Torres epitomizes Mourinho’s European tactical master piece

A 0-3 win against Schalke sends Chelsea to the top of their group. A resounding victory for the London club, despite not playing the way they were ‘expected to’.

This was during Chelsea’s defensive transition. A 4-4-2, with 4 in the midfield blocking off pass lanes and pressing low with the attacking midfielder and the striker pressing high on the back line.

Chelsea didn’t want the ball, they only wanted to make it as tough as possible for Schalke to create a clear cut chance, which they did effectively. By playing a 4-4-2 ( that wasn’t that deep), they pretty much had a particular opposition player being covered by one player in blue. A common misconception is that Chelsea were inviting Schalke into the defensive third. Wrong, cause if they were, Oscar wouldn’t be pressing high alongside Torres.

Chelsea were forced deep, as Schalke kept the ball moving around quickly. Once the ball was retrieved , counter-attacks became a relatively easy option to take. Oscar receives the ball, and we already have two penetrable holes popping up. Interesting to note that Torres does drift sideways, allowing Oscar to carry the ball forward through the middle against two confused center-backs. He plays it to Schurrle, who wins the corner Chelsea end up scoring by.

Schalke defend set-pieces using zonal marking, another reason Torres was able to win the header that ricocheted off the bar. To form a key, ones encircled in black are the one’s attacking the corner, the one encircled in blue messed up Schalke’s zonal system, the one encircled in red is ball watching and the one encircled in white ends up scoring.

From the previous frame, we can see that Torres and Cahill are pretty much in the same zone of one Schalke player. The player encircled in red is adamant that he won’t have to block off Torres . As Cahill rushes inside, he takes one player away from his zone. Meanwhile, the player encircled in red has his eyes stuck on the ball as Ivanovic nods it back. His body language says it all. A horrible blunder and Chelsea are 1-0 up.

I can’t stress how different the Chelsea side was when it came back for the start of the second half. Defensive transitions used the formation 4-4-2 in the first half were turned into a 4-5-1 in the second half. Oscar gave up his pressing.
Meanwhile attacking transitions were usually a 4-2-4 in the second half. This was converted into a highly attack minded 2-5-3. After Torres grabbed his second of the night, the team reverted back to a 4-2-4.
In the frame above we see Chelsea knocking the ball around in the middle. Oscar drops deep and forms an effective 4-3-3. The problem however is that the distance between the middle three and the front three needs to be reduced.
This was a problem in the first half as well. Forget our sloppy passing, forget Lampard and Ramires having problems in creating passing triangles. Chelsea just couldn’t reduce the space between the attacking midfielders and the pivot.

The 3 push up with Oscar on the ball. Instinctively both Torres and Hazard try to run behind their defenders. Chelsea began to grow a bit more assertive. They didn’t want the ball, but it wouldn’t look good if they ended up with possession stats that said below 30%.

Here we see Chelsea pushing up, having 8 players up front. The 8th being Azpilciueta, just a little below the frame. The question is, what about the defenders? Considering that we are so upfront, there must be huge space for Schalke to exploit. Right?
Wrong. We are going AVB mode.

An effective 2-5-3. Chelsea are also employing an offside trap. It was far more effective in the first half, with the defenders playing deep, however the strategy continued till the final whistle.

Now going back to the first half. This was quite a peculiar strategy Chelsea used, which involved the team acting as a well oiled unit, whose parts could only move in a direction relative to the other.
In the first frame we have every Chelsea player on the pitch moving towards the ball. The white circle shows the Schalke wing-back’s head.

Now this strategy has its advantages and disadvantages.
Disadvantages first, and it can be easily shown here. There are a number of penetrable holes that pop up. A quick switch in flank and Schalke could actually cause Chelsea a huge problem.
Advantage however is that it gives the full-backs a false incentive that they can push forward without any consequences. Torres’s second goal is an example, which we shall see.

The ball is played to the center and Ivanovic along with Oscar start retreating back towards the flanks. Only two of them?

Everyone moves towards the expected direction of the ball. What does this do on the other flank?

You guessed it right ! More open players with the wing-back having a false incentive that he can push forward while Schurrle can easily make a penetrable run if the ball is won back.

Ball is switched back, and the wing-back is wide open . Football is bloody brilliant, isn’t it?

Here we see an example of how it worked so well. Hazard has the ball, and Uchida pushed way too forward. We won the ball back and Hazard runs at the defense as Oscar , Ramires and Torres join him.
The problem Uchida faces is that he needs to come back in time. We all know the answer to that.

He clearly fails to and pays the price.
To summarise, this is the perfect example of setting up your philosophy for a must win European game. When Jose wrote up his game plan, he knew that it decided mainly on two factors. Please the crowd or win essential three points that put you on top of the table.
Undoubtedly many people would think that the performance wasn’t good. True if you have your eyes glued at the possession bar. In a nutshell, Jose got it spot on with how he instructed his players to set themselves up. Score quick, defend well with lot of deceptions and take your chances.
Two consecutive games where Chelsea’s strikers have scored. A crisis cannot get any better than this.
A lot of people have been asking me how I write down my points on the game while watching it. Though I’m not willing to reveal it all, here’s a look –
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