Who Is Paolo Vanoli?
Though he’s only in his second first-team managerial role, Venezia boss Paolo Vanoli is no newcomer to coaching.
The 51-year-old Serie B manager is a former Italy youth coach and assistant manager to the senior Italian national team, as well as having served as Antonio Conte’s technical coach during his tenures at EPL giants Chelsea (beginning in 2017) and Serie A giants Internazionale (from 2019 to 2021), respectively.
He was part of an FA Cup-winning backroom team with Chelsea, as well as a Serie A-winning Inter side in 2020/21, who also managed to finish as runner-up in the UEFA Europa League that season.
After taking on his first manager role with Spartak Moscow in 2021/22 — guiding them to Russian Cup glory — Vanoli was called upon to take charge of floundering Venezia in Serie B, with the newly-relegated side having a disastrous start to the 2022/23 campaign, which saw them in the relegation zone of the second-tier at the time Conte’s former assistant arrived.
Vanoli oversaw a significant turn in fortunes last season when he took over, ultimately guiding his team to an eighth-place finish — still below where I Leoni Alati would like to be in the second tier, but a respectable finish given the context of their awful start to the campaign.
Venezia’s upward trajectory has continued under Vanoli tactics in the 2023/24 season.
Now, at the time of writing, which is just before the midway point of the season, they sit second on the table, just two points off Parma, threatening to be in all of the right conversations come the business end of the term should things continue progressing in the fashion they currently are.
Vanoli has instilled some clear principles in his side in all phases of play, as any coach will when given the time to really put their stamp down on their team.
The defensive principles he has brought to Venezia, in particular, have been effective and stimulating to watch put into practice on the pitch throughout his tenure in charge, which is where the focus of this tactical analysis piece will lie.
We will provide an in-depth analysis of Vanoli’s defensive tactics with Venezia in this piece, examining what the 51-year-old coach demands from his players out of possession and how the out-of-possession approach he advocates has been vital to the club’s success under his leadership over the past year.
Paolo Vanoli Tactics Basic defensive overview
Firstly, we will set the scene for you with a brief overview of Venezia’s defensive setup and some general statistics that indicate how they’ve performed in terms of keeping the ball out of their net this term.
Vanoli has been flexible in terms of shape, though his side has exclusively used four players in the backline.
However, we’ve seen plenty of 4-3-3 (or variations) as well as 4-4-2 and 4-2-3-1 on different occasions this term, so we’re really not looking at a formation-based system with Venezia, nor are we dealing with a three-centre-back setup.
Venezia have conceded the joint-second-fewest goals in Italy’s second-tier (16) at this point in the 2023/24 campaign and conceded the eighth-lowest xG (22.12).
Both of these numbers are respectable and point to the quality of the defensive setup that Vanoli has put in place.
Still, it’s clear from the numbers that I Leoni Alati have needed their goalkeepers to bail them out on a few occasions this season to ensure their actual defensive record bests their record on expected numbers and has them performing to a really high level.
Two goalkeepers have featured fairly heavily for Venezia this season: Bruno Bertinato and Jesse Joronen.
We see both stoppers’ respective shots faced in Serie B this term in Figure 1, with Bertinato on the left and Joronen on the right.
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