Tactical Deep Dive: La Nucía 1-1 Castellón

Castellón rue missed chances as La Nucía grab a late equaliser.

Despite generating a number of good chances, Castellón couldn’t come away from La Nucia with all three points on Sunday, as the side from Alicante were to able to equalise late on to deny the Albinegres. The result leaves Castellón in second place, now four points behind Eldense, after their win against Atletico Baleares. Here are the three tactical points that defined the game.

1. Chance creation through wing overload

It seemed like Castellón’s strategy in the first half was to overload one side of the pitch in order to produce opportunities. Those would come either through sheer numbers on the one side, or through quickly moving the ball to the other side of the pitch into space.

A pattern repeated several times was the runs forward of Manu Sanchez, as seen below. This then allowed Raul Sanchez to move inside, and effectively have four attackers on one side of the pitch.

On the other side, Javi Anton came up much more rarely than Manu Sanchez, although a similar overload situation was achieved to create the chance for Adri Fuentes when Raul Sanchez came over to help press the ball on the half way line. This was well executed, and meant there was a four on two situation, as seen below.

This allowed Castellón to catch the La Nucia defence out of place and short on numbers, as Adrian Fuentes drifted out from his central position to the open space on the left, which allowed Raul Sanchez to play an easy pass, and create a chance that really should have been a goal.

For Castellón’s only goal of the game, it was once again Manu Sanchez who this time went inside instead of overlapping, creating a situation where the defender could follow and failed to make the split second decision as to who to follow.

Raul Sanchez and Fabricio notably switched wings for the second half, highlighting the flexibility of the front three and Albert Rudé’s desire to move and vary positions horizontally, not just vertically.

2. Full backs or wing backs?

There was a noticeable difference in the play of Manu Sanchez and Javi Anton, with the former behaving essentially as another winger in the attacking phase, and the latter staying slightly deeper. The tendency to play full backs with varying degrees of offensive presence seems to be quite a common trend in the positional game (Arsenal have notably done it this season), the logic being that another player can be brought into the attacking phase to create chances through overloads.

Manu Sanchez has been unbelievable offensively this season, now with seven goals (unofficially), and it wouldn’t surprise me to see him move up into a more attacking position officially given his goalscoring prowess going into next season. Perhaps not as an out-and-out winger given his high-level defensive skills, but at least into the midfield line. A 3-5-2 would suit him perfectly, should Castellón decide to go that route.

3. 1-0 up and inviting pressure

It is not the first time this season that Castellón has failed to close out a game, and it seems something to be improved is game management and specifically clearances while in the lead.

From the moment La Nucia kicked the game off after conceding, Castellón’s clearances were mostly poor, going straight to the opposition and allowing another phase of attacking pressure to defend. There was virtually no attempt by the Albinegres to hold onto the ball for more than a few seconds.

While some situations clearly required an urgent clearance, the situation below could clearly have been dealt with more calmly, and Castellón could have held onto the ball and slowed the game down. There was an open man close by to pass to, who could have even potentially then spread the play to a wide open Raul Sanchez on the other side of the pitch for a quick counter. Instead the ball was cleared directly to a La Nucia player to continue inviting pressure.

La Nucia were then able to string together a succession of chances, the last of which resulting in the equaliser from a cross, and the loss of two points.

An improvement in this area against Eldense next weekend will definitely be needed, but despite the end result, there were some interesting tactical schemes on display and it’s something to build on.