First off, for those who missed the match, or just want to refresh their memory, here are the match highlights.
There’s not much envy surrounding Mario Been at the moment. The Feyenoord manager, generally known for his humor and his direct approach, sees himself confronted with severe problems on more than one front.
Finances and expectations
First, there’s the well-known abysses that have once been Feyenoord’s bank accounts. The Rotterdam club is by no means the only Dutch Football club with severe financial problems, but is one of four Eredivisie teams to be put under surveillance by the KNVB, the Dutch FA. The KNVB has imposed a three year deadline for Feyenoord to balance their books, or the club will lose its license.
Then there’s expectations. As pointed out earlier on 11tegen11, Feyenoord’s reasonable fourth place of last season has led to quite some expectations. And upon Mario Been’s return to the club, last summer, he was given an ‘El Salvador’ status, the man that would liberate Feyenoord from the previous dreadful seasons and bring the club back to the traditional top three with Ajax and PSV. Not an easy task, if at all possible, given the severe financial limitations.
Fireworks
And even though the present season is only two games old, Feyenoord managed to lose the one match they wouldn’t want to lose. With the supporters demanding fireworks against city rivals Excelsior, the only firecrackers presented came from the half time dressing room during a clash between former Dutch international left back Tim de Cler and manager Mario Been. This clash must have been so severe that Been proclaimed after the match that he had no other option than to sub the player off, stating that “he would never want to even see him again”.
Excelsior’s game plan
Excelsior started the match in a well-organised 4-5-1 formation, switching to more of a narrow 4-3-3 when in possession. As expected, Feyenoord dominated possession from the beginning of the match, with Excelsior sitting back in their own half, only putting pressure on the Feyenoord players in their own half.
Telltales of the good Excelsior organization were Feyenoord striker Smolov not seeing anything of the ball during the first ten minutes and the first chance of the game being for Excelsior, when striker Guyon Fernandez was played into space. Excelsior displayed smart use of the attacking space given away by Feyenoord’s high defensive line, while at the same time limiting the space given away on their own half.
This defensive plan definitely fits into their plan in a broader sense, as they’ve opted to shrink the pitch to the minimum allowed dimensions upon promotion to the Eredivisie.
Wasted Feyenoord possession
This screen depicts that even though Feyenoord dominated possession, they never witty enough to create real danger during the beginning of the game. The screen divides the pitch in a left and a right half, showing ‘man-in-the-hole’ Luigi Bruins in possession, surrounded by four Excelsior players. Instead of quickly playing out of trouble and creating a 3 vs 3 attack on the left side of the pitch, Bruins dwells on the ball, ends up losing it and singlehandedly kills of a potentialFeyenoord attack.
Practically no danger was created through the center, with Smolov displaying a lack of movement , never coming deep to get the ball. Excelsior’s fortified centre meant some more space on Feyenoord’s wings, but the delivery of crosses was often too weak to create any danger.
Feyenoord conceded the opening goal in the 29th minute after Guyon Fernandez finished off one of a series of quick breaks from Excelsior, curling the ball into the goal with supreme skill. After this opening goal the same pattern of play was more and more visible: a powerless Feyenoord 4-2-3-1 in possession against a well positioned Excelsior 4-5-1 formation, looking for quick break through the pace of striker Fernandez.
Lack of interchance
What Feyenoord clearly lacked was movement between the lines of defense, midfield and attack. The concept of players switching their lines, moving either forward or backward, temporarily switching position is as old as the sixties and seventies teams of first Valeri Lobanovsky and later Rinus Michels. This interchanging of positions is one of the fundamental aspect of ‘Totaal Voetbal’ that formed the basis of the golden era of Dutch national football in the seventies.
Without this interchanging, Feyenoord’s attacking play looked highly predictable and was always met with a double defensive line by Excelsior, who were not ashamed to dedicate nine players to their defense during Feyenoord’s possession. And understandably even more so, when defending a 1-0 lead.
It was exemplary for Feyenoord’s lack of attacking power that the equalizer had to come from a set play. The first of four corners that was not delivered way too long allowed strong centre back Vlaar to score a good header.
Second half improvements
The second half started out with Smolov in a much more dynamic role, frequently demanding the ball on the left and right flank and immediately becoming the central figure in Feyenoord’s attack. This screen illustrates Smolov coming deep to demand the ball, thereby leaving his striker position for midfielder Fer and attacking midfielder Bruins to run onto. This meant a higher degree of variation in Feyenoord’s attack.
If passing stats like the Guardian Chalkboards were available for the Eredivisie, it would be easy to illustrate this by comparing Smolov’s first and second half passing.
Feyenoord also attempted to put more pressure by positioning controlling midfielders Fer and El Ahmadi higher up the pitch, something which often left Bahia and Vlaar exposed to quick breaks by Excelsior, speculating on striker Fernandez’ pace. The fact that shortly after the half time break both Feyenoord central defenders were already booked further illustrated the limited amount of control they could exert over Excelsior’s style of play.
A thrilling end to the match
Feyenoord took the lead, tellingly, from another corner, this time deflecting of Excelsior defender Bovenberg. Luckily for the lad, he managed to equalize with a header from yet another free kick, leveling the score at 2-2, inducing scoreline-led pundits to speak of a highly entertaining match.
Literally during the final seconds of the match it was stiker Guyon Fernandez increasing the level of drama even further by outpacing experienced Feyenoord defender Bahia and scoring the 3-2 winner. Guyon Fernandez once again showed himself as the ‘dying- seconds-hero’ of Excelsior. Regular Eredivisie followers most certainly remember his ultimate strike in the promotion-relegation play-off against Sparta, ironically, like Feyenoord and Excelsior, also from Rotterdam.
In the end this match was just about what Feyenoord did not need on the evening of their Europa League play-off match against Belgium outfit Gent next Thursday. Their level of play was below par, mainly due to a lack of positional variance. On a positive note they might stick to the first phase after half time, when Smolov’s role showed some more ‘false-nine’ characteristics, a role that has been explained extremely well in this Jonathan Wilson article.
Unfortunately Smolov was subbed off halfway through the second half for the more static 17-year old Luc Castaignos, and the match returned to its first half pattern with Excelsior claiming the win in the end.
Martyn
16 August 2010
Great stuff – I really enjoy your analysis. However, some points I’d like to add/contend….
– Smolov was moving quite a bit in the first-half. However, nearly all of his runs were towards a corner-flag, and Excelsior’s centre-backs were alert and hungry enough to follow.
– The home side’s formation was fascinating, and constantly in transition depending on the movements of Fer and El Ahmadi. Mainly though, I interpreted it as 4-1-4-1, Koolwijk sitting, Alisic and Vincken pushing/tucking/dropping depending on the situation.
– Tactically, that Excelsior tore Feyenoord to shreds was incredible. They were so one-dimensional, feeding Fernandez’s peels to the left; peels he always then cut in with on his right-foot.
– Schaken showed his limitations – his direct use of the ball was monotonous and obvious.
– Similarly, Vlaar showed why he hasn’t and never will be a top CB – letting Fernandez cut in on to his right foot so often was embarrassing.
Jaap
17 August 2010
This website is really cool (I just discovered it through reddit), it’s great to have this analysis in English. It might be a good idea to link some of the names of the players to Wikipedia, since many English-speaking readers might not be familiar with them. Keep up the good work, I’ve bookmarked the site and will be a regular visitor!
gibfootballshow
18 August 2010
Excellent analysis mate, I write some notes during games, and most things I have you mentioned so that can only be a good thing, as Martyn said I was disappointed by Vlaar not closing down Fernandez for the first goal, he just watched him take the shot.
Also a really nice pass from Wattamaleo for the goal.
About 5 minutes before Vlaar scored a wrote down, Feyenoord to score from a set-piece, I just couldn’t see them break down the Excelsior midfield, very well organised, at times they set up a line of 3 thena line of 2 to protect the defence, then also you could see a flat 5 across the middle.
Couple of other notes I put Smilov “quite” I don’t think he was that effective in the second half either, I also thought the #3 Nieveld had a good game agaisnt Schaken, Schaken started well and looked dangerous however Nieveld got the measure of him and he didn’t cause many problems in the second half.
Feyenoord looked far more effective when Cabral came on, I like this players, he caught my eye at the u19 tournament and against Utrecht, he will be a good player for them, I can see him minutes increasing during the season.
I really enjoyable game, I am trying to watch lots of Eredivisie games this year, it’s a league I’ve always enjoyed, guarenteed goals usually.
Keep up the good work mate.