Leonardo poll

Originally Posted by Siregar

Good view ACMILAN1983. I agree with you.

It's interisting about defensive job for midfielders especially forwards. Is it more because of the player characteristic (Pato lazy to defend just like Ronaldinho, etc) or is it more because of the coach's voice (the order of the coach)? Messi helped to defend a lot, so does iniesta. Such offensive players still manage to do defensive task. I still haven't found any example similar to Ronaldinho but I do think the coach could 'force' the forwards to defend (telling the forwards to help to defend). Forwards don't need wonderful defensive skills, what they need to do is just move back, cover the free area infront of the midfielders and chase the ball if the player with the ball is near that forward.

See, there're two ways for attackers to "defend":

1. To press opposition's defense high up the field;

2. To really defend by covering space like midfield defends and, of course, like defense defends.

Leonardo uses the first way, i.e. attackers need to press opposition's defense carrying the ball. Second way is counter productive in his system, because of high defense (i.e., too many players on a little space). Barcelona also uses first way of "defending". For example, you can often see Messi chasing down players on opposition's half, but you will never see him chasing them into his own half. On the other hand, Inter uses second way, where wide attackers (only them, Milito doesn't have a defensive duty) are initially set to defend in their own half.

But, there's a difference between how it needs to be and how it is. Why our wide attackers don't defend is because their laziness but more because Leonardo can't persuade them to do everything he wants from them. I mean, if a coach can persuade Anelka to defend, I don't see any player who can't.