Last weekend the German Bundesliga celebrated it restart and fans around the globe were happy to see for the first time in weeks top-class football. In less than two weeks also the Austrian Bundesliga will return, and the plan is that we will get the last 10 matchdays of the championship and the relegation playoff respectively.
After the opening 22 games which were played ahead of the forced break due to the corona crisis, LASK Linz sat in the first position ahead of RB Salzburg. Since after this first phase of the season the 12 teams will get divided into two groups and the points of each team get halved, also the margin between Linz and Salzburg is now three instead of six points. Furthermore, Rapid Vienna is also only four points behind Salzburg. Considering this, the final phase of the Austrian Bundesliga could be quite interesting.
Even though RB Salzburg were last seasons dominant force, in this campaign, we have with LASK Linz a team who are performing on the same level as the squad of Jesse Marsch. One important player for Linz is the central midfielder Peter Michorl.
In this tactical analysis in the form of a scout report, we will look at Michorl’s qualities, his partnership with James Holland and why they are so important for Linz and their tactics.
Positioning, movements and cooperation with Holland
LASK Linz used in this season only the 3-4-3 as their formation. They are one of the very few teams in the Austrian Bundesliga who rarely switch the system and stick with their one preferred one. Michorl and Holland are the two first-choice players for the central midfield of Valérien Ismaël. Michorl played in this season 1807 minutes in the Austrian Bundesliga while Holland was 1685 minutes on the pitch. Also, the fact that no other central midfielder of LASK played over 500 minutes shows that these two are clearly the regular starters.
Michorl is always the player on the left side while his Australian partner is the right central midfielder. By looking at the heatmap of Michorl for his 1807 minutes in the Austrian Bundesliga in this season below, we can see that he always stays on the left side, but doesn’t only occupy the left half-space as he also drifts to the outside.
There are two basic reasons why he often drifts to the left side as firstly, he can play from there dangerous balls with his left foot (as we will see later in this tactical analysis) and secondly he has often a lot of space there due to the movements of the left wing-back and the left-winger as we can see in the image below. Michorl likes to position himself outside of the oppositions block during the build-up to have the whole pitch in front of him and additionally he gives himself more time.
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