Davide Ballardini Tactics At Cremonese 2022/2023 – The Italian Minnows Who Can’t Buy A Top-Flight Win

March 1996.

That’s the last time Cremonese won a game in the top flight of Italian football.

Luigi Simons’ side travelled to Veneto in Northern Italy and came away with all three points against fellow strugglers Padova on that glistening spring afternoon.

The victory was the club’s second on the trot, having put Lazio to the sword a week prior.

Fans were starting to believe in a turnaround.

After a tumultuous start to the campaign, Cremonese were desperate to hang on to their Serie A status.

This win could help do just that.

Unfortunately, it didn’t.

If you’d have told the Cremona faithful that day that this would be the last time the Grigiorossi would be seen in the top tier for 26 years, there was a high chance you would have been slapped in the face.

Putting this into context, 26 years was the exact length of Sir Alex Ferguson’s reign at Manchester United.

Last season, Cremonese surprised the nation with a beautiful rise to prominence under Fabio Pecchia, the former assistant to Rafa Benítez at Real Madrid, Napoli and Newcastle United.

Pecchia guided Cremonese back to Serie A with a second-place finish in the league below.

However, he unexpectedly resigned from his position to take up the head coach role at Parma, in what many would describe as a backwards move, given that the latter were still struggling in the depths of Serie B.

Massimiliano Alvini replaced Pecchia, a man who had no prior experience coaching in the promised land.

Sadly for Alvini, his time ended with a zero percent win rate at Stadio Giovanni Zini.

Alvini’s replacement was at least a coach with some top-flight experience, having managed Lazio, Cagliari and Genoa beforehand.

Davide Ballardini has done a better job than his predecessor, miraculously guiding Cremonese to a Coppa Italia semi-final, which the club have a chance of winning, having knocked out league leaders Napoli and European champions AS Roma in earlier rounds.

Nevertheless, Ballardini still hasn’t been able to grind out three points from his side, who sit rock bottom of Serie A.

This tactical analysis piece delves deeper into Cremonese’s struggles.

It will be an analysis, in the form of a team scout report, of the side to identify which area of their tactics has gone so desperately wrong this season.

Formations and style

As a disciple of Benítez, Fabio Pecchia achieved great success last season with a highly pragmatic 4-2-3-1 formation, one that prioritised possession rather than style, unlike many modern coaches.

The team were quite direct and averaged just 3.05 passes per possession, showing a willingness to get the ball forward as quickly as possible, even if it meant going long to the forward line.

The Lombardy-based club averaged 48.6 percent of the ball throughout the 2021/22 promotion campaign in Serie B which was the seventh-lowest in the division.

Yet, Cremonese finished second, proving that you don’t need to be a possession-oriented side to be successful.

Nonetheless, the team’s style this time around has shied away from last season’s blueprint.

The 3-4-1-2 has been Cremonese’s primary formation in their frail attempt to survive the drop.

The 3-4-1-2 has been followed closely by its cousin, the 3-5-2, while the 4-2-3-1 still holds a place in Cremonese’s heart.

There have also been a plethora of other structures used by the Italian minnows.