Man, you wouldn’t believe the fight I had last week. It wasn’t about politics or some deep philosophical crap. It was about alineaciones de elche c. f. contra sd eibar. Seriously. This is the kind of pointless hill I sometimes choose to die on, and frankly, I love it.
My mate, Steve, is absolutely convinced that Coach Francisco (the one who used to be at Elche) is some tactical mastermind, and I’ve always thought he relies too much on hope and counter-attacks, which is fine, but it’s not genius. We were arguing about who was better—Francisco or Mendilibar (the Eibar guy). We needed a definitive battlefield, and we chose this ancient Elche vs. Eibar clash from a few seasons back. It was a draw, so neither of us could claim an easy victory just based on the score. We had to break down the starting XI decisions.
I told him I was going to bust this thing wide open, prove that one coach simply out-thought the other in the initial setup, regardless of the final scoreline.
The Dive: Finding the Key Battleground
The first thing I did was track down the full 90 minutes. I don’t use those fancy subscription services for deep data analysis; that’s too sterile. I need the grime, the sweat, the feel of the pitch, even if I’m watching it on my tiny laptop screen. I pulled up the game footage and started my usual messy process.
The core of this analysis wasn’t the players’ skill; it was how they were deployed. When those starting line-ups came out, it felt like one coach was playing poker and the other was playing chess, and I needed to figure out which was which.
I immediately focused on the midfield three for Eibar versus the tight 4-4-2 structure Elche rolled out. I didn’t trust the official graphics, so I drew the formations myself on a piece of graph paper. My notes looked like this:
- Elche: Very compact block. Wingers tucked inside. Goal: Stop the middle from collapsing.
- Eibar: Mendilibar went for the classic high-press 4-3-3, relying on his two attacking fullbacks to provide all the width. Risk!
I sat there, replaying the first 15 minutes about six times. I wasn’t just watching the ball; I was tracking the movement off the ball.
The Manual Tracking and the ‘Aha’ Moment
I noticed a pattern. Eibar was banking everything on dominating the wings with their fullbacks bombing forward. But Elche’s coach, Francisco, had clearly spotted this vulnerability and set a trap.
I spent a solid hour just tracking Elche’s left winger, Fidel, and their right back. Every time Eibar’s right back, Rober Correa, pushed up past the halfway line—which he did constantly—Fidel didn’t follow him back immediately. Instead, Elche’s central midfielder shifted over, creating a temporary five-man defense, and Fidel stayed high, essentially leaving him in a perfect position to launch a fast break when the ball was won back.
This was the genius move. Mendilibar’s starting formation assumed he could pin Elche back with sheer numbers and aggression. Francisco’s starting formation immediately nullified that aggression by creating perfect counter-attacking channels.
I had to check my work. I rewatched the transition moments. I watched the first Elche goal attempt—a quick breakaway after an Eibar fullback had lost the ball high up the pitch. It wasn’t a coincidence. It was the direct result of the coach’s instruction to the starting XI: let them commit, then hit them where they aren’t.
I got really deep into this, pausing the video and actually counting how many touches Elche’s center-forward, Pere Milla, took in the final third in the first half compared to his average. He was acting like a pivot, dragging one of Eibar’s deep-lying midfielders out of position, which in turn opened up the space for Fidel’s counter-runs. It was beautiful, simple manipulation.
The Verdict and Telling Steve
So, who won the starting XI battle? It was clearly Francisco, even if the game ended 1-1.
Here’s why I logged this down as a victory for the Elche coach:
- Better Defensive Structure: He built his starting formation to specifically contain the known aggression of Mendilibar’s wide players. It was reactive, but perfectly executed.
- Exploiting Space: He sacrificed immediate possession dominance to gain massive transitional advantages. The formation was designed to hit the gaps created by Eibar’s adventurous fullbacks.
- Immediate Threat: Within the first 25 minutes, Elche had created two genuine, clear-cut chances directly from this structural advantage. Eibar had only created one half-chance from a set piece.
I called Steve up immediately, and I didn’t just give him the score. I walked him through my notes, frame by frame, explaining how the starting 4-4-2 wasn’t defensive at all—it was a highly specialized counter-attacking launchpad. I had to stop myself from yelling into the phone. I used terms like “positional sacrifice” and “premeditated transition,” which I immediately regretted because I hate sounding like I’m reading a textbook, but I was excited.
My point was that Francisco’s XI was better prepared for the opponent’s strategy right from the first whistle. He anticipated the pressure and had a clean answer. Mendilibar’s XI, while aggressive, was structurally flawed against a compact block designed to exploit the wide areas he chose to vacate.
Steve finally conceded the point, but only after I sent him screenshots of my graph paper drawings, which are frankly a mess. It took me a good three hours of rewatching and noting, but proving that initial tactical hypothesis correct felt way better than any fantasy football win. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to find the next ridiculous match to dissect. It’s tiring, but damn, it’s rewarding.