Movement and manipulation: How Argentina destroyed Brazil in Buenos Aires | OneFootball

Argentina ran circles around Brazil in an imposing 4-1 win in Conmebol World Cup qualifying.

Lionel Messi withdrew from the squad due to injury and left a lot of questions regarding how Lionel Scaloni would set his team up during this international break. The head coach had to make do without his biggest star — and managed to exceed all expectations after leading his country to two consecutive wins against Uruguay and Brazil.

Not only that, but he thoroughly out-smarted Brazil’s Dorival Jenior in what ended up being Argentina’s largest win in the derby since 1959. Here are a few tactical details on how this happened.

Movement and manipulation

On the ball, Argentina lined up in an unorthodox 4-2-3-1 base-formation. The wide midfielders (Rodrigo De Paul and Thiago Almada) both gave preference to bringing the ball or presenting themselves as options in the central corridors rather than staying out wide and running down the line.

In addition, Argentina’s players usually had their bodies oriented as to approach the man in possession instead of performing vertical movements to attack the last line of defence. This meant that basically every player had at least two clean passing lanes to progress the ball – thanks to a lot of off-ball movement from midfielders and attackers.

Scaloni was also smart to pack the midfield and expose Brazil’s main weakness of the night. Manager Dorival Junior had his team defending in a very stretched-out (both horizontally and vertically) 4-4-2, with Joelinton and Andre having no chance to deal with all of Argentina’s force and presence down the middle.

Another interesting strategy from the Argentina boss was to use Leandro Paredes and De Paul as bait. Every now and then, the duo would drop deep near the centre-backs but in very similar spots, almost cancelling each other out. However, there was no real intention to give the ball to either of them.

As a result, Brazil — who at the time were mainly doing man-marking — had players dragged out of position and their whole structure collapsed, leaving acres of space between the lines for the likes of Enzo Fernandez, Alexis Mac Allister and Julian Alvarez to take advantage.

The opposite

On the other hand, Brazil were lacking precisely in the departments in which Argentina were excelling. The whole team looked disconnected on and off the ball, with Vinicius Junior and Raphinha sometimes getting caught next to the opposing centre-backs — basically offering no help defensively.

Rodrygo operating as a free-roaming No.10 didn’t work, and Matheus Cunha dropping deep also didn’t provide a lot of help since Joelinton and Andre — who were overloaded at the back — couldn’t advance the ball forward. The full-backs looked nervous and couldn’t offer depth or width in their positions. As a result, Brazil managed just three attempts — all from outside the box: Cunha’s goal and two free-kicks from Raphinha.

Meanwhile, Argentina broke lines all over the pitch without even showing great effort to do so and recorded four big chances to Brazil’s zero. It was the most one-sided midfield battle in this match-up in recent memory.

Posture

Argentina looked ready for a match of this dimension while Brazil did not, whether that was due to the hostile environment in the Mas Monumental or to the lack of international experience from a few of the players.

It felt as though Argentina had full control during the whole 90 minutes and Brazil were simply reactive. Not just in the sense of letting their rivals have possession, but also waiting for the actions to react and adjust accordingly, instead of affirming themselves or imposing some sort of pressure.

Still, it wouldn’t matter. Brazil made three substitutions at half-time and switched from a 3-2-5 of sorts to a 2-4-4 in possession. They also stepped up the lines and tried to force the hosts to play away from the short game that prevailed in the first 45 minutes.

Here, Argentina and Scaloni’s adaptability deserves huge praise. After struggling a little bit for 5-10 minutes of Brazilian high press in the first half, they adapted their build-ups to more long balls, switches of play and diagonal passes – but as tools to keep and recycle possession rather than force things or rush to the attack. That’s actually how they got their fourth goal through Giuliano Simeone to put the final nail in the coffin.

Argentina just seem to have an answer and a counter to any and all things thrown at them. Whether that’s an injury to Messi, tactical variations from different teams led by all sorts of coaches or shifty and world-class wingers from Real Madrid. Hats off to them.