Chris de Graaf’s High-Octane Advantage: How SV Spakenburg conquered the Tweede Divisie with fast-paced football – tactical analysis

Fans of Dutch football will fondly remember the 2022/23 KNVB Cup when SV Spakenburg of the 3rd tier Tweede Divisie became the first amateur team to qualify for the semi-finals of the cup. Fast-forward to this campaign, which just passed, and Spakenburg continued to write headlines. 

The club is managed by Chris de Graaf, who played for the club during his playing career, guiding Spakenburg to the Tweede Divisie title with their 82-point haul, a record for this level. This tactical analysis will provide an analysis of de Graaf’s tactics with the amateur side as they look ahead to competing in the Eerste Divisie next season. 

Preferred formation & overview

When it comes to how Chris de Graaf looks to set Spakenburg up, the 36-year-old tends to favour a 4-3-3 formation, but this will tend to look different over the course of matches. At times, this shape will alter into a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-1-4-1, but the same basic principles that the Dutch coach has instilled stay relatively similar. When it comes to positional rotations, this is quite common for Spakenburg, with one of de Graaf’s main possession principles being quick and incisive combination play, usually resulting from movement in advanced areas that drags opponents out of position and opens up gaps to play through, but more on that in a little bit. 

Spakenburg tend to prefer a possession-oriented style of play under de Graaf, but they are not afraid to go direct towards their target #9 if it is the more feasible option to progress play. It would be wrong to suggest that Spakenburg is patient in their build-up; however, de Graaf’s side is looking to quickly progress the ball into the advanced areas when in possession. The full-backs look to get forward in attack and tend to stay wide, with the wingers normally being the players who invert into more central attacking positions, but the roles of these two sets of players will sometimes be reversed. Statistically, Spakenburg were the best attacking and best defensive side in the Tweede Divisie in the 2023/24 season. 

Use of quick ball movement to progress play into the final third 

One of the main principles in Chris de Graaf’s style of play at Spakenburg is, without a doubt, the quick and intelligent ball progression when in possession, with the use of combination play and off-the-ball movements in advanced areas critical to this tactic. 

The data viz graphic above shows the progressive passes of Spakenburg this season in all competitions, with the arrows highlighted in pink showing progressive passes that went into the penalty area, as we can see, while Spakenburg statistically have the 4th highest average ball possession in the Tweede Divisie (53.6%), a lot of the distribution from the goalkeeper has gone direct, focused on finding the centre-forward, with the Spakenburg midfielders collapsing in the midfield to concentrate on winning the second ball. 

However, they will build with their centre-backs, though the ball progression is quick, with Spakenburg prioritising verticality over horizontal ball movement. As we can also gather from the graphic, the Dutch side tend to progress the ball into the penalty area from the wide areas of the half spaces, usually delivered into the box by either the wingers or advanced full-backs. Spakenburg averaged 15.16 crosses per 90 minutes this season in the Tweede Divisie, with their 36% accuracy on crosses the second highest in the Dutch third tier.