@EBL2017: Czech Republic play to their s...

Czech Republic play to their strengths.

Land of the giants.

Direct play, load the box where possible, long throws, etc.

When they get the ball down, they do so in a 3-2-5, but that is not a common theme.

Higher up, they used a diamond press, and it often forced South Korea to play long, but South Korea were extremely well drilled so they often played to one side, made the far side winger from Czech dig in, and then switched the play to find the fullback on the opposite side…

Technical teams can play through their press, especially because they use one wingback high and one wingback low, one of which is simply not as aggressive in their pressing intent as wingers are.

Plus, after playing through that pressure, the idea becomes even more exposed…

Miroslav Koubek wants his outside centre backs to be very aggressive to step out and press players dropping between the lines, often resulting in Czech defending man-to-man.

But South Korea kept dropping their #10's low.

The centre backs often just turned around & defended low.

Because of that, Czech were often man-oriented defensively but with the centre back passive, there was a constant spare man for South Korea to find, whether that be in front of, in between, or behind the block (when the outside centre backs jumped).

It led to the 2-1 defeat.