Former Argentina international and Newell’s Old Boys academy member Santiago Solari enjoyed an illustrious playing career, winning a Copa Libertadores with River Plate, two La Liga titles and a UEFA Champions League title with Real Madrid, as well as three Serie A titles with Inter.
After retiring as a player in 2011, Solari returned to Real Madrid to begin his coaching career. He worked as a youth coach for Los Blancos from 2013 to 2016 before serving as the manager of Real Madrid Castilla from 2016 to 2018. Then, after current Sevilla manager Julen Lopetegui was dismissed as Los Blancos’ first-team boss in 2018, Solari took the reins of the most decorated club in UEFA Champions League/European Cup history. He served as Real Madrid’s caretaker boss for 32 games, winning 68.75% of them and adding a fourth FIFA Club World Cup title to the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu trophy cabinet.
Solari’s experience of becoming well used to winning silverware at the highest level throughout his career was arguably great preparation for him to ultimately become the manager of the most successful club in Liga MX and CONCACAF Champions League history Club América at the beginning of this year. After taking over at Estadio Azteca, Solari declared that one of his primary, overall aims is to “match the greatness of this club”. Thus far, at the time of writing, the 44-year-old has managed 23 games at the Mexico City-based club, accumulating a 60.87% win rate an improvement on the final 23 games of his predecessor and guiding Club América to the CONCACAF Champions League semi-final.
In this tactical analysis piece, we’ll provide some analysis of the tactics that Solari has utilised thus far at Estadio Azteca in his quest to “match the greatness” of the “historic” North American club. We’ll analyse how his Club América side have played with and without the ball, in different phases of play, to paint a picture of the ex-Real Madrid man’s philosophy and how hes implementing it with Las Águilas.
Build up and ball progression
Solari has utilised the 4-4-2, 4-2-3-1, and 4-1-4-1 formations during his time at Club América. However, certainly in possession, his team has lined up in the 4-1-4-1 shape most often.
Solari’s Club América often dominate possession. They’re happy to concede the majority of possession and play more transitionally depending on the opposition but usually they are the stronger team on the pitch and thus end up with the majority of the ball. Las Águilas don’t exclusively play out via short passes from the back sometimes they go long from the goalkeeper and are comfortable doing so however, they do play out from the back via short passes a lot. When they do build up from the goalkeeper with short passes, they often appear as they look in figure 1.
Perhaps the most notable part of their setup here is how one full-back pushes high essentially joining the same line as the holding midfielder usually Pedro Aquino while the other full-back sits deeper, remaining in the backline. It’s been common to see Solari’s Las Águilas side shape up like this with the full-backs staggered during the build-up. The deeper full-back tends to form a back three, providing extra cover in case of a dangerous turnover and subsequent opposition counter-attack while the other full-back is given freedom to venture forward.
When building out short from the back, Club América’s
