Pentagon Pursuit | Part 20 | Tactical Tinkering

Club Fútbol de Pachuca upset the odds to claim a first Mexican title in nine years led by a host of exciting young prospects and their promising young coach Robaato Rasamu. That success should mean continental football is guaranteed next season, as each league stage winner qualifies for the CONCACAF Champions League.

Finances continue to be tight as Pachuca lost at least £1m per month. So Rasamu continued selling off players who were too old and on high wages, freeing up £120k from the clubs wage budget of £456k. The first team squad now has 10 homegrown players as the likes of winger Roger Quiroz and midfielders José Pablo Testas and Héctor Navarro were promoted. While Rasamu’s only major signing so far Teppei Hino, who also joined from Niigata, returned after a brief loan in Japan.

While Rasamu was delighted with that unexpected success, he wasn’t totally sold on the formations he’d used so far. The odd-looking 3-4-3 was relatively effective but had significant defensive frailties. While the 4-2-3-1 had won them the league, was extremely solid as they kept six successive clean sheets, but also limited their attacking prowess.

Rasamu Tinkers With Tactics

With that in mind, the manager decided that, with continental football secured for next season, the Clausura stage was an opportunity to test out a few tactics. First up, he toyed with the idea of merging ideas from the two previous tactics with a take on a 4-2-4. It sees midfielder Jason Gattini move into a more natural central midfield, retains two wingers and the two young strikers.

This approach started superbly in the Clausura opener as Pachuca scored three times in the first 34 minutes at home to Tijuana. They backed that up by winning 2-1 at Necaxa with goals by striker Vladimir Montaño and Testas’ first for the club. But they got thumped 4-0 at Pumas before edging a 4-3 over Cruz Azul and won 4-2 at Monterrey with Luis Fernández creating two goals for his strike partner Montaño, so the tactic was looking good but still a little wild.

Rasamu had been planning to tinker with his approaches, but he was pretty happy with how the 4-2-4 had been working. But he decided to try out a few ideas, including trialling a tweaked version of his 4-2-3-1 in away matches and potentially against tougher opposition.

That started with a 1-1 at Mazatlán in which Pachuca scored their only shot on target, so Rasamu continued to be disappointed with his team’s attacking output in that more reserved shape. A big turning point saw Montaño ruled out for five weeks with an ankle injury, which gave Rasamu another opportunity to experiment.

First up, it forced him into trying out a strikerless approach using Fernández as the attacking lead. This won’t be tenable when Montaño is fit, but with him being the only recognised all-out striker, it made sense to try something different with him unavailable.

That tactical gamble worked well as Hino, Jewison Bennette and Fernández earned a 3-1 win at home to 4th-place Toluca. They also earned a 1-1 at Puebla, but Rasamu wasn’t convinced it was worth sticking with in the long term.

He returned to his preferred 4-2-4 and a strong performance led to a 3-1 win over Juárez. Then, as a trip to América marked his 400th match in management, Rasamu switched to the more conservative 4-2-3-1 and it worked a treat as centre-back Miguel Sánchez headed home and Fernández killed the game off late on. Another strong campaign saw Pachuca finish 2nd to Pumas on goal difference with both sides winning 12 with two losses and three defeats. Pachuca breezed past Necaxa 7-2 in the quarter final but Rasamu questioned the 4-2-4 approach as they got thumped 3-0 at América to exit in the semis.

Montaño was Liga MX top goalscorer with 25 in 36 with Fernández third with 22 in 41. Fernández led the way with an impressive 12 player of the match awards and Mauricio Seral’s 16 clean sheets was only bettered by Cruz Azul’s keeper getting 18. As a result, Seral won Goalkeeper of the Season and Rasamu won his fourth Manager of the Season award.

Analysing A Standout Pachuca Season

Pachuca’s 92 goals was only bettered by América’s incredible haul of 108, at 2.45 goals per game. But Pachuca had a league-high xG overperformance of 18.87. The defensive concerns were clear to see as they had the 8th-worst defence with 45 conceded, albeit they played more games than any team, and had the 4th-worst xGA of 59.88. They also conceded a league high 11 from corners.

Montaño led the way with 26 goals in 37 games followed by Fernández (22), Gattini and Bennette (7) and winger Jorge González (6). While Fernández, Gattini and Bennette all got 10 assists followed by Fernandinho and González (9). But the impressive 17-year-old Fernández led the way with an impressive 7.42 average rating from 42 matches.

Rasamu was absolutely loving his time in México. But he was most excited about the homegrown prospects coming through the Pachuca academy led by the wonderful Fernández. The striker won NxGn 2032 then revealed he wanted to move to a club with a stronger squad and forced Rasamu to agree to sell him if he receives a bid of £10.5m, which seems a bit ridiculous.