After an irregular passage in South American football, the former legend, Hernán Crespo, became the coach of Al-Duhail of the Qatar Stars League in March 2022.
The Argentine, just 47 years old, had a fairly high peak in his career when he won the Copa Sudamericana with Defensa y Justicia, the Argentine club, in 2021.
However, his time there ended badly with poor results and few reinforcements for the squad.
Then, his stay at Sao Paulo could not have started better, with many victories in a row and a way of playing that he integrated quite well into the Brazilian team.
The first round of the league tournament was quite successful for the team, but later the bad results would come again and he would be replaced by Rogério Ceni, who would later lead them to the final of the Copa Sudamericana that they eventually lost to Independiente del Valle.
His football always stood out far above in the best moments of the team.
A positional idea, to which Crespo is adept, where the flexibility of the formations reigns, especially in some positions of the first line in the build-up, but beyond that, the roles of the players are very specific, and it is what has kept Al-Duhail competing strongly at the start of the league.
They are in second position in the Qatari championship, with 20 points, two points behind the league leaders.
They have won six games, two draws and only one loss in nine matches and have scored 19 goals and only conceded 8, some pretty solid numbers.
Lets take a look at the tactics of Al-Duhail in this tactical analysis of Hernán Crespo, which will include a team scout report and an analysis of his ideas.
Hernán Crespo Width and build-up
In his time at Defensa y Justicia, as well as at Sao Paulo, Hernán Crespo showed quite positive things within his ideals to play the ball from behind.
With all of his lines very wide, rotating between a back-three or a back-four that would normally run within it in a 4-3-3 or 4-4-2.
The width was the key to his teams, seeking to stretch the rival block so that there were spaces to progress with their central defenders, both with ball-carrying and passing.
The full-backs remained extremely open and low, looking to attract the rival pressure to that point, in order to connect from their position, with one of the double-pivot midfielders who moved from side to side to progress through the said area.
The first idea in possession of the Crespo teams is that, with this width they look for, the ball has to move constantly from side to side until there are spaces within the rival block in order to progress.
In case of not finding near-passing options to keep moving the rival block, the central defenders look to activate players into space with long balls, as do the midfielders.
At Al-Duhail, Hernán Crespo has changed his formation to a more fixed 4-2-3-1 than the 4-3-3 or 4-4-2 where he used his #8 a lot in half-space back in Brazil and Argentina.
In Qatar, the former AC Milan player has sought to prioritise the wings, the double pivot, and a much freer #10 on the field, who seeks to be the connection in various channels before releasing the pass that places them in the last third.
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