Although a forum between managers may sound like a boring event at first, there has been plenty of interesting quotes coming from ANTF this week.
Among the many famous managers who took part in the event, there was the former Benfica and Sporting boss Jorge Jesus, who’s currently unemployed after leaving Al Hilal in January.
Speaking of his favourite tactical systems since the start of his career, Jorge Jesus has given a few examples of teams who succeeded using three defenders. And the list of teams turned out to be quite surprising, since it went from Johan Cruyff’s Netherlands to Nuno Espírito Santos’ Wolverhampton Wanderers.
“I have no problem in saying that in the first years of my career I was inspired by Cruyff and I tried to play in 3-4-3 or 3-5-2 and wanted to know how the Clockwork Orange moved,” said Jorge Jesus (via Diário de Notícias). “Playing with three defenders is more difficult to teach and to play, because most players are formed with four defenders and not three.”
“They say the system is just numbers, which does not matter, but it’s from the system that everything starts. It’s very different to play on a 4-4-2 or a 3-4-3. Our Nuno Espírito Santo has been successful with 3-4-3 or 3-5-2. Conte also had success in England at Chelsea with this system.”
Nuno Espírito Santo has changed systems since moving to England. When working at Porto, the manager would only use 4-4-2, 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 formations. Something convinced him to use three defenders in the Championship and the Premier League, and things have been working pretty well at Wolves so far.
