At the midway point of the campaign, Annecy are sitting second in France’s third tier, Championnat National 1. This is a particularly impressive showing from the Haute-Savoie-based side when you consider that they ended last season in 14th place in National 1, spent four seasons in the fourth tier, National 2, before that. Furthermore, before those four seasons, Annecy had been playing in France’s regional amateur divisions since 1993.
A sharp rise in recent years has seen Annecy return to the third tier — a height they haven’t managed to reach since the early ‘90s. Yet, the club doesn’t look content with their current position and are continuing to pose a challenge for promotion to their rivals again this term, with the tantalising prospect of Ligue 2 football well within their grasp based on their performance this term.
Annecy’s current manager, 52-year-old Laurent Guyot, a Ligue 1-winning centre-back and one-time UEFA Champions League semi-finalist (losing out to Serie A giants Juventus) with Nantes in his playing career, took the reins at Parc des Sports back in May having most recently managed Boulogne, with stints at Cercle Brugge, France U16 and U17, and a period as MLS side Toronto FC’s academy director on his CV. Guyot is an experienced manager having started his career as Nantes B boss back in 2005 and so far, the 52-year-old’s experience is proving valuable for title-challenging Annecy, who are looking to continue their impressive ascent up the French football pyramid by conquering the summit of National 1 and embarking on Ligue 2 next.
At present, Annecy are the second-highest goalscorers in National 1, with 27, but their xG of just 19 suggests they’re perhaps unlikely to continue scoring at the rate they have been based on the quality of chances they’ve been taking and creating, as this is a pretty vast overperformance. On the other side of things, however, Annecy have also got the second-best defensive record in terms of goals conceded in France’s third tier, with just nine goals conceded, and they’ve got the lowest xGA in the division to boot, at 11.12 — also indicating some overperformance but nowhere near as stark as their overperformance at the other end and far from a cause for concern.
This impressive defensive performance is the key factor driving their promotion push and in this tactical analysis and team-focused scout report, I aim to provide some analysis of Annecy’s defensive strategy and tactics to explain why and how they’ve been so difficult to break down under Guyot.
Defensive shape
Guyot has almost exclusively lined his team up in a 4-4-2 shape this season, though the shape often appears to be more of a 4-2-3-1 with the two centre-forwards alternating in terms of which one plays higher and which one sits deeper, acting as a ‘10’. You’ll usually see the two centre-forwards operating on different lines with one pressing more aggressively and the other offering protection behind. Annecy have a very high line of engagement, meaning they tend to press quite aggressively, quite early. This results in the forwards rarely spending a lot of time on the same line. However, even when not pressing, it’s common to see the forwards staggering and sitting on different lines.
We see an example of Annecy’s defensive shape as the opposition line up a goal-kick in figure 1. Annecy have a very narrow shape here, which is typical for most teams when defending a long goal-kick. However, in general, Annecy’s 4-4-2 is extremely narrow. They are happy to offer up more space in deeper areas on the wings to buff up their central protection.
They tend to operate with a very high line, as is evident from figure 1 too with the backline holding their ground just behind the halfway line, squeezing the opposition into a tighter space. Additionally, specifically when defending long goal-kicks, it’s common to see Annecy pack bodies into the area just in front of the back-four, which is also evident in this image, with the two central midfielders, two wingers and withdrawn centre-forward all offering some protection in this area at this moment. This helps Annecy to win second-balls and make it more difficult for the opposition to do so as there’s very little space for them to attack bouncing balls in between the lines. Packing this area in front of the back-four also gives opposition attackers no space to drop off into which limits what they can do in terms of contesting aerial duels.
