Urawa Red Diamonds havent enjoyed the best of starts to their J1 League campaign as they currently find themselves down in eighth place, nine points behind current leaders Vissel Kobe. It was announced in December 2022 that Maciej Skorża would take charge of The Reds ahead of the 2023 season.
Skorża’s managerial career has been incredibly eclectic thus far, after spending ten years working as a youth coach or an assistant manager. He was given his first taste of senior management in 2004 at the now-dissolved Polish club, Amica Wronki. Most recently, he guided Lech Poznań to the Ekstraklasa title in 2022.
Despite a questionable start in the league, Urawa Red Diamonds have already had a taste of success as they recently beat Saudi Arabian team Al-Hilal to claim their third AFC Champions League title.
This tactical analysis will focus on the tactics that Skorża has brought to Urawa Red Diamonds and how they play out in game situations. We will perform an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of Skorża’s tactical setup and look at what the data tells us about how The Reds compare to their fellow J1 League teams.
Preferred formations
As we can see from the graphic above, Skorża mostly favours a 4-2-3-1 formation. He also has used a 4-4-2 set-up this season, mostly in the AFC Champions League, which we will talk about in this analysis. Urawa are not a heavily possession-based team. According to the statistics, they average 54.63% possession per 90 in the league this season. So, whilst they see slightly more possession than their opponents, we are not talking about a team that is emulating Manchester City or any Pep Guardiola team.
Interestingly, if we isolate the stats of the AFC Champions League final against Al-Hilal, it becomes apparent that Urawa Red Diamonds completely ceded possession. Over both legs, they averaged 29.84% possession, indicating that their game plan was centred around being a counter-attacking team.
