We could feasibly see two teams, Juventus and Lyon, win their respective domestic leagues with it in 2014-15, and Liverpool came oh so close last year.Two or three people can play. There's rarely a dull game when one team is playing a diamond, and it's becoming more and more popular after several very successful executions of it. But the system operates differently in every phase, and a good diamond will protect itself in every situation, pulling bodies around to cover gaps before intercepting and exploding forward. The formation, on paper, looks entirely unbalanced due to the lack of wingers, and it also looks as though the full-backs will be ripe for exposure. There's a place for target man if used correctly-Fernando Llorente is serviceable in the system-but it's easier with two smaller men who are happy to flit about and play an inventive game. Rodgers tried to marry Mario Balotelli with Sturridge early this season, but the experiment was forcibly ended by injury. To play in quick transitions you need a quick-thinking forward who drops in to receive, turn and run. If they're able to intercept and grab it, they'll immediately dribble north and initiate a counter. When the diamond defends, the deeper three midfielders fan out into a flatter line and the wider CMs move all the way out to track opposing full-backs and stop two-on-one overloads against their own defenders. That protection of the full-backs is mightily important. Juventus have Paul Pogba, Claudio Marchisio, Arturo Vidal, Roberto Pereyra and Kwadwo Asamoah. Massimiliano Allegri has merely accepted he has the players made for the system and put it into place at Juventus Stadium. The outside central midfielders have to be pure athletes the amount of running (with and without the ball) and fanning wide they have to do off the ball to protect their full-backs is remarkable. Balance, and even zonal coverage, is key. The anchor midfielder will rarely, if ever, surge forward, often sitting in front of the centre-backs or slotting in between them to allow them to push out to a temporary back three.
The outside central midfielders (shuttlers) must dart out to join them and create numerical overloads while also covering the gaps the full-backs leave if necessary. The full-backs sear forward in attack and play a near byline-to-byline role, holding the width up and down the pitch and providing crosses for the strikers. This works both offensively and defensively, and it demands tactical intuition and smarts from the players. It tasks every player outside of the anchor midfielder and the two centre-backs to create width by darting wide. One-striker formations (such as 4-2-3-1 and 4-3-3) have dominated the horizon for at least half a decade, and some managers are unwilling to play two up front due to the space it could conceivably leave in midfield.īut the diamond sacrifices natural width (no wingers) in favour of two strikers and four central midfielders. The diamond essentially demands a front two, which is an immediate zone of discomfort for many teams in the modern era. In practice, however, it takes a while to perfect. The keys to the formation remain the same as most: even defensive zonal coverage across the pitch, the creation of width and the linking of the three (or four) lines. Pep Guardiola is hailed as a tactical innovator, but he's been thumbing through the pages of history since he was installed as Barcelona boss, reviving certain approaches and systems from bygone eras to see if they will work.
The diamond, or 4-3-1-2, has been around for quite some time, but football is a cyclical beast and trends are revived from the wilderness there are very few "new" elements to the game.
Managers and coaches see others performing well in a certain shape and decide they'd like to see their team do it all the time-case in point: Brendan Rodgers' obsession with Basel's 3-4-3-and this year, the diamond has made huge strides forward thanks to several key and successful deployments.
Heck, even Tim Sherwood has tried it with Aston Villa. What do Liverpool, Juventus, Swansea City, Lyon, Borussia Dortmund, Sampdoria and Internazionale all have in common this season? They've all played, at least for a small segment of the season, in a 4-4-2 diamond formation.
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