Czech Republic vs. Portugal: Tactical Analysis of Euro 2012 Quarterfinal

Czech Republic and Portugal played out the first Euro 2012 quarterfinal and gave us a tactical masterpiece.

Czech boss Michal Bilek set out his standard 4-2-3-1, whilst Paulo Bento went with the tried and tested 4-3-3.

The Czech side we saw was a completely different one from the group stages—defensively disciplined and threatening from an attacking point of view.

The Portuguese did their usual—rely on one man in an attempt to ride a Cristiano Ronaldo-themed roller coaster all the way to the top.

Here's how the two teams lined up.

This game underwent several critical changes midway through. I will outline what happened using three different stages.

Stage 1: Czech control

The major surprise here was how well Czech Republic fanned themselves out when out of possession.

Bilek employed a strict man-marking system which paired Theodor Gebre Selassie with Ronaldo and David Limbersky with Nani. This was an attempt to irritate Portugal's star creative players and nullify them. Selassie was a good match for Ronaldo due to his pace and stamina.

Petr Jiracek was then asked to fill in the gaps, as both Selassie and Limbersky would follow their opponents as far as their own halfway line in an almost Marcelo Bielsa-esque instruction.

Midfield duo Tomas Hubschman and Jaroslav Plasil took a stand on the halfway line and mopped up any poor forward passes through the midfield. Both were happy to step forward and put their foot in, making interceptions and causing turnovers of possession with frequency.

Portugal were really, really poor for 40 minutes. The system set out by Bilek was nullifying Portugal, but the major contributing factor to A Selecção's bad showing was the horrid Miguel Veloso.

He played one of the worst games of football this tournament has seen, completing just 76 percent of his simple passes (25/33) by halftime. Portugal simply couldn't initiate anything, and on the off chance something was created, Plasil and Hubschman would step in and put a stop to it.

Stage 2: Ronaldo moves

Having discovered Bilak was asking Selassie to man-mark Ronaldo and effectively nullify him, Bento allowed his star player a free role across the pitch, often lingering in the middle.

It was this move that ripped the Czech's brilliant system apart and tipped the balance of the game.

Ronaldo played the role of magnet. He drifted inside—as the diagram shows—and acted as a supplementary target man.

Veloso was clearly struggling and any good passes he did make were not being used efficiently by Helder Postiga.

Ronaldo was brought inside and placed in between the defensive and midfield line. This gave the centre halves something else to think about and had the anchor midfielders looking over their shoulders.

From this position on the pitch, Ronaldo was far more involved. He could turn and run at the defence, shoot from a good position or choose to bring Nani and Fabio Coentrao into the game—something Portugal simply could not do with their initial shape.

This started to make Czech Republic's "wall" of two anchoring midfielders redundant, as one move would see the play pass by them. Naturally, Plasil and Hubschman dropped deeper and deeper to compensate in an attempt to squish the space in which Ronaldo could operate.

When Bento was sufficiently satisfied that Portugal had gained a foothold in the game due to the Czech midfield duo dropping deep and thus become unable to step in and break up play, he moved his pawns back to their original shape.

Stage 3: Czechs are deep, Portuguese in control

When your team is forced deep, there's only two ways to get yourself out of this situation. It's to ask a creative player to make something happen, or ask a pacey player to drag you out of your half.

Theo Walcott effectively did this for England against Sweden, as John Terry's defence crept closer and closer to 18-yard line.

Unfortunately for Bilek, there was not a single player in his team who could do either of these things, thus highlighting the dearth in creative quality.

The 4-3-3 is built to effortlessly control, create overloads and keep the defensive line high. With Bento's side in a position of control, it was just a matter of finding the inevitable goal and keeping things tight.

Ronaldo was moved back to the wing, but Bilek no longer asked Selassie to man-mark him for fear of what could happen.

With his team in control and using the ball well, Ronaldo became confident his teammates would be able to find him in a scoring position—and they did. What a header.

Portugal's weakness?

The most incisive attacking method the Czech Republic saw was to exploit the channels between the full-backs and central defenders.

The Czechs saw two or three opportunities pass in this vein during the first half as both Joao Pereira and Coentrao's forward surges meant they were out of position due to Veloso's poor passing out from the back.

Vaclav Pilar and Jiracek both had chances but they squandered them. They needed to be quicker and more decisive given their lack of support.

Czech's weakness?

There's a chance the Czech's surprise run could have been even longer had they possessed a good striker.

Milan Baros had one of the more useless tournaments this time around, showing little strength, no pace and no goals to boast.

Conclusion

It was this temporary moving of Ronaldo that allowed the Portuguese to come back into a game they simply weren't controlling.

On balance, this was a tactical tussle between two managers. Bento got the upper hand on Bilek and managed to find an effective way of overcoming two sturdy central midfield linchpins.

Unfortunately for the Czechs, there was no plan B. Once the game plan had gone, Bilek had no answers due to a dearth of creativity in his side and an inability to deal with the Portuguese talent in front of him.

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