Gerald Baumgartner at Ried 2019/20 – tactical analysis

With an impressive 9:0 victory on the final matchday of the second Austrian division, Ried managed to finish in the first position and therefore get promoted to the Austrian Bundesliga. Even though there were several problems within the club, the team of head coach Gerald Baumgartner managed to find their way back into the highest Austrian division.

Ahead of the final matchday, Ried and Austria Klagenfurt had both 61 points, but only the club which is able to finish in the first position get promoted to the Austrian Bundesliga. The team of Baumgartner had a better goal difference with +25 compared to Klagenfurt’s +24. Therefore, it was clear that if they get the same or better result than Klagenfurt, they will finish in the first position. With their incredible 9:0 victory on the final matchday, they kept the lead and then some.

In this tactical analysis, we will look at the tactics of Ried under Baumgartner, how they managed to win the Austrian second division and therefore what we can expect from them in the upcoming months in the Austrian Bundesliga.

System

As we will see in this analysis of Baumgartner’s philosophy, it’s way more about certain tactics, patterns and ideas than about strict formations. For all four phases of the game, the Austrian coach gives his team a plan or several ideas how they should behave, but none are always very strictly connected to a certain formation nor does the positioning of the players stay the same throughout the game in all four different phases.

Still, he has a clear favourite when it comes to the basic structure or system and that is the 4-2-3-1 which he used 59% times in this season followed by the 4-4-2 (8%), 3-4-1-2 (8%) and 4-3-1-2 (7%). Those formations are in general those which we will see the most in this tactical analysis on Baumgartner’s philosophy. Below, we can see the most used formations of Ried in 2019/20.

Next, we will look at their tactics in all four phases of the game, starting with their own possession phase.

Controlled and structured build-up with variability in the final third

The build-up patterns and offensive qualities are probably the aspects of Ried which helped them the most to get promoted. They scored 73 goals in 30 league games and FC Liefering (RB Salzburg’s second squad) is the only team in the league to also score that much.