How Castellón exploited Atlético Baleares's defensive weaknesses

It was another three points for Castellón on Sunday after overcoming Atlético Baleares, with back-to-back goals from Jesús De Miguel and Raul Sanchez enough to seal the deal. The first half in particular was arguably as good as any from the Albinegres this season, as they took advantage of Atlético’s defensive frailties in transition and under pressure to leave them no chance.

Exploiting the spacing in transition

It only took two minutes for Castellón to break open the Mallorcan side in transition, although Isra Suero couldn’t finish off the golden opportunity. The play itself was a thing of beauty from a tactical perspective, with the Castellón forwards perfectly placed to give Baleares the most problems, as seen below. Aligned exactly in between the back line, Granero could had plenty of options to play the ball to. Also notice how far wide Raul Sánchez is on the right, in order to stretch out the defence as much as possible.

In the end, the ball is played to De Miguel, as Isra Suero drifts off the back off his defender into the space between the centre back and the full back. Notice the distance between Suero and his defender at the start (below) and how easily he pulls off the back as the Atlético player doesn’t track him. This causes Castellón’s attacking midfielder to end up in a huge amount of space, as the left sided centre back has to follow Adri Fuentes (replacing De Miguel in the middle). Suero is then ball side of the left back, and gets his chance.

Only about seven minutes later, more spacing problems give Castellón a dangerous counter attack, as Javi Anton makes a great run from his own half, going inside the full back, to give Suero two options to play in. The spacing issue here is that the middle of the three Baleares defenders needs to come out much faster to close down, he shouldn’t be running backwards given the options Suero has available. The risk of Suero dribbling past him was minimal given how compact the three defenders were. Allowing such a creative player so much time to play the ball could have cost Atlético a second goal, but unfortunately for Castellón he couldn’t play the pass correctly.

Castellón pressing forces the mistake

Also on show in this match was Castellón’s pressing, especially in the first half with fresh legs. Not content with allowing Atlético to build up play after scoring, Castellón immediately went for the throat, which forced the mistake and lead to the quick second goal.

Full back Laure finds the pass out of the first press, but Suero’s pressure causes the second pass which was easily read and intercepted by Manu Sánchez. That was the beginning of the end, as Atlético were already badly out of position, with almost all their players concentrated on the right side of the pitch.

You have to appreciate the cross by Manu Sánchez, and once it found Raul, it was an open goal as the goalkeeper was also totally focused on the threat from the right. If one had to criticise, Laure (number two) should have probably stayed back to mark Raul, but equally he was understandably trying to play the interception. Ultimately what caused that goal was Castellón’s original pressing to force the mistake.

Second half defensive improvements

Atlético Baleares did a much better job in the second half, and didn’t quite allow Castellón do to what they did in the first. The Mallorcan side pressed a lot higher (essentially full pitch), and in the sequence below, even though Castellón successfully evade the press and transition forward quickly, Baleares regroup well and defuse the situation. Laure does a good job of switching to track the inside run of Kochorashvili, and they do enough to hold up Castellón and intercept.

Offensively and pressing-wise, Castellón also stepped off the gas a little, which helped allow Atlético back into the game. Eventually they did find the net, and give Castellón some uncomfortable moments down the stretch.

Ultimately, Castellón exploited exactly the weaknesses I outlined in my pre-match analysis, but it seems, at least based on the second half, that Baleares manager Tato could be making some progress towards shoring up his team’s defence.