Football Tactics: The Regista

In any football team, you need to have a functional midfield. The midfield protect the back four, dictate play with their passes, create chances for the attackers and at times, take it upon themselves to score. With the advancement of the game with teams preferring to be more possession based without compromising their defensive shape with the success of Pep Guardiola's Barcelona, the deep lying-playmaker is being utilities more. In particular, the regista.

So what is the regista and who are the players that have played this role well both past and present. Well, the regista is a deep-lying playmaker which means 'director' in Italian. According to Football Manager, the regista is 'an aggressive version of the deep-lying playmaker suitable for possession-oriented system that press high up the pitch.' So the regista is the player who dictates play from his own half to create chances for his teammates in advanced positions. The regista can play in numerous system whether it's the 4-4-2 diamond, 4-3-2-1 or 4-1-4-1 but they are used best in a 4-3-3.

Juventus 2014/15 Team

The attributes of a regista include passing especially long-range passing, intelligence, vision, decision making, composure, positioning, off the ball movement and vision. He also need to be competent in his defensive skills as he plays in-between the centre-backs. The player commonly used as an example was Andrea Pirlo. The Italian was one of the most successful midfielders at his height being the man to link the midfield to the attack and hold the ball to wear off the opposition. At Juventus,  Arturo Vidal supported Pirlo breaking up play from the opposition and Paul Pogba being given more freedom to support the attack. This has been successful with Pirlo winning countless Serie A titles with Milan and Juventus, the Champions League with Milan and the World Cup with Italy.

Present day players who can operate as a regista include Marco Veratti, Jorginho, Ruben Neves, etc. The most popular mentioned is Jorginho. The Brazilian-born Italian international was successful for Napoli making on average 99 passes per game which was more than any midfielder in Europe's top 5 leagues last season. Moving to Chelsea during the summer, he's been important for the Blues being Sarri's midfield general. In Chelsea's win against Newcastle, Jorginho made more passes than Newcastle with 158 passes completed to Newcastle's 131 plus.

However, there are problems with the regista. One is that he's not the best tackler and doesn't like to get his hands dirty. Hence why they need defensive support with Vidal as an example for Pirlo. Another example is Xabi Alonso who needed a defensive minded midfielder to support him like Javier Mascherano and Sami Khedira. Another problem is being prone to make takeovers or being heavily man-marked. Since play goes through him, the regista can be suffocated from the game which he's heavily man-marked or being pressed that he could make errors giving the opposition chances and disrupting his rhythm.

Again, the Regista is the organizer of the team, making the team and create chances from deep which works well especially teams that sit in a low-block. He is the prime creator of the team. For more explanation of the role, here is a video by Tifo Football who make excellent football analysis.