Alberto Aquilani: Why his De Zerbi-like philosophy with Fiorentina U19s makes him a promising coach for the future – tactical analysis

Alberto Aquilanis career promised to be one of the most interesting in Italy, being one of the midfielders with the most potential of the decade when he began to show his talent at AS Roma. After a brief stint at Liverpool, expectations and reality began to decline and he did not fulfil the great potential that was expected of him. However, he always showed details of his technical quality, which was what he stood out in the middle of the pitch for, but also for his pressure retention, good treatment of the ball and a lot of calm.

When he retired as a player after a season in Spain, with UD Las Palmas, Aquilani was 34 years old at the time. Just a year later, he began his coaching career, living his first experience as head coach of Fiorentina U18s and then as Giuseppe Iachinis assistant coach in the Fiorentina first team. In 2020, he was appointed as the coach of the Fiorentina U19s team and is the manager of the said team to this day in the Campionato Primavera, the Serie A youth league.

Throughout almost three years, he has served as coach of the youth team in more than 80 games, standing out with his fast, fluid and dynamic possession style, as well as rotational in his formations and player roles, in which he has found a lot of resemblance to Roberto de Zerbi in what the Brighton manager has been showing in his latest experiences as a professional coach.

We are going to carry out a tactical analysis, of what Aquilani has shown as a coach, his tactics both in the offensive and defensive phases, and how interesting his coaching ideas have turned out to be.

Attracting pressure from deep

One of the first things that stand out about Alberto Aquilanis philosophy is how his team seeks to draw attraction from the first line of passing, usually using their goalkeeper or central defenders to progress through the central channels. There are many times in which the players in these positions, as well as full-backs, keep the ball at their feet for several seconds waiting for rival jumps to create spaces to pass the ball behind the rival backs.

All this first draws attention because of the similarity to what Roberto de Zerbi has and is looking for in his tactics: The players even step on the ball to invite the pressure to come, thus making the rival create spaces where if the pass can be connected well and there is a subsequent fast-combination, they will progress very easily and the team will raise its position to the last third with great dynamism and speed.

This can be seen in the first phase of game creation for Aquilanis Fiorentina, normally with three players at the base and the goalkeeper. The right-back joins the central line in order to create superiority against teams that defend with two or equalise against others that look to press with three players up front.

The use of three players in the first line of passes, in this case, the centre-backs, have similar roles with some differences. The full-back who tucks into the line can advance meters into space to support in combinations, while the central centre-back and the left centre-back seek more of these types of attractions and on some occasions, there may be rotations between them.

As we can see in the image above, it is the common positioning of Fiorentina U19s, at least in the current Campionato Primavera campaign. A back three in the first phase of possession that the players have integrated with great intelligence and understanding among themselves to make it dynamic.