Triangles are one of the simplest shapes in all of football. Maurizio Sarri is showing Chelsea how the simple can become very complex.
Formations are usually short hand for which shape a manager prefers. Not just the shape of the team, but the very shape of the passing angles.
One of the most common shapes in football is the triangle. Almost any team looking to play in a 4-3-3 is looking to make as many triangles as possible. Antonio Conte’s 3-4-3 also accomplished this.
But then there is another level. A level that Pep Guardiola and Maurizio Sarri are on. Triangles are no enough. They must also make diamonds. Though they go about it much differently, they turn something simple into something complex.
As already mentioned, Conte’s 3-4-3 looked to achieve triangles throughout the pitch. Primarily in the first season, the links were between Victor Moses, Cesar Azpilicueta, and N’Golo Kante on one side of the pitch and Marcos Alonso, Gary Cahill, and Nemanja Matic on the other. These triangles would rotate on the midfield as the wingers Eden Hazard and Pedro vacated space to pull defenders. The midfielders could pass to one another to switch triangles.
Maurizio Sarri’s take is different as it involves multiple triangles either side that swap duties. There is the triangle between Jorginho and the center backs. Then it becomes Jorginho and the two other central midfielders. Then it can become a wider centermid and the fullback and winger.
But where it becomes truly complex is when the diamonds become involved. Eden Hazard has been the trigger for this. He will vacate his space on the wing and move to the center when Chelsea’s midfield has possession. Pedro will tuck in as the striker moves wider. This creates a diamond in midfield.
Now, if Jorginho passes to Hazard, as he is likely to do, one of the wider centermids will push up in line with a striker ahead and Hazard to the side. Now the diamond is Hazard, centermid, and the two strikers.
Yes, these are really just two triangles, but the opponent becomes confused as to where the next pass is going to go. If they commit to any one point of the diamond, they leave another open. Or they prompt Chelsea to play it backwards as space is created elsewhere.
This is a very central type of diamond Sarri’s Chelsea has used whenever Hazard comes central. The shape becomes that of his Empoli’s 4-3-1-2. Occasionally, it can also take a 4-2-3-1 sort of look with the diamond up top made of the striker, the two wingers, and a center mid who took Hazard’s spot (or Pedro’s if he comes central instead).
Guardiola also uses something akin to this, though instead of having a winger move central he has had the striker drop deeper. Guardiola’s false nine is basically the same idea as Hazard’s false winger status. Both look to draw a defender to create space while also adding a passing option. He has also been known to achieve this with a winger dropping in before switching the play to the more open flank.
Diamonds are a simple little tweak to an old and very basic type of passing shape. It takes a very well drilled team to know when a triangle will do and when a diamond is better. Diamonds are not without weaknesses, as they do tend to put a lot of players on what part of the pitch leaving them exposed if possession is lost. But if a team can maintain the ball, they can often confuse the opponent as to where to press or mark.
The diamond, as Guardiola has found out over the years, also tends to be wasteful against teams that refuse to get drawn out by the movement. Chelsea saw this too against the likes of Newcastle and West Ham. If the opponent will not commit to coming out to press or mark, the diamond becomes a passing drill without end. If that happens, the best thing to do is revert to triangles out wide (something Sarri’s Napoli got very good at).
Phase one of learning Sarrismo is likely close to completion if not totally there. The team knows when to press, how to work the zonal marking (mostly), and they know how to operate the diamonds and triangles. The next phase will be knowing which is best for which situation and doing it all faster and more aggressively.
Sarri is the type of manager who can turn the simple into the complex. As the players master the simple, they can move on to making it very complex and dangerous for opponents.