Andrea Sottil Has Delivered Instant Improvement At Udinese

A quick glance at the Serie A table throws up one or two mild surprises, with Napoli and Atalanta sitting first and second respectively after 10 rounds of action.

Things then quickly go back to normal as the next few places are occupied by Milan, Roma and Lazio, before noting that Inter and Juventus – who have struggled so far this term – have dropped down to spots seven and eight.

However, it is the sight of Udinese in sixth-place that almost causes a meme-worthy double take, as it has been quite some time since the Friulian outfit were riding so high up the standings.

Indeed, we’d need to go back a full decade to Francesco Guidolin’s tenure on the bench in Udine to find them in a similar position, the Coach guiding them to a fourth-placed finish in 2010/11, third a year later and then fifth in 2012/13.

That side boasted exciting players like Antonio Di Natale and Alexis Sanchez, but their owners – the Pozzo family – bought Watford in the summer of 2012 and undoubtedly began to prioritise the English club.

Since then, there is no doubt that Udinese have struggled. Guidolin limped to 14th place in his final season before being fired in the summer of 2014, and between then and this past summer, the Pozzos cycled through no fewer than 11 different managers.

There was no rhyme nor reason to those changes either, with veteran bosses like Gigi Delneri, Beppe Iachini and Luigi Di Canio interspersed with unproven quantities such as Massimo Oddo or Gabriele Cioffi.

The scatter-gun approach also gave opportunities to excellent coaching talent like Igor Tudor and Davide Nicola, but never gave them long enough to showcase their obvious quality at the Dacia Arena.

As a result, Udinese have endured a run of complete mediocrity, finishing 16th, 17th, 13th, 14th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 12th in Serie A over the last eight years. Yet now they’re flying high, overcoming a loss to Milan on the opening day of the season to go on a nine-game unbeaten run.

It is a streak that includes a win over Roma and Inter, as well as draws with Atalanta and Lazio. Their run of form – and the unexpectedly high spot in the table – have, as you might expect, seen plenty of observers reaching for the obvious, tired narratives.

Discussions about the club’s ability to spot talented players are everywhere, with the sale of Destiny Udogie’s £15 million ($16.78m) move to Tottenham at the forefront of those conversations.

The full-back has been loaned back to Udinese for this season, while transfer speculation about team-mates like Rodrigo Becao, Sandi Lovric and Beto has continued to gather pace.

Of course, the interest in the club’s talent has brought the owners in front of the media. “The goal of Udinese has always been, and will always be, to discover great talents,” owner Giampaolo Pozzo told Forbes back in September.

“It’s not easy to compete with the biggest clubs for a club with the dimension of Udinese, but we always work and we will work harder to close this gap,” he said.

“We are making a great effort in the last few years to step by step to come back to compete with the top clubs, that is the ambition. The short to mid-term goal is to come back to European competition.”

Yet a lot of that does not hold up under close scrutiny. At 19 years old, Udogie is clearly a true gem unearthed by the club, but he was at Udinese last term, as were 26-year-old Becao, Lovric (24) and leading scorer Beto (24).

The same is also true of other key players like Roberto Pereyra (31) and Gerard Deulofeu (28), who have both had spells at Watford and are unlikely to be fetching high transfer fees any time soon.

So rather than trying to frame Udinese’s success as some incredible business model paying off, what has actually been the difference for the Zebrette this term? It’s actually an easy question to answer, because the one significant change has been on the bench where Gabriele Cioffi moved on to Hellas Verona.

Udinese looked to Serie B for a replacement, bringing in Andrea Sottil. As a defender, he made 115 appearances for the club between 1999 and 2003, but as a Coach he has rapidly transformed them into a force to be reckoned with.

He brought some of his Ascoli backroom staff with him, namely Assistant Coach Gianluca Cristaldi, athletic trainer Ignazio Cristian Bella and match analyst Salvatore Gentile, the trio helping Sottil to deliver the message behind his philosophy to the players.

“We must always maintain an aggressive approach and look to play vertical football,” he told reporters at a press conference in September. “I don’t mind us keeping the ball but it has to be effective – not just sterile possession. It has to take us towards the goal by exploiting the spaces, and we must be ready to mark up instantly the moment we lose possession.”

At the same press conference he urged his players to “not rest on their laurels” after wins over Roma (4-0), Fiorentina (1-0) and Sassuolo (3-1). “You must always put games behind you immediately – there’s no point talking about the past,” he continued. “The here and now is all that matters.”

They promptly went out and beat Inter 3-1.

Sottil has used a 3-5-2 set up almost exclusively, although he did switch to 4-4-2 for a period against Sassuolo to frustrate the Neroverdi. However, his tactical approach has been far more important than the formation he has used, urging Udinese to be aggressive in their pursuit of the ball, then look to hit the opposition with lightning quick attacks through the wide areas.

That is borne out by statistics taken from WhoScored.com, which shows that their constant pressing of the ball has Udinese ranking second behind only Cremonese (20.8) for tackles per game with 17.8, while only five teams average more than their tally of 9.5 interceptions.

Yet because of their desire to rapidly get the ball into forward areas and try to score, the Fruilian side simultaneously rank sixth in terms of shots per game (13.8) but 14th in terms of ball retention with an average of just 48.2% possession.

Udinese have been unpredictable in how they play against a set defence too, alternating between slowly advancing the ball from the back or asking goalkeeper Marco Silvestri to aim long in the direction of 6’ 4” (1.94m) striker Beto who drifts wide into the channels for those passes.

However they choose to get the ball up the pitch, once they have it there Udinese have patience, and attack with good movement around the focal point Beto provides. Deulofeu is nominally the second striker, but he drifts into the gaps between the opposition defence and midfield, allowing team-mates Walace and Tolgay Arslan to make runs into the space he vacates.

No fewer than 11 different players have found the back of the net, and the transformation of this team saw Sottil named as Serie A’s Coach of the Month for September, an award he richly deserved.

​​“I played for Udinese many years ago and I know the credo of the club is humility, determination and facing opponents with an incredible football ferocity.” That familiarity has allowed Udinese to hit the ground running, a largely unchanged squad immediately capable of delivering these vastly improved results.

With his grounded philosophy and modern approach, Andrea Sottil has all the qualities to keep that run going for as long as the club’s owners let him.