USA defeated Bolivia 2-0 in their first match of Copa América 2024, where they aspire to advance significantly in the tournament they are hosting. The United States Men’s National Team is placed in Group C alongside Uruguay and Panama, where they are in a good challenge, especially against Uruguay’s great attack with Marcelo Bielsa, but let’s say that it may be easy for them to qualify as a second at least, waiting for bigger challenges after that.
Christian Pulisic scored the first goal from the first corner kick in the match with an excellent shot from the inside of the box, but there was a well-planned plan to make him shoot from this close distance designed by their new set-piece coach, Gianni Vio, who joined the USMNT setup in October 2023.
The 71-year-old coach has a significant reputation in the world of set-pieces, having good experience in that field with Tottenham Hotspur alongside Antonio Conte, SPAL, Leeds United, AC Milan and others. He was also a part of Italy’s winning UEFA Euro 2020, helping them score three of their 13 goals from set-pieces as well as create numerous chances.
In this USMNT tactical analysis, we will show Gianni Vio’s tactics with USA which is still in the process of progression but may be a critical factor in Copa América 2024.
Short-option manipulation
Starting with the first corner against Bolivia, which ended with a goal, Bolivia defended with five zonal defenders, three-man markers, a short-option defender and a rebound defender, as shown in the photo below in which a short-option attacker goes quickly to receive a short touch from the taker, Christian Pulisic. In contrast, there are only three attackers near the zonal line, and the others are still walking slowly near the edge of the box, making the man markers wait for them, and we will explain why.
In the photo below, the short-option defender attends on time. Still, the close short attacker and Christian Pulisic’s overlap puts him against a quick 2-v-1 situation because the one who is asked to help him is the first zonal defender who is late because of this trick. In contrast, there is an attacker stands in front of the second zonal defender, in black, to fix him preventing him from going to help into the targeted area where Pulisic will dribble, at the corner of the box where the referee stands.
This routine is well-designed. An attacker stands on the edge of the box to fix the rebound defender and prevent him from going to the same area, making sure that this area is empty.
Going to the next moment, Pulisic has no problem receiving the ball and dribbling to this area while the two players we have mentioned are still doing their jobs. Still, we want to mention other safety factors: The first is the other three attackers’ position towards the far post, trying to make the man markers as far from the targeted area as possible. In contrast, the second factor is the two attackers standing on the edge of the box from the right side to ensure that the rebound defender won’t leave to chase the ball to kill any possibility of filling this area.
In the end, Pulisic cuts inside easily, scoring an important goal in the third minute with an excellent shot, as shown in the two photos below.
After nearly seven minutes, the prepared game of chess started with Boivia’s reaction: asking the first zonal defender to leave his position from the beginning to be a second short-option defender to kill the problem from the cradle. Still, the USA’s alternative plan always exists by targeting the near post which was unloaded, as shown in the photo below.
As shown below, USA’s plan is to target the black area in front of the second zonal defender, who is given two choices: Either cover the area of the first zonal defender, who is no longer here, where an attacker stands with his marker to drag him or remain focused on the targeted area in front of him, which may delay his reaction to the cross.
This defender intelligently realises the situation going to the targeted area, but the area he should protect becomes bigger, so the first attacker decides to steal the ball before he wins the first touch, but the ball goes outside, as shown below.
They also have an idea to play the ball very quickly before the defence is organised by making a player come near the taker to pull two defenders to pass the ball into the area behind them. In contrast, the defence is still chaotic, as shown in the first photo below. After that, they depend on two players: One receives the cut-back pass to shoot while the other blocks the nearer player who can go to him, as shown in the rest of the photos.
Counter idea
To see how teams tried to find counter ideas against them that may help, let’s track the journey in Germany’s match. In the first photo below, it is clear that Germany defend with four zonal defenders, a short-option defender, a rebound defender and the remaining four are man markers. In the second photo, they try to implement a similar plan by asking an attacker to run suddenly a little toward the taker to drag the first zonal defender and then target the area he leaves by an attacker who uses a curved run around his two mates to separate with his marker, but the cross is inaccurate, as shown in the rest of the photos.
After that, they ask the short-option defender to start in a closer position to cover the area that the first zonal defender may leave to track the first attacker, avoiding a flick or a short pass, so the area becomes safe even if the first zonal defender is forced to push high, as shown in the two photos below.
In the second half, Germany used a different approach, especially when a short-option attacker went near the taker. As shown below, the short-option and rebound defenders did their duties while asking the first zonal defender to stay in his position and not move until the short pass was passed. Then, they went to achieve a 3-v-3 situation in an organised process with clear roles, as shown in the three photos below.
Deceiving movements to manipulate man markers
They have also a crazy and good plan to manipulate the opponents’ man markers by asking all of their eight players, besides the taker and the one who stays at the back, to start together near the edge of the box, as shown in the first photo below. All of that is to confuse the man markers distracting them from the real targeted player. Let’s start a step-by-step!
In the second photo below, we should track these three attackers, and you may be surprised when you know that they will go back to stand as three rebound players after all of these forward movements, so it is a good use of the rebound players trying to attract some man markers out of their position instead of the usual role of standing on the rebound from the beginning without a usage. All of that is to free the targeted player who starts to move late after this distraction, as shown in black in the third photo below.
So now we know the role of four of the eight players, and we will track the other four in the fourth photo. Three of them move toward the near post, while one moves toward the far post to empty the area in the middle.
In the end, they manage to drag the man markers away from the middle, where the targeted player goes freely and can jump over the zonal defender because he took a huge distance running without marking. This means that he will jump with good momentum over any zonal defender who tries to go for him who jumps from the steady mode.
Exploiting gaps in the defending team due to shifting
They also showed a good possibility to implement routines exploiting the shifting of one member of the zonal line making the distance between him and his mate bigger, especially against teams who put the zonal line aligned to the goalmouth and don’t put an additional defender in front of them to defend flicks at the area in front of the near post, as shown in the first photo below in which Germany defend with four zonal defenders, four man markers, a short-option defender and a rebound defender. USA have six attackers inside the box meaning that there are two free attackers inside the box, the orange one is the targeted player.
In the second photo, USA asks the green attacker to move next to the first zonal defender, acting like he wants to win the first touch in the area before the near post. Meanwhile, the pink attacker moves toward the short area, making sure that the short-option defender won’t come back to defend this area, which will make the first zonal defender stay in his position.
In the third photo, there is a gap between the first zonal defender, who goes more forward, and the second one, who still stands in his position. This is especially true since there are many attackers in the middle and the far post. The free targeted player gets the ball easily, but the ball goes above the crossbar, as in the fourth photo.
Conclusion
In this analysis, we have explained how set pieces can be a huge factor in making the USA go forward in Copa America 2024 with a great set-piece coach like Gianni Vio, who achieved many successes in different clubs and national teams.
In this set-piece analysis, we have explained how they have many diverse strategies to manipulate their opponents. They use a close short-option attacker to achieve a quick numerical superiority against the short-option defender while having the option to target the near post as a reaction against the opponent’s counter-defending idea. They also have many ideas to confuse man markers and create gaps due to opponents’ zonal lines shifting.
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