Off-ball work, build-up and familiar worries: Tactical indications from Barcelona-Milan

AC Milan concluded the USA segment of their preseason tour on Tuesday night with a third win in three games, this time requiring penalties to beat Barcelona.

Milan were excellent in the opening quarter of the game and had a deserved 2-0 lead when Luka Jovic tapped in from Christian Pulisic’s square across goal and then Pulisic beat Ter Stegen from a narrow angle to double the advantage.

Hansi Flick’s Barca came back strongly though, with Robert Lewandowski halving the deficit and then drawing the Catalan side level in the second half. The game went to a penalty shootout as per Soccer Champions Tour rules, where Lorenzo Torriani was the hero and the Rossoneri won 4-3.

Below, our writer Rohit Rajeev has picked out some of the tactical indications from the game, which could be further seen in the Silvio Berlusconi Trophy against Monza next Tuesday.

Building from the back

Milan played a 3+2 build-up system – which means three players as the back line and then two options ahead – with Filippo Terracciano acting as the third centre-back while Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Yunus Musah were the double pivot.

Flick, formerly of Bayern Munich and the German national team coach, has Barcelona pressing high and with numbers as is true to his style. To try and play out of the press. Milan would make a series of passing manoeuvres as seen below.

The goal was another example of this. The Rossoneri would suck the press to one area of the pitch and then play out of it, and it was nice to see how Jovic was the heart of it all given he got involved at the start of the move and he ended up finishing it.

The goal was another example. We would suck the press to one area of the pitch and then play out of it. Kinda nice to see how Jovic was the heart at the start of the move and he came to finish it pic.twitter.com/91WhGDswNN

— Rohit Rajeev (@keralista) August 7, 2024

Usually Paulo Fonseca likes his wingers to tuck inside to make space. In this instance Rafael Leao stayed wide while Pulisic stayed inside, though it remains to be seen if these instructions/tendencies will be the same when Theo Hernandez returns to the fold fully.

Off the ball work

Milan employed a zonal pressing system as we can see in the example below. They pressed in a 4-2-4/4-4-2 formation, which is not uncommon in today’s game.

In the clip below, Milan frustrate Barcelona denying them access to progress the ball through blocking passing lanes and setting pressing traps before they hoof it and lose it.

Milan frustrate Barcelona denying them access to progress the ball and setting pressing traps before they hoof the ball and lose it pic.twitter.com/MUEUAQb7BX

— Rohit Rajeev (@keralista) August 7, 2024

Areas to improve

There are two obvious caveats: 1) it is still preseason and the players are learning the mechanisms and 2) the squad available is not full strength due to missing internationals and new signings.

However, there were still some things to point out, such as that whenever Alexis Saelemaekers left his position Fikayo Tomori didn’t cover and this was exploited by Barca until Fonseca made the tactical switch at the hydration break.

One of the damaging things towards the end of the Stefano Pioli era – seen in the infamous 5-0-5 ‘system’ at times – was the amount space between the midfield and the defence. This problem persisted during the Barca game as well and compromised Milan’s pressing.

Set piece indications

Consistent to what we saw with the corner analysis after the Real Madrid win, Milan use a hybrid scheme of marking with the near post with man-marking, while the far post is zonally marked by the taller players.

CORNER ANALYSIS

Consistent to what we saw with the corner analysis vs Real Madrid, Milan use a hybrid scheme of marking with the near post having man marking while far post is zonally marked by the taller players at the club pic.twitter.com/KWbQkVtmaM

— Rohit Rajeev (@keralista) August 7, 2024