Big data: Carlo Ancelotti and Real Madrid

The 2023/24 season has brought with it a change of system for Carlo Ancelotti and Real Madrid. With the departure of long-time number nine Karim Benzema, the team’s traditional recent 4-3-3 shape has been discarded in favour of a 4-3-1-2 in which Vinícius Júnior has been pushed into a central-forward role from wide on the left. The exciting Jude Bellingham, a summer arrival from Borussia Dortmund, has been deployed as the number 10.

A shift in approach is nothing new for an experienced operator like Ancelotti, however.

“At Juventus, with Zinedine Zidane, I began to understand that it is better to adapt to the players,” the four-time Champions League-winning coach has said about his system-players dynamic. “When I started coaching, I had a clear idea and I didn’t adapt. At Parma, Roberto Baggio wanted to play as a number 10, and I didn’t change the system. He went to another team. I was wrong, so I started to adapt – and I’m still adapting.”

It is now more than a quarter of a century since Baggio chose Bologna over Ancelotti’s Parma, since when the Italian has employed a number of different systems to impressively consistent effect. Here, we take a look at some of his key systems, analyse the data of his most recent two years at Real, and assess what impact that might have on his revised approach for 2023/24.

The main formations, 1999-2013

Ancelotti was a strong believer in the 4-4-2 system in his early days as a head coach. It was during his two years at Juventus, between 1999 and 2001, that he switched to the 4-3-2-1 shape – often known as the Christmas tree – that worked to maximise the impact of Zidane. Results were good, but not good enough – in two full seasons, Juve finished Serie A runners-up to first Lazio and then Roma.

That system did come good for Ancelotti during an eight-year spell at AC Milan that yielded eight major trophies, including the 2003/04 Serie A title and Champions League wins in 2003 and 2007. That team was ruled from the midfield by the legendary Andrea Pirlo.

From Serie A, the Italian moved to a very different challenge, in the Premier League as head coach of Chelsea. In his first season there, 2009/10, he inherited a squad that featured two world-class attacking midfielders with similar qualities. Both Frank Lampard and Michael Ballack had box-to-box virtues, but both were much more effective in attacking situations. As a solution, Ancelotti brought in John Obi Mikel to play behind the pair in a 4-1-2-1-2 formation. Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka operated as the two forwards in a team that won the Premier League and FA Cup.

Two years in the Premier League were followed by two more in Ligue 1, as head coach of a Paris Saint-Germain squad full of attacking players better suited to a more vertical style. Ancelotti turned to the 4-2-3-1 formation, in which Javier Pastore operated mostly as the number 10 in an attacking line of three behind the forward. Two of Ezequiel Lavezzi, Lucas Moura, Nenê and Jérémy Ménez played in the wider positions, with Kevin Gameiro as the nine in Ancelotti’s first season. In the second, that became Zlatan Ibrahimovic – the league title duly followed.

Real Madrid and beyond, 2013-2021

In June 2013, Ancelotti landed for his first spell at Real Madrid. He replaced José Mourinho, who had built a team set up to attack mainly through transitions – and even more so with the arrival that summer of Gareth Bale from Tottenham.

Ancelotti settled on a 4-3-3 formation that offered him less defensive control but suited explosive wide attackers such as Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo – both of whom scored in the 2014 Champions League final victory over neighbours Atlético (below). Behind the front three, the manager relied mostly on Ángel Di María – a winger converted into a number eight ­– Sami Khedira, Luka Modric and Xabi Alonso. This 4-3-3 could easily shift into a 4-4-2, with Ronaldo joining Karim Benzema on the front line and Bale playing on the left in a midfield line of four.

Alonso was once more a key player in Ancelotti’s single season at Bayern Munich, in 2016/17. There, he played as the single pivot in another 4-3-3, with the likes of Thiago Alcántara and Arturo Vidal operating in front of him. The front three will be remembered as one of Bayern’s most iconic attacking units: Arjen Robben and Franck Ribéry either side of the prolific Robert Lewandowski.

After spells at huge clubs with a wealth of squad depth, Ancelotti went on to manage two famous clubs with more modest budgets: Napoli (2018-2019) and Everton (2019-2021). With both teams, he reverted to his origins as a 4-4-2 coach, favouring the extra defensive security afforded by a double pivot in midfield and more functional attack.

Back to Real, and back to the 4-3-3

Ancelotti’s tactical adaptability tends to focus only on the front half of his teams, however. Throughout his long coaching career, he has stayed almost entirely loyal to a back four and at least one deeper-lying or organisational pivot – Pirlo, Mikel, Alonso – to balance both phases of the game. His system changes are influenced almost entirely by the players in the midfield and attacking lines.

None of this has changed in the Italian’s second spell at Real, where he returned in the summer of 2021. He has retained the back four and the team’s renowned midfield playmakers in Luka Modric and Toni Kroos.

In his first two seasons back, he set his team up almost exclusively in a 4-3-3 formation. Across those two years, the team started in that shape just under 90 per cent of the time (below). In the 2022/23 season, only two teams exceeded that number for starting in the same shape: Real Betis under Manuel Pellegrini, who started in the 4-2-3-1 in 97 per cent of their fixtures; and Barcelona under Xavi, whose own 4-3-3 shape started 92 per cent of games.

Across 2021/22 and 2022/23, Real only won three games in which they started with a different formation. Two of those were league games: against Valencia, when Ancelotti employed a 4-4-1-1, and Celta Vigo, with a 4-4-2. The third was a more famous and dramatic win – against Manchester City in the second leg of the 2022 Champions League semi final, when Karim Benzema and Vinícius Júnior played as a front two in a 4-4-2.

Of course, the 4-3-3 doesn’t always have to look exactly the same. Ancelotti’s history with the formation is to play with two wide attackers either side of a central forward, with two number eights and a pivot behind them. But it is the players within this system that can dictate a team’s style of play. A front three featuring Benzema between Vinícius and Fede Valverde, for example, would have felt quite different with Rodrygo on the right instead of Valverde. The latter offers more structure and a greater organisation, with Rodrygo offering greater attacking flair.

In-game changes

Ancelotti has often been accused of passivity when it comes to in-game changes, whether in terms of shape or substitutions. At any given time, goes the criticism, he has his preferred shape and his preferred players. The data doesn’t necessarily back this up, however.

Across the two major competitions – La Liga and the Champions League – in his first two seasons back at Real, he made three substitutions or more in a minimum of 69 per cent of games (above). In other words, the Italian coach is trying to influence his team’s play through in-game changes in two out of three games at the very least.

Attacking data

So, how did all of this translate to performance and results in Ancelotti’s first two seasons back in his second spell at Real?

The first point of interest is that the team tends to enjoy the majority of possession in most of its games – but not to the same extent as some of Europe’s most dominant possession teams. Across the three major competitions (La Liga, Champions League and Copa Del Rey), Real dominated possession in just under 75 per cent of their games; but they only hit more than 60 per cent possession in 45 per cent of their games.

This has been a team that doesn’t need to dominate the ball to win big games, however. In the 2021/22 Champions League knockout stages, they eliminated opponents despite having less possession: 45.7 per cent in the last 16 against Paris Saint-Germain, 43.8 per cent against Chelsea in the quarter finals, and 40.8 per cent against Manchester City in the semi finals.

The key to the 2021/22 version of Ancelotti’s Real Madrid was to be as efficient as possible with the possession and opportunities they had. It worked, as they won both La Liga and the Champions League. In 2022/23, however, one key statistic tells a slightly different story.

Across the three main competitions – they won the Copa Del Rey, but lost out in the bigger two – they exceeded their expected goals in only 48 per cent of games. This was a significant drop from the 59 per cent they registered the previous season. In short, the team had become less efficient in their attacking play.

The Bellingham impact

For the 2023/24 season, Ancelotti didn’t only have to reverse the statistical trend of the previous campaign; he also had to do it without Benzema. The Frenchman’s move to Al-Ittihad in the Saudi Pro League left Real without a recognised number nine in the mould of their legendary striker.

Benzema wasn’t only the team’s chief goalscorer; he was also the player through whom the team linked mostly in attack. With him gone, and the returning veteran Joselu more of a penalty-box forward, Ancelotti has once again had to adapt his system to suit the players at his disposal.

Step forward Jude Bellingham (below). The exciting young Englishman, signed for an initial €103m from Borussia Dortmund in the summer, is an attacking-minded central midfielder who scored 14 goals in all competitions in the 2022/23 season. It remains to be seen whether he will match those numbers in his debut season in La Liga, but a record of five goals in his first four league appearances for Madrid suggests it’s more likely than not.

Crucially, Ancelotti is using Bellingham as the number 10 in his newly adapted 4-3-1-2 shape. In effect, this places the 20-year-old at the top of a midfield diamond, behind a front two of Vinícius Júnior and Rodrygo.

The new-look attack will need to find goals. In the last two seasons, Benzema scored 75 and Vinícius 45 – their combined total of 120 accounted for 48.7 per cent of the team’s total of 246, with Benzema alone accounting for more than 30 per cent.

The team might also need to increase its share of possession, which should enable them to build more attacks that end in the opposition penalty area, increase their progressive passes and produce more and better chances for the new-look strike pairing. Bellingham, a potentially unstoppable force in a midfield that can also call upon the services of Aurélien Tchouaméni and Eduardo Camavinga as well as Valverde, Kroos and Modric, will surely play a huge role in this.

Ancelotti might have changed his formation for 2023/24, which may well be his last at the club. But the objective for Los Blancos remains the same: to win every trophy available.

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