«De Laurentiis likes Tedesco. The president was disappointed by the Napoli players” (Caressa)

Caressa: «De Laurentiis disappointed by the Napoli players. He likes German. Gasperini wouldn’t surprise me”

Fabio Caressa on Sky Sport: «Conte in Naples seems difficult to me. I would be very surprised. Gasperini on the other hand wouldn’t surprise me. We talked about Italian, but not about Pioli. He likes the Belgium coach Tedesco. I met De Laurentiis who called me a dick but he was also very kind. It’s not that he gave me much. Apart from the mistakes he and the coaches made. I sensed that he was wondering: how is it possible that these guys felt satisfied after just one victory? He was a little disappointed. So I think a few players will leave. It’s one thing not to win, it’s another to struggle.”

«In my opinion De Laurentiis wants unsatisfied coaches. Who want to arrive. The desire to arrive will be a very important characteristic. He told me that the only good thing I have is my wife.”

German coach of the nouvelle vague who doesn’t know fundamentalism (and De Laurentiis likes it)

At just thirty-eight years of age (he will turn thirty-nine on September 12th) Domenico Tedesco already boasts important experiences in his curriculum. Born in Rossano (Calabria) and moved to Germany with his family at a very young age, Tedesco has already coached important clubs such as Schalke 04, Spartak Moscow and Leipzig in his career and is currently the technical commissioner of the Belgium national team.

Tedesco’s career began much earlier when, at just twenty-five, he found himself acting as assistant coach with ASV Aichwald, in the bottom of Germany’s football pyramid.

Tedesco is a Laptop Trainer

Even without having a past as a professional footballer, Tedesco manages to establish himself in football like German football which, in the last fifteen years, has begun to offer many of the so-called Laptop Trainers at high levels. This term, coined in a derogatory way by the former Bayern player Mehmet Scholl to indicate coaches without a past as professional footballers (almost as if, to paraphrase Arrigo Sacchi, to be a good jockey one must first have been a horse), ended instead to identify some exponents of the nouvelle vague of Teutonic technicians, including Tedesco himself, Thomas Tuchel and Julian Nagelsmann.

The big opportunity in German football came with Schalke. The Gelsenkirchen club decides to rely on the Italian-German coach for the 2017-18 season. At that moment Tedesco was coming off a salvation achieved with Erzgebirge Aue in the Zweite Bundesliga (the local Serie B). He was chosen by Christian Heidel, the same sporting director who, when he worked at Mainz, had no problem sending two unknowns like Jürgen Klopp first and then Tuchel to the bench.

At Schalke he deployed a three-man defence

Arriving in Gelsenkirchen, Tedesco decided to start using a 3-4-3 formation, with a defensive block made up of three defenders and two midfielders and with two wingers (Daniel Caligiuri on the right and Bastian Oczipka on the left) ready to transform the defensive line to five. From an approach point of view, Schalke defended with a low block, thus creating space behind the opponent’s line to then attack on the counterattack. In their own half of the pitch the Ruhr team was very aggressive, trying to force the ball back and then activate the three offensive references vertically as soon as possible.

Against teams that faced Schalke more carefully, Tedesco changed his defensive strategy, switching to applying higher pressure to win the ball in areas of the pitch close to the opponent’s goal. All this while still remaining a vertical team (average possession of 46.6%). Among the players who benefited from Tedesco’s work, Leon Goretzka must certainly be mentioned. The Schalke midfielder, used by Tedesco in a more advanced position, even scored 4 goals, earning the attention of Bayern Munich who bought him at the end of the season.

During his second experience in the Bundesliga (with Leipzig) Tedesco instead proposed a more patient game model, with a reasoned construction phase. Slovenian midfielder Kevin Kampl was often in possession and dropped down to help the defenders when releasing the ball, with Angeliño rising on the left and Austrian Konrad Laimer remaining as
sole central midfielder.

The aim of the construction phase was to attract the opposition’s pressure in order to overcome it and subsequently set the advanced elements in motion (the various Emil Forsberg, Christopher Nkunku, Dani Olmo, André Silva). To get to them, Tedesco’s Leipzig developed mainly laterally with the aforementioned Angeliño on the left or with Nordi Mukiele on the right, aided by the attacking midfielders of the 3-4-3.

In the defensive phase, the Red Bull team was organized by Tedesco with a very aggressive 5-2-3/5-3-2 structure in the recovery phase after a lost ball and which exploited traps to trigger high pressing in situations of opponent possession .

Having arrived at the helm of the Belgian national team, Tedesco introduced himself by declaring that he wanted to propose a national team that was active in possession, offensive, capable of imposing its own game.

What could be noticed during the qualifiers for next summer’s European Championships (which saw Belgium win its Group with a score of 20 points won in 8 matches: 22 goals scored and only 4 conceded) was the tactical flexibility shown by the German training.

His Belgium generally started with a back four, which could then be transformed into a three-man line at the start of the play, with one of the full-backs remaining stuck next to the centre-backs to set up. The basic idea remained that of going to hurt vertically as soon as possible. Against teams that defend low, Belgium tries to overload one area of ​​the pitch and then move the ball quickly to the others, filling all five vertical corridors of the pitch and using Romelu Lukaku as a maneuvering attacker, able to defend and distribute the ball behind at the door.

Precisely the tactical flexibility highlighted in his career and the adaptability to the players available (together with the knowledge of the Italian language which you can see in the interview given a few years ago to the podcast Il Terzo Uomo) represent points in Tedesco’s favor which could convince Adl to take him to Naples.

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