Intelligence and breaking the press: Tactical analysis of Juventus 0-0 AC Milan

AC Milan were unable to make it five Serie A wins in a row, as they were held to a 0-0 draw against Juventus on Sunday night. 

A game with several stories, Milan did not really go into Sunday with much pressure on them to get a win. In previous iterations, there has been a need to win. However, this was a pretty standard top-of-the-table clash.

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With it, it seemed both teams were slightly more afraid of losing, and this resulted in a rather cagey affair playing out, with neither coach able to get the other into a checkmate position.

Rohit Rajeev has picked out the key tactical points from the first draw of the season.

Build-up phase

At the back during build-up, Milan would spread with Mike allowed to push up. With Strahinja Pavlovic occupying the role of a LCB, it allowed Davide Bartesaghi to push up and stretch the pitch.

This forced Kalulu, Juventus’ RWB, to push up and cover Bartesaghi, leaving space behind the French wingback. Bartesaghi plays a quick one-two with Adrien Rabiot and exploits the space behind Kalulu.

It’s interesting to see how close Rabiot and Christian Pulisic are to one another in the buildup. Pulisic and Rabiot exchange their position it’s mostly to allow Rabiot to knock down long balls punted up by Mike Maignan.

Luka Modric, as a pivot, plays a crucial role in directing the defence. In a space of 20 seconds, you can see how Modric directs the horizontal press. With Juventus attacking from the left, Modric directs the press towards the Milan right flank. With Juventus attacking from their right, Modric directs the press towards Milan’s left.

Juventus laid pressing traps for Milan. Here, you can see they did not press Bartesaghi, and as soon as he receives the ball, they box him in and outnumber him 3v1.

In the second half, Juventus’ best chance came from a corner when Gatti was completely unmarked. Milan used a zonal marking system, and Gatti begins his run from outside the box and runs in, a ricochet falls into his feet.

Milan achieved a penalty after a wonderful through ball from Modric. But the conditions for this were created by a mix of Pulisic pulling Rugani out of position and Santiago Gimenez making a smart run behind Kelly, who was ball watching.

Substitution

I really believe Gimenez worked really hard in his time in the match and made the Juventus defender toil to progress the ball here. Here we can see Gimenez cutting off the passing lane to Locatelli, Juventus’ regista, while once he went off, both Rafael Leao and Christopher Nkunku allowed Locatelli to receive the ball and turn.

Juventus decided to go for a central overload instead of a wide one with Openda, Vlahovic and Thuram instead of Yildiz, David and Conceicao. Juventus switched their formation to 3-4-1-2, and one of McKennie and Thuram interchanged positions to act as the AM behind the 2 strikers.

Stats

What do the stats say? Milan had an xG of 1.74, but their xGOT, or the quality of the shots Milan played made were lower than the xG. Simply put, the quality of shots of Milan was entirely poor.

Something positive is how good Maignan’s save was. The xGOT for Gatti’s shot was 0.81, which means out of 100 shots on target, almost 81 would go in. And Milan did not concede, showing that Maignan has kept a very good clean sheet.

Lastly, I know a lot of Leao bashing has happened. But what worried me the most was how he had 0 passes in the 27 minutes he played. He attempted 0 passes and had 0 passing accuracy.