How Dick Schreuder is ensuring PEC Zwolle are brilliantly entertaining on their way to promotion – tactical analysis

PEC Zwolle is a highly respected Dutch football club with a dedicated fan base and a proud history.

The club’s most successful period came in the mid-1970s when they won the Dutch Cup in 1977 and reached the final again in 1978. In recent years, the club has had a resurgence and won the Dutch Cup again in 2014, as well as reaching the final of the same competition in 2015.

Zwolle suffered relegation from the Eredivisie last season as they finished rock bottom, having only picked up 27 points all season. This came as a bitter disappointment to the club as they had achieved a reasonable mid-table finish in the 2020/21 season and were looking to build on that. Current manager Dick Schreuder (brother of Alfred Schreuder, who most recently struggled to follow in the footsteps of Erik ten Hag at Ajax) has been in his post since November 2021 with the club showing great faith in his abilities to guide them back to the Eredivisie.

Schreuder is gaining many plaudits from fans for the stylish and wonderfully fluid football that he has brought to PEC Zwolle. With the team currently occupying first place in the Eerste Divisie, three points ahead of second-placed Heracles, now is a great time to look into the style of football that has propelled the team to the top of the table and that so many Zwolle fans have enjoyed watching this season.

This tactical analysis will look into Schreuder’s tactics at Zwolle and assess precisely why they have been so successful during the current campaign and are on course to bounce back into the top flight at the first time of asking. 

Data analysis and preferred formations

Before we begin this analysis, let’s take a look at what we can infer from the data behind PEC Zwolle’s impressive season so far. Let’s take a look at the pizza chart which shows us Zwolle’s percentile rankings compared to their divisional rivals. We can clearly see that Schreuder’s team excels in a lot of areas.

Firstly we can see they are one of the best-performing teams in terms of goals per 90, however, there is a slight underperformance compared to their number of expected goals. We can also see that under Schreuder, Zwolle likes to play something of a high-pressing game as their percentile rankings are high in terms of their high press success, PPDA and recoveries per 90.