Marco Baroni has recently signed a two-year contract with Torino to lead the team for the next two seasons after he failed to lead Lazio to finish in one of the top six spots in last season’s Serie A standings.
This appointment follows the sacking of Paolo Vanoli, who failed to achieve impressive results with the team.
At the end of last season, Il Toro finished 11th in the standings, with 10 wins, 14 draws, and 14 losses.
Torino’s overall season was average, but given the potential of their players, it could have been better in terms of points.
Some of the squad’s players possess the necessary abilities but require more collective work, maturity, and diverse ideas to make the actual combination of players work better as a team and achieve better results.
It is worth noting that Baroni had a strong and convincing start to the season, both in Serie A and the UEFA Europa League, and continued to achieve positive results overall, until the latter part of the season, when I Biancoceleste were eliminated from the competition in the quarter-finals.
Lazio’s elimination from the UEFA Europa League impacted their Serie A results, especially their final matches, and that’s one reason for Baroni’s sacking.
At the same time, we cannot place all the blame on Baroni, considering that his side was not easy to beat, with draws against Inter Milan, Juventus, AS Roma, and Napoli, as well as wins against Atalanta away, AC Milan away, and Napoli away.
This confirms that Baroni was not a failing manager with Lazio but one with ups and downs that impacted the team’s long-term results.
This tactical analysis article on Baroni will present Baroni’s footballing ideas and tactics, and how they can suit Torino’s current team.
The analysis will explore Torino’s potential formation and player choices under Baroni’s management, with indications regarding possible improvements to make the team more competitive in Serie A next season.
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Marco Baroni: Attacking Ideas & Tactics
Baroni has not really settled at one team for a considerable period of time.
All his managerial history can confirm that Baroni has been developing and taking on new adventures almost every season.
At the same time, he has been climbing the ladder of Serie C, Serie B, and most recently, Serie A, while gaining valuable experience that served him during his spell at Lazio and will most likely serve him in his journey with Il Toro.
With Lazio, his most recent adventure, Baroni primarily used the 4-2-3-1 formation, with the 4-4-2 formation as an alternative.
He usually prefers the 4-2-3-1, especially when he finds the type of players needed to execute it the way he likes.
Marco Baroni Reliance On The Wings
Baroni is a head coach who consistently relies on a vertical style of football, focusing heavily on movement with and without the ball, as well as penetrations, particularly from both flanks.
Baroni also believes in intensifying his players’ presence on both flanks, especially inside the opponent’s third.
Pushing his players to resort to overlaps, penetrations, or crosses has been a characteristic of most teams coached by Baroni, as he usually opts for solutions from the wings to create the needed threats against his opponents.
Additionally, Baroni encourages the full-backs to advance and help achieve numerical superiority.
At the same time, the wingers penetrate centrally towards the box, creating more space for the full-backs to advance with less pressure.
Moreover, Baroni’s attacking system relies on powerful strikers, sometimes not just one main striker but also a second striker playing alongside or behind him.
Therefore, Baroni alternates between using an advanced playmaker and a striker, and relying on two strikers, as he did with Lazio, utilising both Valentín Castellanos and Boulaye Dia.
However, in the context of Torino, things might change depending on the quality of the team’s attacking players.
Marco Baroni 4-2-4 Formation
Marco Baroni often attacks using a 4-2-4 formation and utilises two strikers to help achieve his attacking goals.
He then retreats to a 4-4-2 formation to secure the defensive line with an additional midfield player.
This formation helped Lazio achieve many positive results, especially during the first half of the season, and made Baroni’s side more powerful.
The following graphic illustrates Baroni’s preferred playing system when in possession of the ball.
That said, Baroni himself had previously confirmed that he started relying on the 4-2-3-1 formation more often, while switching to the 4-4-2 formation (or the 4-2-4 formation when attacking) whenever the player characteristics at his disposal allowed him to do so.
Marco Baroni Build-Up Style
In terms of build-up from the back, it is essential to note that Baroni relies heavily on starting attacks with short passes from the goalkeeper, rather than long passes to strikers.
Moreover, he usually changes the playing system during the build-up by pushing the two full-backs forward and dropping one of the midfielders back to form a line consolidated by a midfielder, which helps initiate the action properly from the back while ensuring the presence of his players on both flanks.
This means that Baroni transforms his formation into a sort of 3-3-4 formation, with a midfielder like Nicolò Rovella dropping back with the defensive line and full-backs advancing into the opponent’s half.
This helps absorb the opponent’s initial press and immediately launches a quick attack thanks to accurate vertical passes.
This style helped Lazio escape difficult pressing situations and create numerous dangerous opportunities per game.
Furthermore, Baroni’s Lazio showed last season that the team always tries to advance quickly, using a vertical approach that destroys the opponent’s high pressing and helps them reach the goal faster.
Baroni will most likely adopt the same approach with Torino, but he needs to find the most suitable players to apply his quick vertical building-up system with as few errors as possible.
Marco Baroni In-Game Position Changes
Baroni demonstrated during his experiences with Hellas Verona and Lazio that he frequently switches positions during the game, particularly when constructing attacks.
The priority is always to create space on the wings, but the method differs each time.
Another tactic Baroni uses to attract opponents and free up spaces for full-backs and wingers is removing one of the two midfielders to become a left-back (and not a centre-back this time).
Becoming a left-back automatically attracts one of the opposing midfielders.
It helps find space for the main left-back, who advances to join the winger either by overlapping or by penetrating if the winger is leaning towards the touchline.
To summarise this idea, we can argue that Baroni considers the full-backs as his first line of attacking support for the strikers.
That’s why he usually tries to replace them with midfielders or defenders, so that they can advance freely and get the needed space to help, whether with playmaking or goal-scoring.
The two midfielders attract the opponent’s initial high pressure, allowing them to launch their quick vertical attacks.
Marco Baroni Player Choices At Torino
To begin with, Marco Baroni will certainly not have the same level of players he had at Lazio, as Torino still lack the quality needed in some positions to compete with more potential to achieve better results.
Nevertheless, Baroni can achieve results.
For the goalkeeper position, Vanja Milinković-Savić is one of the best goalkeepers in Serie A at the moment, and it would not be a wise decision to let him go or not rely on him this season.
Defensively, Perr Schuurs and Guillermo Maripán already represent a powerful duo, with Saúl Coco and Sebastian Walukiewicz as backup options.
Although Torino can work on upgrading this centre-back duo, confirming both players for next season with two backup options would be acceptable, knowing that Coco might be leaving the team and therefore should be replaced by a defender with the same, if not better, traits.
For now, Torino are trying to get the services of Ardian Ismajli, and that’s not a bad choice for Baroni’s centre-back role, especially for a backup spot.
For the right-back, Valentino Lazaro will most likely confirm his presence as a starter.
However, a backup option will be needed for the right-back role, as it will be complicated for Lazaro to remain the one and only right-back option throughout the season.
Cristiano Biraghi can be a backup option for the left-back position, but not a starting player.
Baroni requires more speed, agility, and the ability to advance and drop back frequently during the game, which Biraghi risks executing with less efficiency than required.
If Torino do not sign a left-back, Adam Masina will battle with Biraghi for a starting role.
However, this lack of quality in the left-back position may cause problems for Baroni’s playing system in the short term.
In midfield, it is no secret that Torino will soon lose Samuele Ricci‘s services to Milan and will, therefore, need to rely on promising players like Cesare Casadei and Adrien Tameze for the midfield duo.
Both players can complement each other, with Tameze probably deserving more playing time.
It is also rumoured that Torino are interested in Matteo Pessina, and that would be a very suitable choice for Marco Baroni, too, as Pessina is a technically gifted player with outstanding vision, passing skills, and intelligence.
The only concern is his high injury rate, which can render him unavailable for a significant portion of the season.
Let’s not forget that Torino also have Gvidas Gineitis and Ivan Ilić, who can be rotation players for the central midfield position.
However, none of them is capable of successfully interpreting the deep-lying playmaker in the way Rovella did with Baroni at Lazio—a potential issue for the Torino squad in adapting to Baroni’s tactics completely, unless a new midfielder is brought in to fulfil this role.
Ché Adams and Nikola Vlašić are the two players who can play the advanced playmaker position.
Adams plays almost alongside Duván Zapata as a second striker, and Vlašić is more of an attacking midfielder, but not really with the quality needed to upgrade Torino’s attacking performances.
Given that Marco Baroni prefers to opt for inverted wingers, it will be crucial to sign two quality wingers to help create the necessary threat with cuts inside, shooting from distance, and especially the ability to dribble with a high success rate.
For the striker role, Zapata is a convincing choice who can even play better in the system.
He is an experienced Serie A striker and knows how to find the net.
That’s why Torino would only need to upgrade their backup option for the striker if they have the means to do so, as their actual backup option at the moment is Antonio Sanabria.
Conclusion
Baroni can lead Torino to considerable success compared to last season if he succeeds in building what is needed for his team to perform according to his principles.
With management’s support, signing his player needs can be very positive for Baroni at Torino, especially if they achieve good results in the first part of the season.
