Corinthians 2022: Why Vitor Pereira’s positional play is failing in Brazil – scout report

Under Vitor Pereira, Corinthians have been, if anything, inconsistent. Despite promising moments, such as their 2-0 win over Boca Juniors, they haven’t won in the last five matches. To make matters more frustrating, their last two matches have included two draws against significantly weaker teams in Always Ready and América Mineiro. Vitor Pereira’s men have hit a roadblock, with their star players unable to perform. Technical and tactical references, such as ex-Chelsea Willian, ex-Barcelona Paulinho, Renato Augusto, and Róger Guedes have failed to perform in the last few weeks.

These individual struggles symbolise a larger collective problem: Vitor Pereira has failed to adapt to his players. The Portuguese’s positional play and space-oriented tactics have not been effective with the players at his disposal. While this style of play has proven to be successful throughout the world, it does not fit this current Corinthians squad.

In this tactical analysis, we will examine the tactics Vitor Pereira has tried to implement and why it hasn’t worked. In addition, this scout report will look at how teams have been able to completely nullify Corinthians’ attack with man-marking systems.

Vitor Pereiras tactics

There are many aspects that have defined the Portuguese’s time at Corinthians. First, his inconsistency with the starting eleven has been a controversial topic. The Brazilian calendar is notorious, even more so in a year where every competition has been compressed due to the World Cup at the end of the season. As a result of this, Vitor Pereira has publicly stated multiple times he does not have a favourite eleven and will rotate his side every match to maintain the desired intensity. Three months in, he has never repeated the same starting eleven.

While this is perfectly understandable, it undoubtedly has negative effects on the team. The lack of consistency in the squad has resulted in players lacking chemistry and familiarity with each other. This consequence has hindered the effectiveness of Pereira’s tactics, as they are very demanding collectively.

Although the players have constantly rotated, the formations have been rather consistent. Most commonly, he has opted for a 4-3-3. Due to injuries and other necessities he has also used a 3-5-2, though the playing style and principles do not change. These principles have defined Vitor Pereira’s style as this analysis will now examine.

Like Pep Guardiola, Vitor Pereira adopts a fluid, positional attack, built around the distribution of players throughout defined spaces. In this system, the formation used is not as important as the correct distribution of players throughout the pitch. The image below illustrates a rough sketch of the grid used in this system, divided vertically and horizontally.

One of the most important aspects of Pereira’s system, as he has stated publicly multiple times, is width. He wants his team to maintain maximum width at all times. This is done by always having at least one player in each wing at all times and the three midfielders being evenly distributed vertically. The image above also highlights the wide overloads. A consistent pattern in Timão’s possession is attacking the wide areas.

The importance of width in Vitor Pereira’s tactics can be further illustrated in their pass map against América Mineiro. In this match, the Time do Povo had 59.43% possession and their attacking tactics/struggles were emphasised. The centre-backs are significantly distant from one another. Additionally, there is a concentration of players on each side with just some of the midfielders centrally.