Middlesbrough is not necessarily the first place that comes to mind when you think of stylistic innovation, but in the Championship, Boro are blazing a trial. A six-game winning streak has propelled them to the top of the table before Monday night’s crucial visit to promotion rivals Coventry, and they have got there playing football unlike anyone else in the league.
The manager, Kim Hellberg, arrived at the Riverside Stadium in November with Middlesbrough third in the league but shaken by the sudden departure of Rob Edwards to Wolves. On the face of it, Boro fans didn’t have much to get excited about: Swedish coach, 37, never worked outside his homeland; no trophies outside Swedish non-league, no playing career of note. Hellberg’s Wikipedia page was more of a post-it note. “I’m the most Googled name in Teesside,” he joked at his unveiling.
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His appointment was led by Middlesbrough’s head of football, Kieran Scott, who had had Hellberg’s name written down in his notebook for a couple of years. Hellberg had first caught the eye helping minnows IFK Varnamo punch above their weight in the Swedish top flight, Allsvenskan, before successive second-placed finishes with Hammarby playing attacking, possession-dominant football.
He underwent a series of interviews, first with Scott and then with chief executive Neil Bausor and chairman Steve Gibson, who were impressed with his detailed plans for how to get the best out of Middlesbrough’s squad. Scott was in agreement with Hellberg’s assessment of a team with defensive solidity but in need of cohesion in attack.
In what wasn’t necessarily a ringing endorsement for Edwards’ work, Scott explained: “It’s a group that just needs a bit of coaching.”
Hellberg has built a quick relationship with players including Boro’s Hayden Hackney (Action Images)
The Middlesbrough players quickly bought into Hellberg’s approach. “Everyone loves him and wants to work with him,” said forward Morgan Whittaker after Hellberg’s first game, a 2-1 comeback win over Derby County in which Whittaker scored the winner.
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Boro began to show new traits including unpredictable movement and a smothering high press that helped dominate the ball. Possession numbers jumped from mid-table to the best in the Championship, averaging nearly 60 per cent during Hellberg’s reign.
“We try to dominate as many minutes of each game as possible and to be proactive in having the ball, progressing attacks, and then taking it back directly after losing it,” Hellberg explained, adding: “Possession alone doesn’t win games, but it is connected to how we believe we can be most successful.”
Middlesbrough have won 11 of their 16 games since Hellberg took charge, and what has been so eye-catching is the fast and fluid combination play that has transformed them into such an attractive team to watch. Hellberg references Pep Guardiola among his coaching influences but the Swede does not adopt Guardiola’s famous Juego de Posición principles. His players do not have fixed stations in a carefully calibrated system stretched across the pitch; instead they are encouraged to move freely and be close to one another to make fast connections in tight spaces.
Hellberg says his job is to give players a platform to perform, not for them to adhere to his masterplan. It is why, without naturally gifted touchline wingers, Boro play largely through the middle of the pitch in their notional 4-3-3 shape, using one-twos and flicks around the corner to breach set defences.
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They show clear traits of what tactics writer and Uefa A-licensed coach Jamie Hamilton calls a “relationist” approach, even if Hellberg hasn’t put it that way publicly. If the criticism of Guardiola’s world-popular positional play is that it can put a straitjacket on a team’s flair and individualism, then relationist football is meant to be an antidote to that, a place for liberty and expression, full of diagonal passes, clever dummies and quick, almost telepathic interchanges.
Hellberg has overseen 11 wins from 16 games in the Middlesbrough dugout (Nick Potts/PA Wire)
Relationist play was most famously deployed in recent years by Brazilian side Fluminense under Fernando Diniz, and has popped up all over the world, from Malmo to the Hungarian national team. Hamilton noticed some of those elements with Hellberg’s Varnamo side several years ago, and tells The Independent: “I remember watching them playing against Malmo thinking, ‘They’re pretty good!’”
Hamilton points to the influence of Hellberg’s long-time assistant, David Selini, as key to helping instill their way of playing.
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“Selini uses the term ‘common language’. You want to try and give the players a way of understanding each other, so, who am I playing with? If I’m [Hayden] Hackney, what does [Aidan] Morris like to do? Is he a guy that likes to carry the ball? Is he a guy that likes to lay it off first time? So it’s about inter-player communication and understanding each other’s tendencies and habits.
“That is facilitated in training by using certain common ideas, and that might be pass and move, it might be diagonals, and then within that framework the players can develop understanding of each other. And this is something that’s integral to a more relational approach, rather than using a set positional structure to help those relationships.”
The fast movement and high-octane attacking approach bears similarities with Marcelo Bielsa’s title-winning Leeds side (Bielsa is another of Hellberg’s inspirations), but Boro are unique in the current Championship, carving their own distinct path towards the Premier League. Perhaps Hellberg’s greatest demand of his players is that they never veer from playing their own way.
Hellberg celebrates Boro’s win over Norwich City at the Riverside (Action Images)
“I was so proud,” he said after last weekend’s win at Sheffield United. “We scored after 19 minutes and we had 63 per cent of the ball during the game. Away from home, I think that is unbelievable, when you score early against that good of a team, when you keep playing the way you want to play, away from home with a sold-out crowd, I think that’s unbelievably impressive.
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“It’s easy away from home, when you score that early goal, to drop and do something else or the opponent forces you to do it, but that was a good picture of the team we want to be. We want to take control of our destiny, we want to play forward as quickly as we can, we want to create chances, and I think we did that unbelievably good.”
Middlesbrough’s winning streak has lifted them above Coventry, who had been leading the Championship all season, and Frank Lampard’s team will provide the ultimate test of Boro’s progress when they meet on Monday night. Win and Boro will have breathing room at the top, as they chase a return to the top flight for the first time in a decade.
Hellberg has a tattoo on his chest of the Allsvenskan trophy with a blank date beneath it, which he vowed to one day fill in. But things change quickly in football, especially in the modern data era, when players and coaches are uncovered who might have gone unnoticed in previous generations. Everybody on Teesside knows the name Kim Hellberg now, and soon the Premier League might know him too.
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