Celtic fans couldn’t be more familiar with Brendan Rodgers.
Across his five years at Celtic, the team was a ruthless winning machine. Even when their football wasn’t dazzling, they still tended to win.
His sudden resignation has seemingly paved the way for Columbus Crew boss Wilfried Nancy to replace him – and on the face of it, they are similar coaches.
They may differ in terms of formation, but they both value possession highly. They both press high. They both encourage their teams to play out. There are plenty of similarities.
But one key difference will be evident, should Nancy take charge.
Celtic target Wilfried Nancy and his ‘relationist’ approach
Rodgers is a proponent of ‘positional play’, a structured way of playing possession-based football which takes discipline from players.
He said, in his own words, in 2019: “It has to be coordinated and synchronised.
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“I am very structured in how I like my teams to play. I like them to arrive in the right areas and once they arrive there it is about their improvisation, quality and combinations.”
Ange Postecoglou also took this approach, which is almost ubiquitous in the modern game. Almost.
Nancy is one of the few to have ventured away from it. He told the Extratime podcast last year: “This [our style] is a mix between position and relation.”
“Yes, in the past I was more a ‘positional play’ coach. Now, I am more in-between. So yes, we like to exploit the weak side, but I need only one guy on the weak side.
“And where the ball is, I need a lot of density. Many players close to each other, to manipulate the opposition and move towards the goal.”
In the simplest terms, this means that Nancy encourages his players to move from their positions when they see fit. This makes his team’s shape much less predictable.
It’s a totally different approach to chance creation than what we’re used to. Tactical observers have named it ‘relationism’, and Nancy is one of the first to openly refer to it at the top level of football.
Of course, it isn’t reinventing the wheel, but if Nancy can successfully implement this football in Glasgow as he has in Columbus, its impact could be seismic.
And, more crucially, it could get Celtic playing good football again.
Can Wilfried Nancy’s tactical approach translate to Celtic?
It’s all well and good saying that Nancy’s football is great, but we have only seen it in MLS – this will be the biggest challenge of his career.
Russell Martin stands as the ultimate example of what can very quickly go wrong if you don’t make a good start in Glasgow.
But Postecoglou is what can happen when you get it right. The Australian proved everyone wrong with the success of his football at Celtic Park.
If Nancy can have a similar impact to that Postecoglou had, the potential is limitless.
As Nancy himself put it, impossible is an opinion…
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