Last week, John Aloisi said ‘no one ever mentions’ his tactics with Western United. aleagues.com.au breaks down his tactics heading into this weekend’s Isuzu UTE A-League Semi-Final.
“I know that tactically, I’ve got my teams in a certain way to play a certain style, and it’s very clear.”
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So, what are Aloisi’s tactics? What or who has shaped his coaching vision – one that has him ranked third on the Isuzu UTE A-League’s all-time list for wins in the competition’s 20-year history?
In his first season at Western – the club’s third in their existence, the Socceroos great delivered an historic title. It was a Championship built on experienced players and a win-now mentality.
The backbone of that campaign was Jamie Young (36), Aleksandar Prijovic (32), Leo Lacroix (30), Tomoki Imai (31), Neil Kilkenny (36), Steven Lustica (31) and Alessandro Diamanti (39). Then throw in Nikolai Topor-Stanley (37), Ben Garuccio (27) and Josh Risdon (29).
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Aloisi had to tailor his approach that season, which featured fewer goals but a stingy defence – the second-best in the league.
Fast forward to now and this iteration of Western United is more reflective of Aloisi’s philosophy. With a younger demographic headlined by academy graduates and young guns – the Semi-Finalists are quicker, ruthless in front of goal, entertaining and able to press for longer.
This season, Western broke club records for most goals, most wins and most points in an Isuzu UTE A-League season among others.
They have been spearheaded by 23-year-old star Noah Botic with a career-high 15 goals, while teenage sensation Dylan Leonard (17), Rhys Bozinovski (21), Abel Walatee (21) and Matthew Grimaldi (21) have also been instrumental, along with Angus Thurgate (25).
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“You learn so much through your playing career but also after you stop playing, coaching, watching more football, watching teams do well and not so well,” Aloisi told aleagues.com.au previously. “Okay, what are the reasons why?
“Everyone wanted to replicate Barcelona and you go, okay they’re going through a stage that these players have been brought up like that since the age of 8-9-10 whatever it is, so they’re able to play that kind of football.
“You look at Real Madrid and I looked at (Carlo) Ancelotti a lot and see how he’s been able to achieve success with the groups he’s had. I read his books and he started to become more flexible after his first stint at Reggiana and then I think Parma. He was not flexible enough with certain players and then went to Juventus and realised he needed to be more flexible with certain players. He liked to play a 4-4-2 system that was it. If you don’t play within that way, you can’t play in his team.
“Through his career, you’ve seen he’s done that (adapted). When you’re watching an Ancelotti team, you know they can play a different way also depending on the way the opposition sets up.
“Yes, we want to play on the front foot. Yes, we want to be aggressive with and without the ball but there’s certain times you’re aggressive with or without the ball and the opposition are just going to play long every single time. There’s other times you might be setting them up into a false sense of security into an area. I like that side of analysing opposition.
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“We don’t go away from our way of playing and our principles.
“You have to cover all aspects of your game. How you are going to build up from your back third against teams who might press in different ways? How are you going to build up when the team sit in a mid third? How are you going to build up when the team sit in a deep block? How are you going to counter all that, because you have to. One team might press against you, one team might sit off against you and one team might be in that half-half.
“How are you going to do it against a team who overplays it at the back? How are you going to press? And all your transitional moments. People underestimate transitions in games.
“I watched Ange’s team. I’ve followed his career and spoken a lot to Ange (Postecoglou). Yes, Ange has his key principles which is what we do as well, but if you saw Son’s (Heung-min) last goal against (Everton in January), they were all defending in their back third. (Micky) Van de Ven won the ball and then they go bang on the counter. Son was deep in his own half.
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“Everyone goes but ‘oh Ange likes to play…’. Yes he has 60-70% of the ball but he also knows how to be in a position when they have to defend, they have to defend as a group. He gets his players to work really hard as a defensive unit. But when they win the ball, how can we go forward quickly?
“With my team, when we win the ball – can we go forward? How are we going to go forward? Sometimes you might play against opposition who won’t be allow you to have as much possession but you can still be strong with and without the ball. You can dominate the game with and without the ball.”
