Ernesto Valverde is likely to be appointed as manager of Athletic Club Bilbao for the third time.
Jon Uriarte won the Basque club’s presidential elections on Friday and, as promised, is looking to re-appoint their former player and manager on a rumoured two-year contract.
Valverde began his career as a manager of Bilbao’s youth teams, working his way through the B team and then becoming the Head Coach for the first time in 2003.
The former Barcelona manager will be best remembered for his second spell in charge of the club when he replaced Marcelo Bielsa in 2013.
They qualified for the Champions League during this spell, reaching the competitions group stages.
They reached the 2015 Copa del Rey Final losing to Barcelona, 3–1 and they won their first trophy in thirty-one years after a 5–1 aggregate defeat of Barcelona for the Supercopa de España
The second half of the season has been an unsettled time for Bilbao.
With Marcelino Garcia Toral’s contract expiring and him then announcing there was a 50% chance that he wouldn’t be here next season, a period of uncertainty had started to develop amongst the club fanbase.
So, the return of the Valverde has been a welcome boost and will bring some excitement back amongst the supporters.
This article will be a tactical analysis of Ernesto Valverde’s time in charge at San Mamés.
We will provide an in-depth analysis of the tactics used in the defensive and attacking phases of play and show Bilbao’s fans what they will likely see the third time.
Ernesto Valverde Tactical approach
Throughout his second spell in charge at the club, Ernesto Valverde preferred a traditional 4-2-3-1 formation.
He has been known to show flexibility within his formation choices and will often choose a formation to suit the players he has at his disposal.
When he took over from Marcel Bielsa in 2013, he immediately set out to make the team more solid defensively and made the 4-2-3-1 his go-to tactic.
Each season he was in charge, the rate at which he deployed this system increased.
- Athletic Club Bilbao formations used for the 2015-2016 season.
- Athletic Club Bilbao formations used for the 2016-2017 season.
You can see from the graphs above that in his final two seasons at the club he used the 4-2-3-1 formation in 77% and 83% of the games they played.
The 4-
