During the winter break, we relayed the work carried out by video analyst Florent Toniutti, notably through Canal+who had studied the Horneland style, practiced in Norway near Brann. The latter scrutinized the premiere of the new Greens coach against Reims.
As a reminder, in his tactical analysis of the Norwegian coach carried out last December, Florent Toniutti insisted on the pressing and the intensity put into the game of the Brann team then coached by Eirik Horneland. To support his remarks, he was interested in measuring intensity by taking a team's contested duels, tackles and interceptions per minute of opposing possession. The PPDA is also used, i.e. the measurement of high pressure. To do this, we calculate all the defensive actions carried out high up on the pitch.
While the Greens did not have very good figures in these two categories before the arrival of Horneland, against Reims the influence of the Norwegian coach was directly visible since the PPDA, namely the high pressure exerted by the Greens reached values which would rank ASSE in third place in Ligue 1 at this level, in the event of similar matches throughout the season for the Greens. Better yet, in terms of intensity, the figures are even better for the Greens, with a second place in Ligue 1 behind PSG and ahead of Monaco, again if the Greens were to have an average at the level they proposed against Reims.
Florent Toniutti then looks in more detail at the pressing carried out by AS Saint-Étienne against Reims. Here again, we find in this Saint-Étienne, the Brann of the time Hornland with a similar system and roles for players. In the defensive phase, the wingers who were Boakye et Cafaro this weekend are responsible for pressing the two opposing central defenders while it is the relay midfielders, Bouchouri et Mouton Saturday, which close the game to the opposing full-backs. The role of Stasi and the number 9 in general is key: it is he who must come and slide over the opposing relay midfielders, focusing each time on the one who is playing on the ball side. Each time, the goal is to lock the opponent into one half of the field, by creating a situation of numerical superiority, to increase the pressure. The risk of course is that the opponent manages to thwart this trap and quickly change the game, with the Greens in turn finding themselves in a numerically inferior situation.
Florent Toniutti compares Saint-Etienne's actions against Reims with those of Brann in video emphasizing the similarities between them. He then concludes: “Horneland arrived in Saint-Étienne with his Brann project. He started putting it together. The question that now arises: will it work as well as against Reims in the long term? Stade de Reims was not in the best shape a priori on Saturday, there were certainly things they could have done better. However, it's interesting to see that in such a short time and with players who had a lot of difficulty pressing and being good defensively during the first fifteen days, the result against Reims is rather encouraging. The interesting point is that Saint-Étienne scored one of its goals on a high recovery not from the first and second line but from the third with Nadé who continued his action in the opposing camp.”
If he is not necessarily interested in this video, Florent Toniutti explains that other similarities with the game played by Brann under Hornland were visible on Saturday such as for example the way of restarting with often the four defenders on the same line and very low full-backs in the preparation phase, for the majority of the time playing long and springing to the second ball, with attackers and midfielders land very close to each other.
