Mitchell took a risk and Olympiacos didn’t have a Plan B Blog – Vassilis Samprakos

Vassilis Sambrakos writes about the Spanish coach’s strategy that “did not work”, but also about the lack of a “trampled path” that Olympiacos could follow, which Corbrán never devised.

In the big picture, this year’s Olympiacos is a three-man side – a team that’s had a new coach for 15 days. Therefore, it is a team that has not yet managed to become a team because it is constantly changing – coaches and players. So any discussion of the analysis What happened to him in the Qarabagh match?who has had a coach for 14 years, should have that introduction.

Mitchell, a coach who learned to do well with Olympiacos in European competitions, set up this match influenced by his past but also by the idea that this match was his team’s last chance to create realistic hopes of moving forward in the next phase of the Europa League. . He weighed his opponent, apparently analyzed the strategy she followed at the European Games, and estimated that she had to map out the attacking mentality strategy in the first half. Logically, the Spanish coach assumed that this option was more beneficial than the option of patient play. He aimed for the lead in the score, to run it without consuming all his strength.

Whatever Mitchell plans did not work. In fact, all the risks of the strategy he chose came true. This is part of the nature of football. When weighing options, always consider the pros and cons. On Thursday night, the Olympiacos coach watched in the stadium – at the start and for the last half hour – all the “exhibitors”.

In the first half of the match, Imbila missed the midfield because he was chosen for the defensive line. Besides Impelas, pressure on the opposing ball carrier was also missing to prevent Olympiacos receiving balls at the back of their defensive line, which was set high. Olympiacos struggled but didn’t pay for it, and Mitchell saw it, cutting down the procedures he was putting his team on and collecting the spaces in his ranks, Olympiacos created his best breaks in the match. To create it, he had to sharpen his demeanor as much as he could. The choice came at a cost: his team’s image in the second half.

Against a team that played conservatively for most of the first half, Olympiacos put out a lot of energy without scoring a goal. And in the second half, when Karabakh ramped up its sharpness, Olympiacos had no way to “match” this sharpness. He began to get tired and at the same time began to become less dangerous, at the same time he began to make mistakes. Karabakh had the patience to wait for them, applied pressure to provoke them, and had the willingness to punish them.

Perhaps all of this would not have happened even if Mitchell had not succeeded in his plan. In what case? In the event that Olympiacos has “football”, the coach has the option of turning to it in order to give his players a sense of security. Olympiacos did not have a foothold on the one hand because they had no previous coaches and on the other hand because second-season coach Carlos Corberan did not insist on working on a particular competitive model. Kurban was lost, he did not remain in his principles, his principles were lost – after all, they were not created, so they were not left as a legacy to Olympiacos.

I had discussions with the coaches who took over a team, they started trials and each time they saw that they were not working, they went back, in the first period of their new tenure, to the “settings” of the previous coach so that the players could feel more familiar and “found” in this the field. Mitchell didn’t have that option in the second half against Karabagh.

Another coach in Mitchell’s position could have made a more conservative choice in terms of strategy. He may have started on less action, may not have put his side at full power for 30 minutes into the first half, and may have waited until 75′ or 80′ to attack while risking keeping his side balanced in both phases. Mitchell chose this strategy to win because he saw it as the best for his team. Whatever choice he makes, the reality will be the same: today’s Olympiacos is a team that changed three coaches and many players during the last quarter, and today Karabagh is a team that has had the same coach for 14 years. In other words, a team with very good players was playing with a team that had been in business for many years. Because football is a team game, the individual quality often cannot beat the team’s quality.