Without an away point or even an away goal since their 2–1 victory at Cagliari in September, Atalanta went into their match at Torino on Sunday with a new look. The Orobici started the season well, claiming four points from their first two games. Then their form nosedived and the two goals they scored in the win against Cagliari represented half of their season’s tally to date.
There has been a trend growing towards the 3-5-2 formation in Italy since the likes of Palermo, Napoli and Udinese started employing it to great effect a few seasons back. When Juventus won three Scudetti with it was the consecration of that tactical trend.
When Stefano Colantuono’s men lined up at the Stadio Olimpico, they did so with a very tight group of three central defenders.
This change of formation came as something of a surprise for Atalanta, but followed the recent pattern of Serie A that favours three-men backlines more than most other leagues in Europe.
Those three central defenders sat within a five-man defence in an Atalanta side forced into changes because of the suspended duo of Yohan Benalouane and Luca Cigarini. Nicola Cherubin sat on the left of the trio, Guglielmo Stendardo was in the middle, and Giuseppe Biava was on the right.
While Torino might not seem the most prolific opposition to warrant such a defensive approach, it certainly worked. Of Torino’s 20 increasingly desperate attempts on goal, only two were on target, and only one from inside the six yard box — a header from centre-back Pontus Jensson.
Given that a huge percentage (70%) of those 20 shots came from outside the penalty area, the Atalanta defence will have returned to Bergamo with the satisfaction of a job well done.
The workload was shared amongst the three centre backs, with Stendardo able to step out of the trio to make tackles, claim loose balls and occasionally starting attacks. In Benalouane’s absence, the revamped backline’s defensive work meant that they were able to claim a well-deserved point.
For Torino, the visit of Atalanta meant the return of former hero Rolando Bianchi. His surroundings will have been very familiar from the seasons he spent in Turin, but his own team resembled nothing as much as the Bologna side he was part of last campaign.
After Stefano Pioli’s side had also started the season poorly, failing to win any of their first eight games, the now-Lazio coach tweaked his formation to an equally defensive back three in order to shore up a leaky defence.
When it worked, as it did in an early November against bottom of the table Chievo, it resulted in an abject 0-0 draw. When it didn’t, as in a 2-0 defeat to Atalanta, it was even harder to watch. There were signs even then that Colantuono sympathised with this extremely negative approach.
“What do you expect?” he said after the match. “We are Atalanta and Bologna, not Real and Barça. It was a hard fought game.”
Hard fought it may have been, but the defeat represented another nail in both Pioli and Bologna’s coffins – a lesson Colantuono would do well to bear in mind.
It remains to be seen if Colantuono will continue to use the same tactic against Sassuolo, a side who do their best attacking from the flanks. Indeed, the return of Benalouane may well mean that the side reverts to a more orthodox back-four.
Ultimately, the three-man defence did what it was there to do. That it wasn’t pleasant to watch doesn’t matter to Atalanta who won the point and, in doing so, proved they have something to fall back on should they need it.
Follow Marco Jackson on Twitter at: @MarcoJ
