What is Carlosball?

This quick answer is that Carlosball is the brand of football that Carlos Corberán is seeking to implement at Huddersfield Town. It’s very similar to Bielsaball at Leeds but with a few embellishments to fit with Corberán’s style.

We’re still in the very early stages of Carlos Corberán’s Huddersfield Town reign but there are already clear signs of how he wants football to be played by his team. It’s possible that more will become clear about how he wants to play as we get further into the season, but here is what I’ve observed about the new approach from his first few games in charge.

Man marking

The concept of man marking isn’t exactly new but the lengths this is taken to by this new-look Town is genuinely surprising. Players pop up all over the pitch to track their man, which looks weird when it’s the left back that’s gone right the way over to the opposite wing to keep tabs on their man.

It’s interesting to watch how these individual battles play out and can create some interesting moments. I’ve noticed several opposition players looking completely exasperated by their marker still being there despite them swapping wings or dropping deeper. If it’s annoying our opponents then it can’t be a bad thing!

The man to man system is slightly different at the back, where we usually have a centre back spare to mop up, meaning the striker at the top end has to mark both opposition central defenders. But otherwise we go one to one in most parts of the pitch.

This system looks good so far but it’s a bit risky too. If one player loses their man then it can unsettle the balance of the whole team. We saw this in the closing stages of the Brentford game when tired legs meant our tracking wasn’t as good as it needed to be and space opened up all over the pitch for Brentford.

Pressing aggressively off the ball

The other major feature of the defensive part of Carlosball is to press the opposition aggressively. The overall aim is to dominate possession which means pushing hard to win the ball back when we don’t have it.

Pressing high up the pitch is useful because it can force mistakes from the other team and win possession back in dangerous areas when the defence isn’t prepared to defend attacks.

Town developed an aggressive pressing system under David Wagner and that brought us a lot of success in the Championship (but less consistently in the Premier League). Wagner emphasised counter-pressing, where we push hard to win the ball back just after we’d lost it but often we didn’t sustain the press if we didn’t get the ball back quickly. Corberán’s style of pressing is more sustained pressure and requires a lot more running from his team to keep up the press.

I love to see Town putting teams under pressure and defending from the front. There’s a place in football for sitting back and being compact but it’s not fun to watch and shouldn’t be the default approach.

There are potential issues with pressing this way. Really good teams can just pass around the press and find gaps in behind. Less good teams can just lump the ball forward and bypass the onrushing defenders. Either approach can yield results against pressing teams if used effectively.

Committing players forward in attack

Huddersfield Town haven’t been a free-scoring team for a very long time now. Maybe in the early stages of Lee Clark’s tenure? I’m not sure. I’ve followed Town for nearly 30 years and can’t ever remember us being an attacking team that scored lots of goals. So the promise of Town “returning” to attacking football under Corberán came as a surprise, even if it was welcome to see a commitment to entertainment from the club’s hierarchy.

While Town aren’t yet prolific in front of goal it is obvious from these early games that the intention to attack is much clearer. When balls are played into the box there are four, five or sometimes even six Town players looking to attack the ball and score.

This strategy is a bit risky but having these kind of numbers going forward when we attack has to lead to more goals over time. By having more people in the box it is logical that each player has more space because the defence has more people to worry about.

Frazier Campbell’s goal against Forest is an example of this. Credit goes to Mbenza for his pass to play in Toffolo, Toffolo for the cross and Campbell for the acrobatic scissor kick to finish but Koroma had a lot to do with this goal too.

At the point Campbell strikes the ball Koroma is the furthest player forward and has pulled defenders back with him, which opens up the space for Campbell to perform his excellent finish. Without the back line being pushed back Toffolo’s ball would have been easily nodded away by a central defender.

Going back a step in the same sequence, the cross from Toffolo only happened because he was willing to aggressively underlap Mbenza to get to the byline. This kind of attacking commitment wasn’t happening last season.

Being so aggressive in attack means occasionally being exposed at the back but it’s worth that risk to create these opportunities in the final third. It’s also surprising how often players recover their position after going forward, another reason that fitness and willingness to run is a huge part of this system.

Playing out from the back

Carlosball is based around dominating possession and denying the opponent the ball. This means that the goalkeeper is expected to make short passes to nearby players when he has the ball so we retain possession.

Punting the ball down field is safer and when it works leads to possession in a better area of the pitch but is more likely to give possession to the other team. Aimlessly whacking balls up to a big striker can be dull to watch but can also be effective. Andy Booth turned winning headers and finding players in space an artform but a well organised defence can defend long straight balls all day.

Passing out from the back makes it easy to get good possession stats but it can become tepid if the players receiving the ball aren’t able to move it forward quickly. The ball can get stuck in a cycle of being moved from defender to defender to keeper and is very boring to watch. Back in the days of fans being in the stadium this approach would lead to shouts of “Gerrit forrard!” from irritated fans.

My impression is that Carlos wants Town to move the ball quickly out the back and Carel Eiting has been brought in to help facilitate that. He’s a defensive midfielder with exceptional distribution skills and if he plays in his natural position will most likely drop very deep to pick up the ball from the keeper or defenders and then play incisive balls forward to launch attacks.

Relentless running

Every single Town player that has been interviewed this season has talked about the intensity of training. They always stop short of criticising their new coach but it’s clear that the training is incredibly physically demanding and is intended to increase the fitness of the whole squad.

This extreme approach to training has led to Town looking short of energy in early games this season and may be the reason we’ve been blighted by injuries. This is hopefully just the short term consequences of adjusting to a more intense approach to playing football.

This focus on improving fitness is a massive part of fully implementing Carlosball, as the tactical system revolves around players being willing to run harder and for longer than the opposition. If the players aren’t fit enough to keep running then the opposition will be able to take advantage of gaps that open up, particularly with the emphasis on man-to-man marking.

Mark Hudson, when caretaker manager of Town last season, pointed out that our squad’s fitness levels weren’t where they needed to be when he took charge following Siewert’s sacking. It didn’t need to be said though because it was obvious to fans that our team were looking leggy and out of breath in the last half an hour of games. This lack of fitness seriously hampered Town’s ability to play a pressing style of game.

It’s refreshing to see Town pushing their players hard and trying to get fitness levels to the point where we can out work the opposition. The intensity of the new regime may come in for criticism in the future but I think it’s the right way to go. The fitter we are the better we will play and the more games we will win. In theory at least.

TerrierSprit.com opinion on Carlosball

It’s still very early days but I’m feeling positive about the changes that are happening at Town under Corberán. The move to higher tempo football with a willingness to attack freely is great to watch when it works well.

As with any major change in approach, it’s going to take time to implement fully but we saw in the Nottingham Forest game how this system can work when played properly. The shorter preseason and lengthy injury list have further hampered the introduction of this new approach but I’m optimistic we will see continued improvement as the season progresses.

Switching to this style of play won’t fix all Town’s problems on its own however. We need the players that are capable of playing this system in the Championship and are currently one or two short of being fully competitive. Regardless of how good the tactics, we need goalscorers at the top end of the pitch and that’s currently something we’re lacking. Hopefully Karlan Grant’s transfer saga will be resolved soon and we can go about bringing in a suitable replacement.