Why Mazzarri needs to quickly rectify Cagliari’s catastrophic defensive record – tactical analysis

Cagliari added yet another casualty to their transfer merry-go-round recently when Italian tactician Leonardo Semplici was relieved from his duties back in September after losing all twice and drawing once in their opening three matches of the season.

Semplici won six of his 18 games in charge and helped the Sardinian side to stave off relegation last season.

This season, Cagliari were rock bottom of Serie A when Semplici was replaced, and the board were on the lookout for an experienced manager that could help them repeat the feat of the previous campaign.

The Casteddu landed on Walter Mazzarri, a household name in Italian football. The ex-Watford manager had been out of work since he was sacked by Torino two seasons ago.

So far, as of writing, Cagliari have played eight games under the guidance of the 60-year-old but have won just once, drawing twice and losing on five occasions. The team are still sitting at the bottom of the top-flight division and have one of the worst defensive records in the league which could be a massive hindrance for Mazzarri in his bid to keep them up.

This article will be a tactical analysis of Cagliari this season in the form of a team scout report. It will be an analysis of their defensive tactics, looking at what has gone wrong for the Italian side.

Formation and personnel

As is typical with most sides that are struggling to get results, the choice of formation so far this season has fluctuated from game to game. Mazzarri also has quite a habit of changing the team’s structure in and out of possession depending on the situation.

The 3-5-2 has been the most utilised formation for Cagliari so far this season and has been deployed in 42 percent of the side’s matches with the 4-4-2 being the second most commonly used system with 26 percent.

There has been a common theme with Mazzarri though that is rather interesting. The 3-5-2 has been his preferred system for quite a long time. However, with Cagliari, a pattern has emerged that shows the 60-year-old tends to switch to a 4-4-2 when the 3-5-2 is not working which occurs quite often.