What Can We Expect From Real Sociedad Under New Manager Sergio Francisco?

For the first time in five years, Real Sociedad won’t be playing European competitions next season. A cycle has ended at the club with players like Mikel Merino and Robin Le Normand leaving last season after being vital to their run to 4th place the previous year. This summer, the manager Imanol Alguacil will be leaving, as well as Martín Zubimendi.

To replace him, they have promoted Real Sociedad B manager Sergio Francisco, a young manager who has never managed at the top level. However, with his knowledge of the academy of Real Sociedad, which has been essential to their success in the previous years, they will be expecting him to improve the younger players, such as Pablo Marín or Jon Martín, who have made their breakthrough seasons.

Name: Sergio Francisco

Age: 41

Country: Spain 

Context: Sergio Francisco played in Real Sociedad’s youth team when he was younger, but was never able to reach the top level and played most of his years in the 3rd and 4th divisions of Spanish football, playing for many years at Real Unión. 

The same club where he would begin his managerial career when he retired in 2012 as an assistant manager, where he lasted two years, one as an assistant, and one as the first team manager. 

He left in the summer of 2014 and did not return to coaching until two years later, when he joined Real Sociedad C as an assistant for one season and later as a coach for 5 years. In 2022, he was promoted to be the coach of Real Sociedad B with Xabi Alonso’s departure, and has been there for the past 3 seasons, racking up a 5th placed, 9th placed, and most recently a 3rd placed finish in the 3rd division.

General

In this image, we can see Real Sociedad B’s and Real Sociedad’s average positioning of each player in the squad. As we can see, both images are practically identical with 4 defenders, one defensive midfielder, two midfielders who push further up, two wingers, and a lone striker.

Attack

When Real Sociedad B are in the build-up phase, they don’t hesitate; if they see that they are being pressed, they won’t usually play from the back, or they will try to attract the press to then play long where there is more space. However, if the press is not intense and they consider it better to play short, they have enough quality to play out from the back. Nonetheless, they usually look to play the ball long.

When in settled possession, Sergio Francisco tends to have a 4-2-3-1 with one of the midfielders having flexibility moving further up or coming closer to the ball. In addition, the full-backs tend to move further up the pitch, and what this allows is for diagonal balls, as there is a 2vs1 on the opposing full-back, allowing the full-back or the winger to receive in space.

Furthermore, another option to progress the ball is overloading the middle of the pitch with 4 players. This is done by having one of the midfielders join the center backs to form a back 3 with the two 8s forming a double pivot, the wingers coming inside, and the full-backs offering width.

When they are able to get into favourable positions and pass the midfield line, they tend to play the ball to the winger or full-back who will look to cross the ball into the box, which gets overloaded by several players, but the most important player is the midfielder who comes from deep, unmarked.

Overall, Real Sociedad B is not very effective in possession and finds it difficult to cut defenses open when the opposition is well structured. Their best chances come from high regains, which we will talk about soon, and counterattacks when the rivals are not correctly organized. In fact, they have scored 6 goals this season from counterattacks, the most, along with Osasuna Promesas.

In addition, here we can see that they scored 43 goals, the 7th most in the league; nonetheless, they overscored their xG, which suggests that they should have scored fewer goals, and if we take into account xG, they would stand in the bottom half of the table. 

Defense

Real Sociedad B is a very intense team that likes to press high and regain the ball from the opposition half, where they are then effective in generating opportunities. Sergio Francisco’s approach to pressing is quite flexible and has a sort of hybrid press; he doesn’t like to commit man for man, but rather uses more of a zonal marking.

In the following images, we can see that no players commit man-for-man but rather have a more conservative approach at first and then have triggers to press the man on the ball. This can be seen perfectly in the last image, when Real Sociedad B intercepts the ball, but the midfielder was already running to press the player who was going to receive the ball.

When Real Sociedad B are in a mid-block, they like to implement a high-line in a 4-2-3-1 or 4-5-1 formation, to limit the space the opposition have to play the ball in the middle of the pitch. So, essentially, when the ball is played in the middle of the pitch, the midfielders inside have a trigger to press immediately, as they won’t have easy passing options.

This usually leads to a poor pass or a poor touch, which leads to them either receiving the ball or participating in duels, as the middle of the pitch is like an arena where the only option is to either recover the ball or make a foul if they lose the duel. In fact, Real Sociedad B is 3rd for both defensive duels and aerial duels this season.

In addition, the defenders maintaining the high line are prepared to start running back if they see that a long ball is incoming and are very good at timing their runs for this. Furthermore, if a player receives the ball in between the lines, they do not hesitate in going out of their position to press the player.

Overall, their defensive capabilities are very good, and Sergio Francisco has implemented this system very well into his squad. In fact, they are the second team with the lowest goals conceded; however, as we can see in this image, they should have conceded over 10 more goals, and if we rank the teams on xG conceded, they would sit once more in the lower half of the table.

Sergio Francisco and the outgoing Real Sociedad manager Imanol Alguacil are quite similar in their styles of playing, both with high intensity and a high number of defensive and aerial duels, as we can see here.

Furthermore, they are also a team that has a high-press, as we can see in the image below which indicates the PPDA (Passes per defensive action) for each team.

Overall, there are several characteristics that make both managers similar, which will allow for a smooth fit for the current squad. In addition, Sergio Francisco knows many players who are in the first team, as he has managed the majority of them, given that they have passed through the academy.

It is clear Real Sociedad wants to continue with this style of playing, and there is no one better to continue than the Real Sociedad B manager. They will be hoping he will have a similar impact to Claudio Giráldez at Celta, with the growing importance of many home-grown players.

However, there are several facets that do downplay Sergio Francisco, which are that he has no experience in the first division, and although he achieved a 3rd placed finish this season, the data indicates they should have finished much lower than that, as they outscored their xG and conceded fewer goals than they were supposed to.

By: Juan Fernandez Valencia / @ScoutLaLiga

Featured Image: @GabFoligno / Quality Sport Images / Getty Images