With all the adversities that happen at the moment all around the world, it is unknown how football seasons will wrap up and that’s one of the many negative things taking place right now. Before it all stopped, we have witnessed the glorious run of German fourth-tier team Saarbrücken in the DFB Pokal, as they came all the way to the semifinals leaving some Bundesliga teams behind them. The likes of Köln and Fortuna Düsseldorf were the teams that have lost to this non-league side, along with Karlsruher who are in the 2. Bundesliga, so their achievement is quite big and can be seen as one of the biggest surprises in recent German footballing history.
This tactical analysis will show you how Saarbrücken managed to beat much bigger teams with their tactics to secure a spot in memories of German fans with their miraculous path towards the last four.
Defensive shape
The main thing that needs to be pointed out when talking about Saarbrücken is that they were aware of their quality in the matches against tougher opposition and were giving their best not to lose those duels, with a shred of hope that they could score. As that was their initial idea, they relied mostly on the defence, which was expected to be seen from a non-league team, but they did it on a very high level.
Although they had issues in some moments and got lucky in some situations, they performed to an extremely high level of defending in the majority of situations, transforming their initial setup depending on the team they had against themselves. Their manager Dirk Lottner usually went into matches with low 4-4-2 block which was open for changes if the opposition transforms its ideas throughout the game.
They tend to keep their lines close and not let the opposition feel comfortable in the central corridors of the pitch. Saarbrücken’s tactics are not that focused on pressing players with the ball but waiting for them to make a mistake after which they go into fast transitional attacks with main threats coming from the flanks.
The 4-4-2 tactics often changed in those matches because they wanted to prevent opponents of playing through the middle and trying to close down the passing lanes towards the strikers, leaving the flanks and crosses the only solution for the rivals. That transformed their setup into the 4-1-2-1-2 formation against Düsseldorf since they wanted to have a numerical advantage over their midfielders who were pointed out as the main threats in that game.
