Every season there are a series of changes in the dugouts that involve a 180-degree turnaround in the way teams are put together and the way they play. New ideas, or the return of old ones, and new questions that we cannot answer at the moment. However, we have selected 5 coaches who we think you should follow throughout the season either because they are new to the category, because they are young or because they have an interesting challenge ahead of them. There are some beginners, some old heads and a bunch of interesting trends that will stay with us this season!
Paolo Vanoli – Torino
52-year-old Paolo Vanoli achieved promotion to Serie A with Venezia by winning the play-off final against Cremonese, after finishing third in the league. That success put an end to Venezia’s two year spell in Italy’s second tier. Vanoli, who was assistant manager for Antonio Conte in his last season at Chelsea, caught the eye of Torino, who fell short of European qualification in all of Juric’s three seasons and decided it was time to make some changes. However, albeit there are some important differences, the approach from Vanoli is not too dissimilar form what Torino have been doing lately.
Both teams preferred a three-at-the-back system, but Vanoli showed bigger flexibility as he often moved from the common 3-5-2 to a 4-4-2. When in possession of the ball, both teams averaged nearly the same number of passes per possession and both looked to play forward at the same rate. Given he often had the better quality at his disposal, Vanoli wanted his team to keep the ball and maintain possession in the opposition half, even it that meant leaving space in behind of his defenders.
If we take a closer look at the number of recoveries both teams completed, we see that Venezia forced more turnovers in the opposition box and its surroundings while Torino collected more high recoveries in total. Whereas there are similarities in their approaches, Vanoli will be coaching his first season in Serie A, so we should expect some adjustments to his model and probably some tough times during his first season at Torino as he won’t be having one of the leagues best teams.
Cesc Fábregas – Como 1907
Fábregas could easily still be playing if he wanted to. However, completing the managerial path at Como was more appealing for him. Started as assistant manager, then became interim coach and finally he will coach Como in Serie A as their permanent head coach after finishing 2nd in the league. Coached by some of the greatest football minds like Guardiola, Mourinho o Wenger during his footballing years, Fábregas filled his coaching bags with all those philosophies to create his very own approach. At Como, he prioritized defensive stability.
Como were defensively sound: allowed the 3rd fewest of shots, received the 4th fewest xG and conceded the 4th fewest number of goals. Without the ball they stood in a compact, medium block that would become active when the ball arrived in the middle of the park. Fábregas did not coach a high pressing team as their number of high defensive actions suggest. Instead, Como were tasked with blocking the passing lanes that could appear in between the lines of Fabregas favoured 4-2-3-1.
When in possession of the ball, Como weren’t involved in many possessions with 10 or more passes. Actually, when they were building up from the back they looked to find quick and vertical combinations to get into the opposition half. With owners that want to establish Como in Serie A and some major signings like Pepe Reina or Räphael Varane, Fábregas will have new and better players at his disposal to show what he’s capable of in Italy’s first tier.
Fabian Hurzeler – Brighton and Hove Albion
US-born Hurzeler will be officially the Premier League’s youngest ever permanent manager when he and his team start their season on Saturday. The 31-year-old arrived in Brighton this summer as the man designed to succeed Roberto De Zerbi. Something that won’t be easy for sure. However, as it’s Brighton in this case, one of the best well-run clubs in Europe, there are high hopes on him. He’s the prototype of a young, progressive and modern coach: he likes his teams to press really high and generate as much shots as possible after regaining the ball.
Compared to De Zerbi, Hurzeler want his teams to attack faster and he’s not so much focused on attracting the opposition into his own half to create space behind. St. Pauli averaged 32.4 passes per shot compared to Brighton’s 40.5. While both aren’t very direct teams, St. Pauli averaged a higher quantity of forward passes with respect to sideways passes than Brighton. That could be because of De Zerbi’s tendency of having an static double pivot to anchor the opposition midfielders, whereas Hurzeler wants his midfielders to be very mobile.
Hurzeler created a high pressing monster last season. Out of all 97 teams in the five big leagues, St. Pauli ranked 13th for high recoveries, 14th for recoveries in the opposition half and 5th in percentage of high defensive actions (defensive actions made in the last 40 meters of the field). While his in-possession game has not the ceiling of De Zerbi’s, Hurzeler out-of-possession stuff is going to help Brighton massively. Hurzeler looks like a superstar of a coach in the making.
Francesco Farioli – Ajax
There was a moment last season when we really thought Nice were going to keep it up with PSG. No one could score a goal against them. However, they couldn’t score either. It all meant Nice finished 5th, conceded the fewest goals (only 23 from open play) and scored the 5th fewest goals (only 38 from open play). In reality, Nice underperformed their goals scored (-7.9 xGD from open play) and overperformed their goals conceded (+ 1.6 xGD).
Do you want another story? In his first season in Alanyaspor, Farioli coached the 4th highest scoring team and also the team that conceded the 7th most goals. Alanyaspor overperformed their goals scored (+18 xGD) and underperformed their goals conceded (-7.9). We are talking about the clear two sides of the same coin. We wish Farioli doesn’t get that much variance at Ajax because it would make his work far more easier to analyse for us. Is he a defense-first coach or a attacking purist? Answer is probably in between.
Alanyaspor were a patient team willing to combine and slowly progress upfield but that didn’t mean the quality of their chances dropped. In building with patience, Alanyaspor averaged mora than 40 passes before a shot but also a optimal 0.11 xG per shot. They would have ranked 72 out of 97 teams this season in the top 5 leagues in terms of directness, i.e. the number of forward passes completed by every team.
Last season he took a different approach. Away from the ball-keeping, patient build-up that his team showed in Turkey, Farioli first and foremost wanted Nice to be strong defensively. By doing so, he allowed the opposition teams more time on the ball in their half. His PPDA numbers dropped from the ones at Alanyaspor but Nice became more effective at recovering the ball in the opposite side of the field. Nice’s defensive numbers are incredible: 6th fewest xG received and xG per shot conceded and 3rd fewest goals conceded.
The question now is whether Farioli will stick with this more defensive approach or he will revert to the offensive one his team displayed in Turkey. In an ideal world, Farioli would be able to mix both so he can build an offensive Ajax side that can stop shipping goals, something that haven’t done in recent years. Whatever he does, it will probably be great.
Alexander Blessin – St. Pauli
We’ve talked about the man who left St. Pauli and now it’s turn for the man who arrived in St. Pauli. Alexander Blessin has collected a vast coaching experience at Red Bull Leipzig’s school of football, where he went from the under 17 to the Youth League team. After that, Blessin spent 12 months at both Genoa and Union Saint-Gilloise later on. His time on the latter was a complete success and allowed him to get back to one of Europe’s top five leagues. He will face the difficult task of keeping up St. Pauli, after a thirteen-year spell outside of Germany’s first tier.
Even though he changed formations from time to time, Blessin always sticked with a three-man defence. His Union Saint-Gilloise side were one of the most intense, high-pressing sides in Europe last season. If we put together the teams of the top 5 European leagues with the teams of the Jupiler Pro League, USG would have ranked 3rd in recoveries in the opposition half, 4th in high recoveries and 7th in PPDA.
In some ways, especially in the pressing game, Hurzeler and Blessin are quite similar: they both want to gain the ball as high as possible and as quick as possible. However, they are nothing alike in the way they want their teams to attack. USG completed just 25.7 passes per shot on average and their ball progression numbers were high as well, meaning that their passes and carries were mostly progressive ones. Blessin should be one of the coaches to follow this season, specially because of the change in approach his team will have to experience.
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