In the previous article we tackled the false 9. Now lets head on to another tactical staple of the modern era, the dangerous “Inverted Wingers”. If Messi epitomizes the false 9, then his challenger for the best player of the world Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the finest inverted wingers out there.
Before we go to inverted wingers, lets first understand what a winger is. Wide midfielders play generally about mid-way between the strikers and defenders. They are stationed on their stronger foot. Right midfielders will have a strong right foot and vice versa. They use their stamina to both help out in defense and then run up the pitch to cross in the balls for the strikers.
Wingers on the other hand play much further up the field. Closer to the strikers and often just in front of the opposing full backs. They are generally faster, better dribblers and often try to go past their marker and get behind the opposition defense allowing strikers to run into space.
Inverted winger is fundamentally a simple concept. Instead of putting a left footed winger on the left, play him on the right. While this is a counter-intuitive tactic, (I mean, come on! How can you put him on his weaker foot! Most wingers don’t have another foot! *cough* Bale *cough*) it is surprising deadly.
“Why?”, you ask. Well the end goal is the same as a false 9 – dragging the opposition out of position. Since an inverted winger’s on the wrong wing, he invariably runs inside towards the goal. If the full back follows him, it opens a huge gap for any other player – a supporting midfielder, the wingback, etc. – to exploit. On the other hand, if the defender does not follow him inside two things happen.
- The center back is dragged out of position allowing the striker space to run into.
- The center back does not move out of position giving the inverted winger time to unleash a drive from a long range. This particular scenario is from where a large number of Cristiano Ronaldo’s goals come from, shrugging off the full back, cutting in and unleashing his monster long range shots.
Real Madrid and Bayern Munich are two teams who almost exclusively utilize this tactic, Di Maria/ Ronaldo and Robben/ Ribery using their pace, trickery and range of passing to destroy teams.
The Champions League semi-final between the two teams proved to be a fascinating contest. However, it also showed the big flaw in this particular system. As both the wingers cut in, the width had to come from the wing backs. Often they got caught high up the pitch leaving the defense under-manned. Both goals conceded by Real Madrid came down their left flank with Marcelo and Cristiano Ronaldo caught up the field leaving the defense stranded.
While the inverted wingers as a tactic can be debated ad nauseam. The key thing to keep in mind is that this tactic is most effective when counter attacking at a rapid pace when the defense is already on the backfoot.
On a side note, the tie of the Champions League (Manchester United VS Real Madrid) will be an excellent display of traditional wingers facing off against inverted wingers. It will not be too much of a stretch to say that the team which controls the wings will proceed to the next round.
