Chelsea’s Jorginho: From boos to Europe’s player of the year

2. Freedom requires a sharpened skillset

There are largely two poles on the attacking coaching spectrum. On one side there are the circuit based managers. They train the team to do particular routines over and over until they become second nature. This allows for action faster than thought and it is also a quick way to get a team performing. Italian managers tend to lean this way with Antonio Conte and Sarri both using circuits.

The main issue with this method is that it can eventually be found out. Opponents can learn to recognize the circuits and stop them. Since these circuits are trained so heavily, the players end up doing many of them automatically. When they fail, they often have little else to fall back on.

The other side of the spectrum is decision-making coaching. Instead of telling the players what to do, they are coached in a variety of different solutions. On the pitch, the players are trusted to make the right decision from their point of view. This takes much longer to implement, but having done so, a team becomes unpredictable and nearly unstoppable. The main drawback is how much of this style is between the ears. If confidence drops or players are unfamiliar with what the other is thinking, the method can go cold. Lampard very much came down on this side of the spectrum.

Understanding all of that is important because it affected Jorginho’s performances. Under Sarri, Jorginho was supposed to be the start of most circuit-based attacks. By the time he received the ball, he likely already had in mind which play the team was going to do. Eventually, so did the opponent. Opposition would either mark Jorginho out to stop these circuits or they would mark out his targets. Either way, it made Chelsea go flat quickly.

Furthermore, this automatic nature made Jorginho’s role a static one. He rarely ventured from a small lane in the center and receiving the ball felt almost rushed. The things that worked so well after three years with Sarri’s Napoli were never going to work as well in Sarri’s first year at Chelsea, but the weaknesses were evident early on.

Lampard’s style was a shock to the system afterward. Players suddenly had to make their own decisions and they were given much greater freedom. For Jorginho, this would be a hinderance at times as he still seemed to be moving the ball too quickly and too automatically. Rarely under Sarri did Jorginho have to scan the pitch because he already knew where teammates were supposed to be. The longer he played with Lampard, however, the more he was forced to take stock of his situation. That may seem a mind numbingly simple thing for an elite footballer to pick up, but after years of knowing where teammates should be without looking, Jorginho had to adapt.

Which eventually spins into Thomas Tuchel’s time at Chelsea. Tuchel exists somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of circuits and decision making. Whereas Sarri had said he didn’t think Jorginho could play in a midfield two-man pivot and Lampard didn’t trust Jorginho in a pivot at all, Tuchel showed that neither was right. The freedom of Lampard’s Blues was still there in part, but it was simplified. Instead of being central and having up to six forward passes, Tuchel’s Chelsea narrowed that down to four at most. That seems a simple distinction but fewer passing options better replicates the automatic nature of Jorginho’s time in Italy. He’s now able to make decisions faster but also from anywhere he ends up on the pitch.

One should ask how this all fits in with the Italian National Team where Jorginho plays in a role more akin to his role under Sarri. The simplest answer is Italy doesn’t do everything through him. While he remains the heartbeat of the team, Italy is far more keen on the centerbacks playing long or playing out through the flanks. That makes it harder for teams to dedicate someone to mark Jorginho and allows the midfielder more freedom to roam about the pitch in support. Roberto Mancini has found a role for Jorginho in the 4-3-3 that benefits the player better than a static, circuit based approach was able to.