While one former Liverpool player, Xabi Alonso, is arguably the hottest property in the football coach market at the moment, with two of his former clubs — the Reds and FC Bayern Munich — heavily linked with leading them from next season, another LFC alumnus, Albert Riera, is quietly forging an impressive managerial CV in his own right.
The 41-year-old Spaniard already has silverware to his name, having led NK Olimpija Ljubljana to a domestic double last season with the Slovenian Cup and Prva Liga title both claimed in what was the young manager’s only season at Stožice Stadium.
Riera moved to Olimpija’s stiffest domestic competitors, NK Celje, last summer after they’d finished second to his league winners the season prior and remained in charge for 17 games — 12 in the league — departing in October with the club sat at the top of the table to assume the hot seat at Ligue 2 club FC Girondins de Bordeaux, another of his former clubs as a player.
On taking charge of Bordeaux, Riera was walking into a club that had won just one of their last six league games.
At the time of writing this article, the Spanish coach has led Les Girondins to four wins and one draw in their last six, with Bordeaux sitting second on the Ligue 2 form table for this period of time.
This tactical analysis piece will focus on Riera’s early impact in Frances second division, providing some analysis of the Girondins de Bordeauxs tactics during his tenure compared to before, including player roles and principles of play.
We’ll highlight where Riera has overseen improvements and what he has done differently from his predecessor.
Albert Riera Coaching Style
One of our senior analysts, Domagoj Kostanjšak, provided an excellent analysis of Riera’s Olimpija team last year, which is highly recommended reading if you enjoy this piece, perhaps even as a precursor.
In that tactical analysis, Riera’s heavy commitment to positional play principles, efficient counterattacking, penetration via the half-spaces, frequent positional rotations, and intelligent off-the-ball movement were all mentioned as evident features of a thrilling Olimpija Ljubljana side.
All of the above has also become increasingly apparent within this Bordeaux team as Riera’s tenure has progressed.
Still, the 41-year-old coach and his teams shouldn’t be put into any particular box or branded as ‘this type of team’ or ‘that type of team’.
Flexibility is another vital element of Riera’s sides, and while general principles typically remain consistent, tactics will vary from opponent to opponent to a certain extent.
Bordeaux are the most possession-based side in Ligue 2, but they have kept marginally less possession under Riera than they did under his predecessor, David Guion, this season — 57.2% vs 59.1%.
It’s ultimately been goalscoring where Riera has taken Bordeaux forward compared to Guion, with Les Girondins netting 1.3 per 90 under their current manager compared to 0.8 under their former boss.
With that in mind, let’s move on to looking at Bordeaux’s approach to chance creation under the former Olimpija Ljubljana and Celje boss.
Albert Riera Chance Creation Principles
As referenced above, it’s been extremely common to find Les Girondins exploiting the half-spaces for chance creation under Albert Rieras style of play, just as this was a notable feature of his Olimpija team last season.
Furthermore, as shown in the top-left section of Figure 1 below, this progression from the backline through the half-space in the middle third has been a common element of Riera’s teams thus far in his young coaching career, both at Olimpija Ljubljana and now at Bordeaux.
We can see how Bordeaux’s left-back, Vital Nsimba, inverted to exploit some space just in front of his backline on this occasion, acting as a link for his side to move all the way into the final third.
Nsimba split the opposition’s backline open before moving back out wide, rotating with the left central midfielder, Gaétan Weissbeck, as left-winger Jérémy Livolant chases the through ball in behind, plays it across goal low and hard to set up Žan Vipotnik to score.
Progression via the deeper half-space areas, fluid positional rotations to find free men and early penetrative passing have all been vital elements of this Bordeaux side under Riera, which have all been developed significantly during the 41-year-old Spaniard’s tenure.
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