Jorge Sampaoli’s Argentina side faced Brazil in a friendly for the former Chile and Sevilla coach’s first game as manager of his country.

Sampaoli’s team started in a 3-4-2-1 shape, with a back 3 made up of Otamendi, Maidana and Mercado, who featured under Sampaoli at Sevilla. Gomez took up a role as right wing back, acting slightly deeper initially than Di Maria, who was the left wing back. Biglia and Banega were the central midfield pairing, with Messi and Dybala as two #10s ahead of them. Finally, Higuain started up front.

Brazil started used their usual narrow and combination focused 4-3-3 under Tite. Wagner, Thiago Silva, Gil and Filipe Luis made up the back 4. Fernandinho was the #6, with Paulinho and Augusto as box-to-box midfielders ahead of him. Coutinho started from the right wing, and Willian from the left, with Man City star Gabriel Jesus taking the #9 shirt.

Brazil’s high press

Brazil were able to destabilise Argentina’s buildup at certain points early on in the game with a high press. Although Argentina’s structure was a clear 3-4-2-1, in deep buildup situations they moved to more of a back 4, with Mercado moving out to the left side, the central centre back Maidana moving more to the left, and Biglia dropping into the centre, in front of Otamendi and Maidana who were now split either edge of the penalty box. Argentina’s buildup now resembled a classic ‘Salida Lavolpiana’.

As we now see with many teams who play from deep buildup situations in that style, Argentina experienced some ball losses and struggled to make progress against Brazil’s man-oriented pressing. Brazil’s narrow front 3 naturally had good access to Argentina’s central players. Either they could man-mark Otamendi, Maidana and Biglia, or one of the wide forwards could stay with their full-back (usually Coutinho marking Mercado, as Argetina mostly tried to build down the right in these situations) and one of the central midfielders would push up to Biglia, and Filipe Luis would move forward to press Gomez, the right wing back.

Brazil’s compact mid-block

More commonly seen from Brazil, however, was their defending in a mid-block in their narrow 4-3-3 shape. Within this, the 3 forwards wouldn’t pressure Argentina’s back 3 too much, and would instead look to block passing lanes through the centre. Brazil still had some man-orientations, with central midfielders Paulinho and Augusto marking Banega and Biglia when the ball was on their side, while the ball far #8 looked to provide cover alongside Fernandinho.

This initially made progression through the centre difficult for Argentina. In order to get on the ball Biglia and Banega needed to drop outside of Brazil’s block. Paulinho and Augusto would follow their dropping movements but only until they were on the same line as the three forwards, in which case they would drop back in order to maintain the defensive stability. Sometimes 4-2-4 permutations were seen with one of Brazil’s #8s following either Biglia or Banega, and the other alongside Fernandinho, as mentioned before.

Clearly, the free men for Argentina were the wing backs, Gomez and Di Maria. They often had time on the ball too, as Brazil’s full-backs were reluctant to press them due to the threat of Messi and Dybala, who were behind Brazil’s midfield line, and might’ve been able to run into the vacated space if Brazil’s full-backs had moved out to pressure Argentina’s wing-backs. This was especially the case on the right side, as Gomez was usually somewhat deeper than Di Maria on the left, meaning that Luis would’ve had to run a longer distance in order to pressure him, leaving even more space behind.

Brazil’s #8s also didn’t pressure Argentina’s wing-backs heavily, they were focused on stopping passes into the centre. Their wide forwards would press backwards onto Argentina’s wing-backs. As a result, Argentina struggled to penetrate. They looked for passes back inside to Messi and Dybala, however between the #8s and full-backs, Brazil were able to prevent these passes. Again, this was more of a problem on the right side. On the left, Di Maria was more willing to take on his full-back and create something himself, something Gomez did less of. Argentina were also more likely to overload on the left side, giving Di Maria more passing options and opportunities for combination play. He often looked for quick 1-2s in order to get behind his opposing full-back, however they failed to create much from these.

The brightest moments for Argentina arose from Messi dropping deeper into midfield as the first half progressed in order to help Argentina’s construction. He found intelligent positions inside Brazil’s defensive block, sometimes coming in from Augusto’s blindside. With the ball near midfielder occupied, and Augusto caught unaware, he was able to receive the ball, turn, and look for Di Maria on the left wing. For much of the first half, creating these 1v1 situations for Di Maria was Argentina’s most common route of attack on the occasions where they broke into the final third.

Argentina press well – but play into Brazil’s hands

As one might expect from a Sampaoli team, Argentina also showed a man-oriented pressing game, although Argentina had most of the possession in the first half, so their pressing game wasn’t seen quite as often as Brazil’s. The pressing scheme was fairly simple – their 3-4-2-1 starting shape became a 3-4-1-2, with Dybala taking Fernandinho and Messi pressing Gil. Argentina’s wing-backs were in the midfield line but pressed Brazil’s full-backs when they received the ball. The central midfielders were man-oriented, and there was a 3v3 at the back against Brazil’s strikers.

The press was conducted with good intensity, however Brazil were still able to create some interesting moments with their combination game. Under Tite Brazil have become very focused on deep circulation followed by direct passes into the feet of one of the front three, for quick combination play. Some examples of this can be seen in their game against Uruguay earlier this year:

Brazil are a team that aren’t uncomfortable in provoking pressure in order to draw the opposition out and make space for their attacking combination play. Some evidence of this was also seen against Argentina. Their press was good enough to prevent Brazil from having stable circulation and construction from the back, however Brazil looked to bypass this mostly through more direct passes from the centre backs into the front three, which was a potentially threatening situation for the Argentina defence as they sometimes had to defend 3v3 on the last line. Paulinho and Augusto were also active in supporting these combinations with runs from deep areas after the first direct pass has been played, looking for layoffs from the front players.

A popular combination which was attempted several times in the match by Brazil was a flat, quick pass to the feet of one of the wide forwards who would inevitably have an Argentina defender marking him closely. He would look to play a pass ‘around the corner’, using the spin on the ball to pass first time to the centre forward with his back to goal, who could then hopefully lay the ball of to the wide forward, now facing towards goal. Such combinations are difficult to pull off under pressure, but it is clear that this is an aspect that Brazil have worked on under Tite, and at times serves as a very effective method of playing past pressure.

Argentina’s structural change

With his side struggling to create chances against the Brazilian defence, Sampaoli opted for a change of formation. The new shape was nominally a 4-2-3-1 – against the ball at least. Mercado was now at left back, Gomez at right back. Biglia and Banega were still the double pivot, Dybala was now playing from the right, but with freedom to roam into the centre. Messi started from number #10, and Di Maria remained on the left wing.

In possession however, the structure was different again. Gomez was now acting higher when Argentina had the ball. Either Banega or Biglia would drift out to the right halfspace, while the other remained central. Mercado was the left back, but acted slightly narrower for much of the time (although he did venture to wider and higher positions at times), as Di Maria was still occupying the left wing, so Argentina still sometimes had 3 players in the first line, but Mercado was clearly operating wider. Messi and Dybala remained as the two #10s.

Banega now had a bigger role in buildup, and had a lot of freedom with his positioning, in the centre and the right halfspace. He would drop into the first line more often and use his playmaking abilities. With Mercado now playing closer to the touchline than previously, it was more difficult for Coutinho to have easy access to both him and Banega.

The more interesting scenes came when Argentina played through the right halfspace, particularly when Banega was there. The new structure disrupted the reference points of the Brazil #8s. Augusto had a fairly simple and more linear defensive task before, but now he was getting dragged into wider positions by Banega’s positioning, and leaving space behind him. When Gomez was able to bind Luis, Argentina were able to find the likes of Dybala and Messi between the lines.

Argentina’s attack improved towards the end of the first half, after the structural change. They scored shortly before half-time, albeit from a set-piece, when Mercado scored a tap in after Otamendi’s header rebounded off the post.

2nd half

Brazil came out in the 2nd half with a more aggressive press, which was predictable given they were now a goal down. Backwards passes from Argentina were chased aggressively, the front three applying pressure on Argentina’s centre-backs more often than in the first half where they were content to sit off of the first line for much of the time. The pressing was still man-oriented, as was Argentina’s in their 4-2-3-1, who continued to press initially.

As the second half went on, Argentina began to drop slightly deeper in the defensive phase. This wasn’t necessarily that beneficial for Brazil though, because, as mentioned earlier, they are able to thrive off of pressure as they can draw their opponents up the pitch in order to open space for their combinations and play into depth. When Argentina dropped deeper, they didn’t have so much room to exploit behind the defence, so they struggled to use their combination play as effectively.

Brazil introduced Douglas Costa in place of Augusto, meaning Coutinho moved into a midfield role, and Brazil now had a 1v1 specialist on the left, however, they weren’t able to create that much from it. Argentina looked to add further security by bringing on Guido Rodriguez and switching to a 4-1-4-1 formation with him at the base of the midfield. The volume of the substitutions in the closing stages disrupted the flow of the game somewhat, as is often the case in friendlies. Thus the game ended 1-0 to Argentina.

Conclusion

Sampaoli’s side showed some interesting aspects in his first game – ability to change between a 3 and 4 man defence, the use of Di Maria as a wing back, Banega’s influential role, and Messi and Dybala as #10s is a threatening prospect for any opponent. However they did find it difficult against Brazil, who in fairness did create the better chances. This is reflected in the xG numbers where Brazil edged out Argentina with 1.59 xG compared to Argentina’s 1.05 (per 11tegen11).

This was, of course, just a friendly (if such a thing exists between two great rivals), and a team with Argentina’s talent pool managed by Sampaoli is certainly an exciting prospect, however they still have work to do in securing qualification to next years World Cup.