Tactical Theory: The concept of ‘La Salida Lavolpiana’
Julian Nagelsmann and Tuchel are two of many who’s teams have been influenced by this
In the past two decades or so, football has undergone its very own ‘period of enlightenment’ with player’s welfare and health and new training techniques being all a key part in the development of the modern game. Least of all, the tactics are in a completely different stratosphere when compared to 30 years ago, with the current era being seen as a ‘tactical zeitgeist’. With tactics being rotated, renovated, rebuffed we are learning new words and terms every day; counter-pressing, wide overloads, passing lanes etc. However one term you rarely hear being spoken by the average analyst, fan, even aspiring coach is ‘ la salida lavolpiana’. What is this term? How does an ex-Mexican national team manager with Argentian roots return the influence of it and indirectly give parts of a tactical blueprint to coaches such as Nagelsmann, Tuchel and even the prestigious Pep Guardiola? I will be discussing this all in-depth, going through famous teams who’ve implemented this and the automatisms of ‘La Salida Lavolpiana’.
WHAT DOES ‘LA SALIDA LAVOLPIANA’ MEAN AND WHERE DOES IT COME FROM?
The term ‘la salida lavolpiana’ derives from the Argentinan coach Ricardo La Volpe, a man whose name is scarcely heard of in the modern game where we see the likes of Arrigo Sacchi and Johan Cruyff get a substantial amount of praise even today. La Volpe inculcated this automatism in many of his sides. It was in Mexico, where he crossed paths with a footballer who was very much in the twilight of his career: Pep Guardiola who was playing at the time for Dorados who had heard about La Volpe’s work but it was really the 2006 World Cup where Pep really saw how meticulous La Volpe was and how underappreciated his work was. It started to be common throughout Spain in the 2009-10 season as it was an automatism frequently used by FC Barcelona's Pep Guardiola.
Volpe’s Velez side
“[La Volpe] obligates [his teams] to play out from the back, which means players and the ball advance together at the same time,”
“If only one [player] does it, there is no reward, no value. They have to do it together, like couples do when they go out together.”
La Volpe’s fingerprints are all over Pep’s teams
In simpler terms, ‘La salida laviolpiana’ means building up with three players in the offensive phase, primarily two centre backs and a defensive midfielder dropping to form a three chain with the full-backs tending to go further wide. Thus, meaning the line of 4 players would have just 2 players and opening the central hollow space for the midfielder dropping between them, who will come from the next line to the starting line, thereby moving from 2 to 3 participants in this first phase of the attack.
‘La salida laviolpiana’ is usually used by sides with more associative play but not as structured as say an elite side but more of a side that tends to play a more fluid, direct style. I.e Setien’s Betis (who I’ll be talking about later) Volpe did this to provide numerical superiority in the first line of attack when the opposition would press them, giving a 3v2 advantage vs the forwards. Pep did this with his Barcelona team with Busquets being tasked in to drop between the centre backs and also did at Bayern Munich on occasion with Fernandinho and more recently Rodri.
Rodri dropping between the centre backs
The main benefit from ‘La salida laviolpiana’ is that the central midfeilder’s movement coming to the defensive line helps to pull a rival player from the forward line to create valuable spaces that you can leave behind. It helps give numerical superiority in wide zones and forms quadrilateral passing angles - in which all the players have options diagonally on both sides. A midfielder then comes and receives the ball in the second phase of build-up.
Man City’s 18/19 campaign has been used as an example. CREDIT - found on Vimeo not mine
SHORT- ANALYSIS OF SETIEN’S BETIS IN 17/18 & THEIR USE OF THE CONCEPT
The football played by Setien’s Betis in 17/18 can simply be called ‘box-office’
Real Betis’s 17-18 lineup
When they faced low block sides in 17/18, Setien’s Betis side used the ‘la salida laviolpiana’ concept with their defensive midfielder Javi Garcia dropping between the two centre backs to help aid and assist in the build-up phase and offer some technical security. However, with the consequences of not playing with a double-pivot, Setien instructed Guardado or Fabian Ruíz to move into the #6 space. With the use of ‘la salida laviolpiana’ Betis used a 3-2-5/3-1-6 shape during build-up which helped to manipulate the opponent’s second defensive line.
TUCHEL’S VARIATIONS OF LA SALIDA LAVIOLPIANA
Thomas Tuchel was always at the end of Guardiola’s tactics in Germany
Thomas Tuchel - a known student of Pep Guardiola and Arsene Wenger has also insulated the automatisms of La Volpe’s concept into his Borussia Dortmund and Paris Saint Germain sides; with a slight caveat. The original and authentic ‘la salida laviolpiana’ is described as the two centre backs creating a hollow space for the deepest midfielder to drop into and help aid with the build-up and provide numerical superiority, but with Tuchel’s version the two centre backs are instructed to shift along the defensive line and the deepest midfielder drops in a wide space beside them.
DISCLAIMER: These screenshots were taken out of a Youtube video and are being used for educational purposes and I am not committing plagiarism.
CONCLUSION
From La Volpe to Guardiola to Tuchel, the ‘la salida laviolpiana’ concept has touched many coaches with them using and interpreting it in their own way and leaving their own stamp with it. So often in the modern game, the average fan wants to know, learn and educate themselves about why players and coaches do certain things in games. On another note, this shows how even the greatest have learned from someone else with Pep himself being known in the footballing world by some professionals as an ‘idea thief’, so sometimes copycats are the best imitation of art.
Written by @jibreelinho who you can find on Twitter and is known as Ami.
CREDIT to GEDFOOTBALL on Youtube.com and ESDF Analysis on WordPress for providing me with diagrams/screenshots.
