Allsvenskan 2021: Decoding the dynamic back three of Rikard Norling’s IFK Norrköping – tactical analysis

This season’s Allsvenskan has been exciting. While Djurgårdens IF, Malmö FF, IF Elfsborg and AIK Solna are fighting for the title, there are also teams working hard for a seat in Europe, such as Hammarby IF and IFK Norrkoping. As Jens Gustafsson departed to coach Hajduk Split, Peking appointed the experienced Rikard Norling, who won the Swedish top-tier football league twice with Malmö and AIK.

Intriguingly, the media often compared Norling with Gian Piero Gasperini as both favoured a back three formation. The 50-year-old head coach might be inspired by the Atalanta, but he also had his game ideas. It was not quite similar to the back three of Inter or Thomas Tuchels Chelsea Previously, Norling was criticized being too defensive as a coach, but after some time for a sabbatical, he had fresh ideas to work with Nörrkoping. This tactical analysis will explain the complex back three system of Norling’s Peking, and how his team evolved during the summer.

Rotations and the dynamic right wing-back 

Many Allsvenskan teams played with a back three this season, but not many only stuck with this shape in every minute according to the data from Wyscout. In the first part of the analysis explains the tactics of Norling from spring to August.

The obvious feature of Norling’s side was the dynamic positionings and movements of the right wing-back and right centre-back. In his early days, the right wing-back, Ishaq Abdulrazak would go into the centre to operate as a midfielder, and Linus Wahlqvist would come forward to play higher as a right-back (yes, we tried to interpret this rotation of Nörrkoping with terms in a back four).

We have many game examples from the Kalmar FF game to show their initial setups. As the opposition pressed in an asymmetrical 4-4-2, the job of Abdulrazak and Wahlqvist was to create a 2v1 overload on the left-winger. Given Kalmar’s left-back rarely stepped away from his position, Nörrkoping’s right side players used movements to create decisional dilemmas as our white arrows drawn.

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