IGOR TUDOR
I think the position of RB/LB as the europeans understand it is a total LIE.
When you playe at least amateur football you can see that its IMPOSSIBLE for a RB or LB really attack AND defend with competence.
You need to say what you want the player to do more.
The RB and the LB are attacking players that need to help the defense, like the wingers.
Yes you're not supposed to ONLY attack, but the team should cover the RB using the midfielders and let the guy attack ALL THE TIME.
Why? Because is better to attack in the wide positions.
Oh, but a winger can do that, right?
Not really. A winger will start in a advanced position in the pitch, and only if the guy got a lot of talent we will see any impact in the game.
In the modern game is not hard to mark a wide winger(Dutch styled) out of the game.
They do that with Neymar all the time(not in the nt because the coach tells him to change his position)
What i'm saying is: as an attacking RB/LB you dont need to be as talented as a top winger in order to have basically the same impact.
This's why i dont like 4-3-3.
All the Brazilian were trained in 4-4-2 since the 70s, even when we play for fun with our friends is 4-4-2.
When you see a Brazilian nt using 4-3-3 in the paper, in the reality is 4-1-4-1...we dont know how to play 4-3-3.
Our midfielders cant attack and defend, they're specialists, Casemiro will defend, the other guys wil ATTACK and help the defence as they can.
If you say to Paulinho: "be a box to box.", he will flop at Totteham.
If you say to him: "go there and attack all the time with your RB, he will be MOTM against Argentina and score a heatrick against Uruguay in Montevideo..
All those Brazilians in europe are not wingers, - Lucas Moura,.Felipe Anderson, William, Coutinho... they''re second strikers.
They cant mark full backs and still put on good attacking stats..
The real "wingers" are supposed to be the RB/LB.
I wrote a bible and my english sucks.
Probably a lot of words are wrong, i apologize.