La Liga 2 2021/22: The road that Paco Jémez has taken to transform UD Ibiza – tactical analysis

When talking about positional football, people think that it requires high-quality players to execute the tactics, such as Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City, Barcelona, and Bayern Munich. However, this is not something luxury for the big clubs only, since smaller teams might also play in that way if the clubs believed in the coach, including Graham Potter’s Östersunds FK and Brighton, Henrik Rydström’s Kalmar FF, Maurizio Sarri at Empoli and Roberto De Zerbi at Sassuolo if we recall the old days.

In Spain, Paco Jémez is another coach who embraced such kind of playing philosophy and who is also highly respected by Guardiola. At the end of 2021, he was appointed as the UD Ibiza head coach and given a contract until the end of the season. The club impressed with three consecutive victories after the arrival of Jémez, with score lines such as 6-2 and 5-0.

This tactical analysis will give an outline on what the new Ibiza looks like. Within one month, Jémez implemented structures, movements, and concepts to build a dynamic team, which was interesting.

Build-up, second phase & chance creation

In the first three games, Jémez played his side in a 4-2-3-1 with an almost unchanged lineup. David Goldar and Juan Ibiza played paired up as the centre-backs, with Miguel Cifuentes and Gonzalo Escobar as the full-backs. The midfield trio was formed by Pape Diop, Javi Lara, and Miguel Ángel Guerrero, except in the Málaga game, Lara was replaced by Manu Molina. The wingers were Mateusz Bogusz and Cristian Herrera, but we might see Miki Villar playing more because the Leeds United loanee suffered from a cruciate ligament rupture lately. Sergio Castel was the striker who started all games.

In the construction of the attack, the core was the four deep players in the centre as they must be deep. In the build-up, the full-backs mostly provide the width in the wide zones. Cifuentes was deeper in the first game but then Ibiza went out on the left side more often in the other two games. We must mention Escobar’s impressive performance against Málaga as the 24-year-old Argentine was dynamic with his movements and decisions.

Initially, the shape of Ibiza was a 2-2 because that was natural from their formation. However, the 6s was not moving behind the first line to receive the ball, and most of the time one of them would drop out as a half centre-back or as the third centre-back to receive. That also created a “+1” advantage against teams pressing with two strikers (3v2). But that 3v2 can also be formed by the goalkeeper as Álex Domínguez was required to participate in the attack as well. The above image shows Ibiza were able to bypass the first pressing line because the centre-back used the maximum width of the pitch. Then, finding Diop in the centre.