Paris FC 2021/22 – Thierry Laurey’s transitions powering Parisians’ Ligue 1 promotion push – tactical analysis

After leaving Ligue 1 side Strasbourg in late-May 2021 having spent 5 years at Stade de la Meinau during which time he re-established Strasbourg as a top-flight club, achieving promotion in his first season in charge and keeping them up in all following campaigns, Thierry Laurey took on a new challenge this past summer when he agreed to take charge of Paris FC and lead their promotion push.

The former player of The Parsians’ city rivals PSG has thus far done a decent job at Stade Charléty as he’s helped them to earn 51 points from their 26 games so far this term, which places them second only to Toulouse in France’s second-tier right now, with Les Violets leading Laurey’s side by just three points at the time of writing.

Under the 58-year-old, who cites former Bordeaux, Saint-Étienne and Montpellier boss Jean-Louis Gasset as his coaching inspiration, Paris’ success thus far has come largely as a result of their dominance in transitions, in particular, the transition to attack.

Paris have made the joint-second most counter-attacks (three per 90) in the league this term, while they’ve scored the second-most goals (39) while generating the second-highest xG too (39.99). The Parisians have been a difficult counter-attacking force for their Ligue 2 opponents to deal with this term and this piece will be a tactical analysis of how Laurey’s philosophy, strategy and tactics have helped his team to be such a threat on the counter this term. I hope that this tactical analysis highlights what has made Paris one of Ligue 2’s most formidable sides this season and illustrates why I believe they’re set to challenge at the top of France’s second-tier right up until the season’s climax.

Defensive shape and press

Paris have primarily lined up in a 4-2-3-1 under Laurey this term, though not exclusively with the 4-1-4-1, 4-4-2 and 5-3-2 also having been used at points by The Parisians in 2021/22. As may be somewhat implied by my description of this team as a ‘counter-attacking force’ in the intro to this tactical analysis, Laurey’s side isn’t a heavily possession-based one. They’ve managed to retain an average of 50.7% possession this season, sitting them in seventh place in Ligue 2’s possession table.

Linked to their comfortability without the ball is their relatively high PPDA of 12.76. This isn’t an extremely high PPDA in actuality if compared with teams from other leagues but looking at it through the Ligue 2 lens, we see that this gives Paris the third-highest PPDA in the division, which is a strong indicator that they press with the third-lowest intensity in the league on average.

This isn’t to say that Paris just drop into a mid-to-low block, allowing the opposition to do what they want at the beginning of their attacks, however. The Parisians are still active in the high-block phase, with particular pressing triggers evident in their play that, when performed effectively, help them to force turnovers in advanced areas of the pitch and create dangerous counter-attacking opportunities. That said, it would still be fair to say that Laurey’s side is often relatively passive in the high-block phase, with a lower intensity in this phase and a lower line of engagement than most Ligue 2 teams.

Paris are typically happy to sit off a bit until the ball makes it towards the middle third of the pitch, which represents their usual line of engagement under Laurey. Figure 1 shows an example of how their shape looked in a recent Ligue 2 clash with Guingamp where they operated in a 4-2-3-1 sometimes but also switched to a 4-1-4-1 for parts as we see in the image above, where the right holding midfielder advanced positionally to join the ‘10’ as a second central midfielder in front of the left holding midfielder who sat deep and behind the centre-forward.

This image shows a good example of Paris’ position-oriented zonal marking system which places great emphasis on organisation and discipline. Players protect their zones, remaining rigid in their shape until the ball enters their particular zone beyond the line of engagement. We see the ball entering the Paris right-winger’s zone in figure 1 and the player is in the process of aggressively closing him down while the rest of Paris’ shape shifts over to retain a degree of compactness between the players — including the aggressive right-winger — as well as to congest space around the ball carrier and prevent him from finding an easy way through the press. The rest of the shape won’t shift over too much as they want to continue retaining access to the opposite wing while they also aren’t willing to get too aggressive to force the turnover. They just want to support the pressing winger and continue making it difficult for the opposition to find a way through them.