Selasa, 28 Juni 2016

By The Numbers: Graziano Pellè v Spain

Antonio Conte and his Italian side dethroned defending two-time champions Spain on Monday with a scoreline of 2-0. Giorgio Chiellini opened the scoring in the first half, but it was Southampton’s Graziano Pellè who slammed home the clincher once again to see his Azzurri through to the Quarter-Finals. A look at the Italian target man’s sensational performance.

In the opening European Championship match against Belgium, Graziano Pellè was splendid in Conte’s 3-5-2 setup. Throughout the course of ninety minutes, Pellè was found doing it all. While his style of play as a striker is often not the most eye-popping or entertaining, his work up front is never under-valued.

Once again, the former Feyenoord man got the starting nod up front alongside Èder against Spain. La Roja are a very different side than Belgium; they emphasize possession football, feed off applying constant pressure and never sit back. Manager Vicente Del Bosque ensures that his men bring the tenacity and dictate tempo. However, Antonio Conte, like he’s done throughout this entire European Championship, does a tremendous job of fielding a side who stays true to the game-plan, adhere’s to the tactics laid out and most importantly, works tremendously hard. We saw it all on display Monday evening at Stade de France.

Aside from the goal in the 90th+1 minute, let’s take a look at the overall performance of Pellè using the statistics and graphical data from Four Four Two and Opta Paolo:

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Passes in the middle third of the pitch. Graziano Pellè was doing a bit more than we initially expected: the assignment of man-marking Sergio Busquets. The assignment was for Pellè to prevent the Barcelona man from jumpstarting any buildups and bullying in the middle of the park, which he did a good job of achieving. Busquets was marked out of having any major impact on the outcome and because Pellè found himself further up the pitch, he was many times the focal point to the attack for the Azzurri. Lynchpin.

I’ve pointed out previously in my performance analysis of Pellè from the Belgium match his underrated ball retainment skills. Pellè has the priceless quality of being able to control the ball with his chest and head extremely well, allowing his men to move up and push numbers forward. Once again, his ball distribution was on point, linking up well with Èder which I will show later on.

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Coming into the tournament, questions were raised about whether Italy’s attacking duo could create sufficient chances alongside each other. Sure enough, we are witnessing the two play in complete synchronization, much like they’ve done throughout the course of qualification. In this tactical masterclass by Conte, both Èder and Pellè linked up regularly towards the final third.

If you follow me on Twitter (@Matt_Santangelo), I tweeted this out prior to kick-off:

Sure enough, this stood up. Spain, to expectation, controlled the majority of possession (59% via Who Scored), but Italy were quick to transition from defense to offense. This allowed them to push the ball forward toward Pellè, let him link up with Eder or at times Mattia De Sciglio out on the left flank and catch Spain off guard with numbers on the ball. Seven times, Èder and Pellè connected in the opposing half and it’s to their credit working up top that Italy were able to create numerous chances at having a monumental lead going into the half; you could thank David De Gea for keeping this just a 2 nil result.

Graziano Pellè is the ideal target man for Antonio Conte’s systematic approach and we saw just how well he fits the formation in the 2-0 win over Spain.

Italy looks to keep their 2016 European Championship dream alive when they take on reigning World Cup winners Germany in the Quarter-Finals, Saturday July 2nd in Bordeaux.

The post By The Numbers: Graziano Pellè v Spain appeared first on IFD.



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