The line of three is crooked for Gracia in Valencia

“We have been a team that has kept our drawing a lot and the characteristics of the players is what gives it a style.” This was Javi Gracia's response last Wednesday when he was questioned about a possible change in the system in Orriols, which is what he had worked on that morning in Paterna. Gracia tried to play the distraction, but the one who did not fool was Paco López, who in just 5 minutes, caught the registration of the line of three of Valencia and began a siege to the goal of Cillessen that lasted until the goal by Roger Martí.

The change of system turned out to be a frog for Gracia. It already happened against Sevilla in Mestalla and was repeated in Orriols. Both matches ended in defeat and by the same result, one to zero in favor of the opponent. On this occasion, the game between the lines of Rochina, Bardhi and De Frutos and the movements behind Diakhaby by Roger and Morales showed the defensive gaps of Valencia, which in the construction of the game was also an orphan.

Diakhaby (66), Gabriel Paulista (64) Y Hugo Guillamón (49)The three center-backs were the players who made the most passes and also the ones who missed the most (12 heads one, including one from Diakhaby who led the Levante goal). From Gracia's approach, beyond the system, two aspects were surprising: Diakhaby's location as a central reference, when Hugo Guillamón had a better ball exit and Levante did not play with any corpulent striker either; and the meters of distance between the centrals, given that Lato and Correia acted as lanes almost in the middle line and thus Guillamón and Gabriel were positioned closer to the touch line than to the central axis.

The problems when it comes to starting the game are seen by analyzing the passing matrix of the black and white centrals. 43% of the 180 passes made by Diakhaby, Gabriel and Guillamón were between them, that is, horizontally. Among the three, they only gave 17 passes to Oliva (9.4%) and 16 to Daniel Wass (8.8%). They also did not find an escape route to the pressure from Levante through the right lane occupied by Thierry Correia, to which they only gave 10 passes (5.5%) and something else they did find, mainly Hugo Guillamón, Lato (22 passes received from the centrals). , 14 from Guillamón, 12.2% of the 180 passes of the centrals).

Gabriel Paulista, with 10, was the black and white who most times successfully tried to break Levante lines with long passes. Its recipients were Guedes and Gameiro. The Portuguese was the player that the black-and-white centrals encountered the most times in terms of the offensive trident that Gracia raised in Orriols (Guedes, Kang-in and Gameiro). Usually, Guedes was the attacker who received the most balls from the group (32), by Kang-in Lee's 19 and Kevin Gameiro's 18.

Despite the obvious short-circuit that Valencia suffered with the three-center system, both in defense in the first half and in the offensive start, Grace did not modify the drawing until minute 76, when Alex Blanco was introduced by Hugo Guillamón. Only then did he go on to play with his usual line of four on defense. This despite the fact that in minute 64 he made his first substitution: Manu Vallejo for Kang-in Lee. Even the center-back chosen to be substituted drew attention, given that Diakhaby had seen a yellow card in the 61st minute.