‘Excellent football’, ‘We are united’ – The tactics fuelling Algeria’s ‘surprising’ contenders

JS Saoura, from the Béchar Province of Algeria and founded in 2008, currently sit second in Algeria’s top tier, Ligue Professionnelle 1. Their title challenge has been described as “surprising”, with the young club finishing down in sixth place last season and fourth place the season before. However, despite being just 13 years old, Saoura have twice finished in second place in Algeria’s top flight. They enjoyed a meteoric rise up their country’s football ladder, achieving four straight promotions and playing in Algeria’s Ligue 1 for the first time in 2012/13.

Now, around the midway point of the season, Saoura are threatening to win their first Ligue 1 title, while being heavily praised for their “excellent football” throughout the campaign. Top goalscorer Billal Messaoudi, a 23-year-old winger who’s spoken of his goal to play in a major European league like France’s Ligue 1, Italy’s Serie A, EPL, Germany’s Bundesliga or La Liga  having already even been linked with a transfer to the latter  credited the tactics employed by 37-year-old manager Moustapha Djallit for the team’s success this season, saying that he: “Knows the strengths of the team well and has been able to take advantage of them. There is strength in unity. We are united with the coach.”

Djallit took over at Saoura following Meziane Ighil’s departure in February. He’d been Ighil’s assistant manager since 2019 and Saoura have lost just one of their six league games in his tenure as boss, winning four. In this tactical analysis, we look at why Saoura are having such a positive campaign. This scout report looks at Djallit’s praised tactics and analyses the key strengths and weaknesses of the so-called “surprising” title challengers in all phases of play.

JS Saoura’s tactics off the ball

Only two Ligue Professionnelle 1 teams have conceded fewer goals than Saoura (12) this season, with one of those teams, CR Belouizdad, having played three fewer games than Saoura so far. Additionally, Saoura have kept more clean sheets (11) than any other team in Algeria’s top-flight. It’s clear that this team have been very solid at the back in the 2020/21 campaign and this has played an important role in their impressive season.

In this section, we’ll provide analysis of Saoura’s aggressive pressing tactics that have helped them to concede so few goals and accumulate so many clean sheets. This section of analysis will also examine some standout weaknesses of the Béchar-based club’s defensive tactics.

Saoura tend to defend in a 4-2-3-1 and their four attackers play a particularly important role in this system, especially during the early stages of opposition build-up, as seen in figure 1, where Saoura’s centre-forward is aggressively pressing the opposition’s right centre-back who has just received the ball from the goalkeeper.

While this striker closes down the right centre-back, his teammates behind him closely mark the nearest passing options in the next line. The left-winger marks the opposition right-back, the ‘number 10’ marks a holding midfielder and the right-winger marks the opposition left-back.

If the o