The Norwegian Eliteserien is heading towards its halfway point of the 2024 season.
While newfound powerhouse Bodö/Glimt are again leading the league, former giants are struggling a lot this season and are currently headed toward the relegation battle.
After a disappointing 2023 and the loss of star player Carlo Holse to Samsunspor, Rosenborg BK opted for a new start with a young team and a new head coach in.
Johansson was coaching in the academy of FC Copenhagen last season and was taking over the third youngest squad in the Eliteserien, headlined by rising star Sverre Nypan.
After 14 games, however, the team stands in 14th place in the Eliteserien, conceding nearly two goals a game.
In this Alfred Johansson tactical analysis and Rosenborg BK scout report, we will provide an analysis of the young Rosenborg FC team and what problems Alfred Johansson’s men are currently facing in the rough start to their season.
Formation and key players
Johansson has been sturdy with the way his team has been playing. If there wasn’t a huge need to change formations, he always used his 4-3-3 formation with a holding midfielder with Rosenborg BK. The squad is the third-youngest on average in the Eliteserien. There have been no major changes or shakeups during the season, most of the squad and the first XI remained the same during all of the games, only minor swaps have been made by the coaching staff.
There are four key players in the Rosenborg squad at the moment. The team is headlined by 17-year-old Sverre Nypan, a central midfielder with a great range of work and a lot of ball-playing talent. Nypan has been handed the threads in midfield and has been the most creative player amongst Johanssons men. Ole Selnæs went back to Norway after a long career and is now the captain and holding midfielder of the team, trying to keep the young team together with his experience. Jesper Reitan-Sunde has been a regular starter on the left wing at 18 years old and has provided the most assists for Rosenborg BK. His creativity and dribbling ability is critical for Rosenborg in the final third. Lastly, there is Ole Sæter, an experienced striker who comes off the bench most of the time but is still the goal-getter for the team, scoring seven this season so far.
High losses due to a lack of movement
A first massive concern for Rosenborg is their lack of movement in build-up play. Most of the time, the goalkeeper or the centre-backs can merely play the ball between themselves. There are pretty much no options to progress the ball into midfield, and the players in the backline are always tasked with finding solutions in situations where there are no really good options to take.
In multiple games, they have conceded goals because their goalkeeper or centre-back has lost the ball in front of the goal. While you could argue that it is simply a matter of the players’ lack of quality, which definitely also plays a part, the issue roots way deeper in Rosenborg’s positional play.
Rosenborg’s 4-3-3 is their base formation, but they also shape up like it in the build-up. Their full-backs are wide but not pushing up the field, while the centre-backs and goalkeeper form a back-three to play the ball out. The holding midfielder falls back a bit to give the defensive line another option to play a pass to, and their central midfielders push up the field.
A huge problem with that entire situation is the way the players, especially the fullbacks and the holding midfielder, try to receive the ball. While they try to at least be able to receive the ball in a half-open stance, most of the time, they have to track back to actually get the ball and are receiving the ball with their face towards their own goal. This leads to them not even being able to scan the field and assess their options; most of the time, they are forced into playing a first-time ball back towards their centre-backs.
These passes are an easy trigger for the opposing team’s press. Most of the time, the centre-backs and the goalkeeper are under pressure instantly after receiving the ball. This leads to just more inaccurate passes and more pressure on the defenders in build-up play. This spirals into the players cracking under pressure and making easily avoidable mistakes in areas where you simply can’t afford to lose the ball.
In this example, the goalkeeper receives the ball and is attacked by the opposing striker. The striker manages to cut off the field, which results in even fewer options than in the beginning to play the ball out to. The goalkeeper is completely in over his head in this situation, can’t access the situation fast enough, and loses the ball, which results in an easy finish for the opposing striker.
Again, Rosenborg struggles to get out of their back line with the ball, and the right centre-back has no real option to progress the ball. Under pressure, he decides to switch play towards the left centre-back, but he cracks under pressure and plays a bad pass his teammate can not control. The opposing team gets an easy finish, and Rosenborg concede an easy goal.
Right defensive side
Another huge concern for Johansson’s men has been their right-defensive side. Especially in the last couple of weeks, they have been conceding a lot of goals from attacks over the left-attacking flank.
On one hand, we have to mention the players on that side’s lack of individual class in tracking back. Neither Sverre Nypan nor Marius Broholm is good at helping out their right-back, which leads to many breakthroughs on that side.
Rosenborg are especially bad at preventing opposing teams from getting in behind their defensive line on the right side. Johansson’s side defends in a very narrow shape and usually does not allow a numbers advantage for the opposing team in the attacking phase. After passes onto the right side, however, they struggle with actually getting pressure onto the ball. While their collective movement looks decent enough, the players must cover some big distances to close out the opposing attackers.
This closing-out motion leads to a very forward way of defending for Rosenborg’s right back. With his teammates not being able to cover for him in open space, this opens up a lot of space between the right back and the right centre-back. These zones are usually zones teams want to protect, and world-class teams like Manchester City, for example, are attacking these zones urgently.
Against Rosenborg, too many teams are getting joy like this. They cannot apply pressure to the ball and just can’t get a grip on the attackers on their right defensive side.
Even though they might have the numerical advantage, no one can make a tackle or prevent the Sapsborg striker from breaking through and playing the cut-back for an easy goal for his teammate.
There is not just a lot of uncovered space in these situations; there is also a lack of communication between the teammates. The Rosenborg players are rarely on the same page regarding timing and pressing, which leads to more holes in their defence that they are simply unable to cover.
While the overall approach isn’t necessarily bad, the execution definitely leaves a lot to be desired. Overall, I wouldn’t consider this a huge coaching mistake, though; the team’s inexperience is simply showing in these situations. Three players of the back-four, as well as the goalkeeper, are 23 years old or younger. In these situations, they do not have enough leadership and experience to balance out their tactics, costing Rosenborg in the most crucial situations of the game.
Their defensive approach is not lacking a lot, but the combination of a demanding playing style and a young team is problematic. The Rosenborg players are bringing themselves into bad situations all the time, and the opposing teams don’t even have to do a whole lot to force mistakes. The young coach needs to help his players out in some way, or their season is going to spiral even further down the drain.
Lacking consequence in attack
Another problem is their lack of ability to finish off their attacking plays. Rosenborg are a surprisingly decent team in possession if you consider their placement in the table of a rather weak league. Still, they have shown the ability to show great patience and combinations in the final third. Their movement around and into the box is great and opens up a lot of opportunities to attack the opposing backline.
Also, they are shaping up in a good way to initiate their counterpress. With many players forward and good timing, Johanssons’ men are able to recover a decent amount of balls in the opposing half. However, they only manage to create a pretty average amount of scoring chances and expected goals.
Once again, even though Johansson’s team is talented and has a decent enough game plan, their execution has been lacking. They are missing the consequences needed to create opportunities, and the problem only gets worse during the season. Their lack of confidence and experience is shown in too many situations.
In this example, Rosenborg are winning back the ball high up the field. They have many men making runs behind the defence, which is a good opportunity to create a goalscoring chance.
Unfortunately, the right-back doesn’t make the run into space either because he feels like he has to prioritize the defensive aspect more than taking the chance he was given. Johansson’s team is not showing any signs of confidence or willpower to take the risk necessary to score goals in football.
Johansson and his staff are in a dire situation there because they have a lot of working things going for them in the attacking phase, but they need to reignite the teams’ hunger to score more goals, which is hard when you concede multiple goals per game.
Conclusion
In the end, Rosenborg FC is in a pretty harsh situation, but it shouldn’t surprise them.
They have decided on a direction for the club that was always out to be disappointing.
Pairing up an extremely young team with a rookie coach, who also is extremely young, in Johansson, it was obvious that there would be some hard times in terms of quick success for the team.
Johansson, however, has a nice track record of working with younger players in the academy of FC Copenhagen, and it’s his job to develop the players he has right now into the best versions of themselves.
The results shouldn’t be overvalued here, but creating an environment to develop players will be hard while losing every week. A
lso, expectations for the club are simply higher, the fans are more ambitious in the short term than the team can be reasonably expected to play.
There is a lot of ground for conflict, and Johansson will face a lot of adversity in his first season in men’s football.
If he wants to overcome the crisis in his first season, he will have to give his players an easier solution to quickly implement some confidence back into his talented team.
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