralista) (@keralista_v2) August 27, 2024
Most importantly zonal marking requires players to keep a certain distance which requires discipline and communication between all players, including forwards, at all times.
During corners, zonal systems can render defenders static while the opposing players moves around. When that happens, the defender is left confused whether to follow the striker or whether to hope that a team-mate will take care of it.
— Rohit Rajeev (follow @keralista) (@keralista_v2) August 18, 2024
Individual requirements and famous examples
What qualities do individual players need for playing in zonal marking? Most obviously they need to have a high level of awareness, intelligence and anticipation to read danger pro-actively.
Even more importantly though, players need to develop good communication between each other for this to work properly. Chemistry and cohesion is absolutely key, otherwise things can quickly fall apart.
Milan’s very own Arrigo Sacchi redefined zonal marking. His vision was to keep the distance between the first line of press (usually the striker) and the last line of press (the defenders) at no more than 15 metres.
Other famous proponents of the zone-based approach are Rinus Michels and Jose Mourinho, the latter becoming famous for being an extension of ‘Catenaccio‘, a highly organised and effective backline defence focused on nullifying opponents’ attacks and preventing goal-scoring opportunities.
As mentioned in the thread, if Fonseca intends to execute zonal marking Milan need to have discipline to stay compact as a block and there needs to be good communication between players.
It is something that players have to develop themselves for which the adage ‘practice makes perfect’ is needed, plus a whole lot of patience. This will need unconditional support from the management which will be a real test, especially with Liverpool and Inter to come.
Please make Milan great Mr. Fonseca 🙂↕️🙂↕️🔥🔥
All of this is pure nonsense if the team doesn’t have the right formation to pull it off. Playing with a double pivot when you don’t have a defensive midfielder in the team is suicidal.
Zonal marking makes more sense playing a 433 where all of the pitch is covered and the lines between the defense, midfield and forward is shortened. Smh
Come on don’t talk 🤣🤣🤣. What does formation have to do with zone defense? And that double pivot allows you to have two in the block, while with the 4-3-3, one remains, because the middles remain high.
I don’t believe in all this Analysis, cos,who gave out alm this clues and tactics 🤔🤔🤔 pure Nonsense. Forza milano
Great article 👏.
“Milan need to have discipline to stay compact as a block and there needs to be good communication between players.
It is something that players have to develop themselves for which the adage ‘practice makes perfect’ is needed, plus a whole lot of patience.”
“Even more importantly though, players need to develop good communication between each other for this to work properly. Chemistry and cohesion is absolutely key, otherwise things can quickly fall apart.”
Kind of hard to develop communication, cohesion and chemistry when the 2 “leaders” on the team think they are too good to do that.
MILAN (4-2-3-1): Maignan; Emerson Royal, Tomori, Pavlovic, Theo Hernandez; Reijnders, Fofana; Pulisic, Loftus-Cheek, Leao; Abraham. This lineup is stronger than our last Scudetto-winning team and, in my opinion, even better than Inter’s current squad.
We are no where near to the cohesion and communication compared to Inter.
When it comes to the players quality, they should show it in the match not on paper.
Inter players are much better and know what they are doing even though there are 5midfielders who should attack and defend respectively.
We brought a coach, who neither explains clear instructions to players(it’s evident from Musah interview), nor he plays according to the strengths of his players.
Scudetto winning team is much better in my opinion.
Back5 is same as scudetto winning team, a bit worse now if you add Emerson royal.
Tonali, Bennacer, Kessie is best midfield we had since 2011 and now reijnders who cannot defend, Fofana yet to see his best might take 6months to get to know players, RLC is only tactical match when you need physicality.
Leao/Rebic, Giroud/Zlatan, Diaz/Saelemakers is much better than Leao/okafor, Morata/Abraham, pulisic/chukweze.
No way current team is better than scudetto winning team.
Even scudetto winning team more younger than current team
Wait your serious…let me laugh even harder! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Yes the90s. We are the most favorite scudetto this season. Even in champions league we are the most favorite. This modern full foreign cardinale milan is the best milan in history, no doubt about it.
Zonal or man marking it’s not that relevant in how Milan’s been conceding goals. We lose the ball and it’s a goal before any of our players are ready to mark or say sprint back to close down their men. You go high up the pitch, zonal or man marking, you just need to quickly drop back.We are conceding on counter attacks and for that you can’t solely fault the idea of deciding on man marking. It’s more a lack of desire to quickly dropping back. Sacchi was doing zonal marking but with a high block which is not much different to how Fonseca’s team are positioned – high pitch. Just much much more disciplined ,like quickly dropping the whole block deep when the press is beaten. Won’t be able to prevent all of the counter attacks from being dangerous but will help a lot. Lastly I don’t believe that the solution is for Milan to simply stay low. Maybe not throw everything forward seeing some of the guys are lazy or feel too big to defend. But no big teams are playing with a low block against weaker opponents on paper. Certainly don’t want to see Milan play low against Parma. It’s a different story against the likes of Liverpool thou as by even playing low you’d still likely create some good scoring chances because the big boys are going high up anyway and getting exposed to counters. Perhaps the reason we were more dangerous in the preseason matches.
I love how people always cries in here. When we won scudetto it was because the other teams were bad, when we got to semi final of ucl it was because we had luck with the draws.
But now all of the sudden people use that as a defense of how the new management are bad of taking care of the team 🤣
You guys in here are the worst “fans” ever. Im leaving this deppressing negative site for ever now.
Forza Milan ❤🖤
what on earth are you talking about. no milan fan says that we got lucky in the champions league. i have never seen that and we deserved the title that season we won it. i dont know what your on about honestly.
but this management is terrible they are very bad. you cant criticize fans who are passionate about the team when you speak like a cheerleader.
you care not for the direction of the team. the performance because if you diid then you would have criticized the managment because its what they deserve. these guys dismantled a serie a winning side with no results, is just reckless. filled the team with a bunch of players who dont fit the system we play and in other positions we down graded all in the hope we save money at the end of the season.
there is no justified excuse
these fans have a right to be angry
Bye then. We know your name. Please don’t be a hypocrite and LIVE by your WORDS.
Don’t ever come back to comment on this negative site. Don’t want another pro management, pro Cardinale supporter to comment lies here😁😊🙂
4 games, 4 different lineups and “solutions.” I wonder if Fonseca knows what he is doing.