Italian football has long been spoken of a division made up with great defences. Look no further than the AC Milan team of the early 1990’s and the Juventus team of the mid 1990’s. But to go in search for the best current defence in Italy, you must head to the northeast… to Udine.
Udinese under head coach Francesco Guidolin are a well drilled unit when it comes to shutting out the opposition. With 17 rounds gone this season the Friuli have conceded just ten goals. And Slovenian goalkeeper Samir Handanovic has kept ten clean sheets.
The Friuli outfit have all the tools in place to eclipse AC Milan’s record last season of 24 goals conceded. That is under the current 20 team era of course that kicked off in the 2004/05 campaign.
Shades of this defensive quality were apparent through various stages of last season. Udinese went almost two months without conceding a goal between early February to early April. Even despite the sale of long term defender Cristian Zapata to Villarreal last summer, Guidolin recruited two largely unknown Brazilian defenders to fill the breech. Danilo Larangera from Palmeiras and Neuton from Gremio, together cost around €5m. And yet is so often the case with Udinese, it was money well spent.
Danilo as he is referred to, has slotted in beautifully as the teams first choice centre back. Flanked by Maurizio Domizzi left, and Mehdi Benatia right. Colombian powerhouse Pablo Armero and Serbian Dušan Basta are employed in wing back roles to assist the back three. effectively making a back five when need be.
It’s a balance Udinese are well set up in. The success of this spreads into midfield too. With the ever impressive Mauricio Isla and Kwadwo Asamoah sitting just in-front of them in a defensive role, and with the power to venture forward often. Guidolin has a good mix of talented young playmakers that have a defensive mind capacity also, thus helps keeping the numbers down at the opposite end.
Together Udinese are a real collective team, the majority of whom play at International level. And doubtless will move onto bigger and better things come the future. Just take stock of the Udinese class in 2012. I’m sure just like well organised troops going into battle. their small print in the history books will be looked back on and admired once in a while.
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Good article Greggy, though a good defence is also built on confidence throughout the entire team. And when you have Super Toto scoring vital goals, that confidence spreads to other areas and becomes the binding material that allows players to keep up their good form.
Without Toto’s goals, im not sure the rest of the relatively inexperienced team would be doing as well as they currently are. Its a mutually beneficial arrangement…!!!
With respect to the great Di Natale, i was pin pointing the Brilliant organisational set up in defence under Frencesco Guidolin. I understand what you say, let’s see if they continue this trend in a dip of form.