to another.

The unpredictability of the WM formation made for some beautiful offensive football in the

1950s, before meeting its match with the rise of the extremely defensive mentality of the

Catenaccio in the 1960.

The Focus shifted once again in the 70s with Dutch total football, that was able to easily

exploit spaces left by these outdated systems.

But as teams grew wary of these intricate movements, it in turn led to the development

of zonal marking, with managers such as Arrigo sacchi taking AC Milan to new highs in the

1980s, ensuring that dangerous spaces were covered, meaning all these fancy rotations

couldn t easily create gaps.

The constant back and forth from offensive to defensive tactics has shaped the game for

all its existence, and there s reason to believe we might be at a tipping point in the next

few years.

The past decade has been dominated by possession football, with managers such as pep Guardiola

being regarded as one of the greatest ever with his heavy inspiration on Cruyffs total

football, Taking it to new levels with constant possession and intricate passing moves to

disrupt the opposition.

But if the Qatar world cup has shown us anything, its that a well organised defensive system

can make any team incredibly dangerous, and there s no better example than Regragui s

Morocco.

Morocco may not have made the world cup final, but their run into the semifinal was nothing

short of spectacular, knocking out Belgium, Spain and Portugal, before putting up and

incredibly entertaining display against France.

But what important to note is that they made it that far with only 32% possession and while

conceding only 1 goal (excluding semifinal), the second lowest in the competition behind

costa rica.

So how can a team that never has the ball be so dangerous?

And what does this tell us about how tactics could be shifting.

Lets take a look.

To understand how Morocco play, it s important to understand how they defend.

Their starting formation is a 433, however the team rarely resembles this shape, and

the vast majority of the time is spent in a 4-1-4-1.

Given the modern offensive playstyle of occupying dangerous spaces, with loosely fixed positions,

morocco s answer to this was to not allow teams to move the ball into these positions.

Areas such as the half spaces were difficult to penetrate given the extremely tight lines,

meaning any player in this position could instantly be surrounded.

The central area infront of the defence was excellently patrolled by Fiorentina s Amrabat,

constantly shifting from side to side, boxing in opponents and linking defence with midfield.

While being tight between the lines, Morocco are also very narrow, leaving space out wide

which is their way of luring the opposition into a trap.

But not only were these spaces in front of the defence incredibly difficult to penetrate,

Morocco made even the first pass as difficult for the opposition as possible.

Seville Striker En Nesyri wouldn t man mark the oppositions holding midfielder, but would

constantly shift to ensure the centrabacks couldn t easily pass the ball forward, and

if by chance they were able to move it forward, the two midfielders were always correctly

positioned to force a pass backwards.

This structure would force the opposition to immediately play the ball out wide or attempt

harder to execute plays such as long switches in play, but all this did was play into moroccos

favour, with the team having their most dynamic and aggressive players in zyech and hakimi

on the right, and mazroui and boufal on the left, ready to close down the opposition,

and if winning the ball back had the pace and technical ability to instantly create

dangerous counter attacks.

Now its also important to note that while Morocco certainly played with a defence first

mentality, it was far from what is commonly referred to as parking the bus.

The defensive line wasn t too deep, and the midfield was quick to close down any player

in the centre.

In the quarter final, Portugal would often shift into a 3-2 build-up pattern, with moroccos

midfielders adapting to this change and man marking the the double pivot, again forcing

play out wide.

Given this Compact central block, the opposition would often struggle to get their key players

on the ball, leading a rather interesting effect.

Lets take their Quarterfinal clash as an example.

Portugals main playstile involved getting their creative players such as Bruno fernandes

and Bernardo silva on the ball between the lines, forcing the oppositions defenders to

make a choice and eventually trying to free up space for Felix, Ramos or Dalot on the

overlap.

However their inability to do so given morocco s defensive discipline, led to frustration

for the midfielders who are used to setting the tempo for their team, and, in attempt

to be more useful, would find themselves dropping deeper and deeper to receive the ball from

the centrebacks, at times ending up with 5 players behind the ball.

While this is a good way of getting key players on the ball, it completely limits a teams

attacking power, as now they can t easily outnumber the defence, meaning Morocco don

t have to make a choice on which space to cover.

And also results in the opposition being completely disjointed, resorting to long balls over the

midfield hoping to win any knockdowns, again playing into morocco s favour as now they

have the space to attack forward.

And pick out their more dangerous players.

The clash of new vs old was at its peak in the last 16 clash against spain, with Morocco

winning the game on penalties.

The 2010 World champions ended the game with 76.8% possession and twice the amount of shots

compared to Morocco, but the quality of chances tells a lot, with spain averaging an xG of

only .5 compared to moroccos .4, showing moroccos ability to limit oppositions chances to a

few pot shots from low risk areas.

The semifinal against France allowed us to see a different side to Morocco, as they found

themselves 1-0 down early on and were forced to play more aggressive offensive football

compared to what we are used to seeing.

And while they weren t able to find a net, they had France on the back foot for long

periods of the match and played some beautiful quick football that we were yet to witness

this world cup.

Eventually, the individual quality on display proved to much for the first African semifinalists,

but have certainly left their mark on football tactics.

While modern offensive minded managers have been largely inspired by offensive tactics

from the 50s and 70s, Morocco and Regragui have proven that the same can be applied to

defensive tactics, taking elements from the catenaccio in the 60s, and zonal marking from

the 80s to create a modern twist on the defensive block, sprinkled in with trending tactics

such as a higher defensive line and offensive fullbacks on attack.

So, while They might not have won the world cup, Morocco certainly entertained everyone

who watched them play, and there s reason to believe that this could spark a new trend

in tactics, showing that any well organised team can put even the best footballing nations

into tricky situations.

And now let me know what you think.

What did you make of moroccos world cup run, and do you think a change in tactics is on

its way?

Let me know in the comments down below.

So in this video we took a brief look at the evolution of tactics, if you haven t seen

it yet, you should check out my first ever video on how football tactics have evolved

over the past century and how each generation has added their own twist to football tactics.

As always if you enjoy this content then please leave a like and subscribe for more, thanks

for watching!