One of the key roles in the 3313 formation is that of the enganche, it is a Spanish term which means "the Hook". In the context of football it is the hook between attack and midfield

 

It is sometimes referred to as the playmaker in English, and is the central attacking midfielder tasked with the creative aspect of midfield. In Italian Football they call the role a Regista.

 

The typical Trequartista's or quarter back type players in a 2323, 433 or 4231 are more attacking CAMs who go forward quickly taking people on. 

 

The Enganche in our system plays a more subtle and creative role and links the midfield and attack covering when needed.

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Very good examples of an Enganche would be Juan Roman Riquelme who played for Boca Juniors, Villareal and represented Argentina at the 2006 World Cup, Zinedine Zidane’s for France at the same tournament & Xavi Hernandez, the undisputed pass-master of tiki-taka, who also nicely controlled his team’s tempo when at FC Barcelona.

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At Hawks our Enganche is the player with some freedom to play in the space behind our front three and control the tempo of the game with clever passes to the attackers before going to support the attack and shooting on goal from deep if possible.

 

When on the attack he should be positioned behind the opponents midfield but not as far forward as the attackers with freedom to roam around in this space.

 

We also encourage our Enganche to be a ball winner & drop deep when we need to tackle to win back possession. When he wins the ball he can then control the moments and direction of the attacks. One of the key skills is to be a good decision maker and excellent passer with good vision and awareness of our players positions.

 

Execution of one key signature move called "La Pausa" is important to drag opponents out of position before making a delayed killer pass. Xavi was an expert at this.

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For these roles to be carried out well, such players need to have superb passing abilities, vision, awareness and ball skills plus confidence in possession.

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When the team has lost possession these players role need to quickly press and close down opponents with the aim to win the ball back within 5 seconds. They need to be tough tacklers.

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Most important they need to be postionally aware and not get dragged forward without cover behind them.

 

Player requirements :

 

• Comfortable on the ball

• Positional discipline

• Good vision

• Awareness of team mates

• Brave in the tackle.

• Excellent range of passing over short and long distance

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Juan Roman Riquelme, Xavi Hernandez Crues, Thomas Muller & Zenidine Zidane are great examples of the Enganche.