Magath has, it seems, been trying to transform Ivan Rakitic in very much the same way as Louis van Gaal transformed Bastian Schweinsteiger last season. From an exciting left-sided attacking midfielder (or, though less frequently, a central attacking midfielder), Schweinsteiger shielded his defence and was the man who his defenders turned to when in possession. He started the attack, he orchestrated the play, he decided the tempo, he was the metronome. He performed this role brilliantly at the World Cup with Germany (maybe Magath got his idea there). Rakitic was mostly an impact sub for Croatia at EURO 2008, but Magath thinks Rakitic will perform better and more constantly in this central position. Beside him, Jermaine Jones performs the 'Khedira role', as a more infiltrating, running, box-to-box midfielder, who is not afraid to tackle and does his defensive duty effectively. In this way, Magath is not only trying to copy Germany, but also Bayern, where these roles are filled by Schweinsteiger and van Bommel respectively. So, Magath plays a 4-2-3-1. But this 4-2-3-1 has some interesting idiosyncracies.
Magath had a problem against Hoffenheim's three man midfield: a 3-versus-2 situation. The first option was to ask the central player in his own bank of three (Raùl) to drop back and help out against this threat. However, Raul is not as fit as he used to be, and this would drain the energy he needs to perform in his own area (i.e. just behind Huntelaar), and has never been the most energetic when it comes to defensive duties. Magath found another way: Moritz man-marked Salihovic, Hoffenheim's excellent Bosnian midfield maestro. And by man-marking, I mean man-marking:
Salihovic has stayed central, so Moritz stays central
Salihovic has wandered to Hoffenheim's left-hand side, so Moritz follows him there.
This posed another problem: if Moritz stayed central when Schalke were in possession, Schalke's right would only have Metzelder, a makeshift full-back in this match, as an attacking outlet, if he even joined the attack. So, when in possession, Moritz pushed out to the right-hand side and played more as a right-sided midfielder, between central midfield and right flank. This was undoubtedly a very difficult and draining role, but Moritz performed it well and was probably one of Schalke's better performers on the night.
The two midfields, with Moritz (green) and Edu (red) wide
Hoffenheim were more enthusiastic and driven than Schalke. Demba Ba (purple), especially, was willing to make diagonal runs into the box without the ball, which caused Metzelder all sorts of problems (Metzelder's inclusion as a right-back was pretty mind-boggling. He was replaced at half time):
Hoffenheim's star performer, however, was Luis Gustavo (yellow). He linked defence and attack very well, was always available, and was always leading the charge when pressing the Schalke midfield. I have written about this role, and how often it is neglected or not carried out well enough (see Leverkusen, with neither Vidal nor Ballack willing to take it up, or Russia, where Shirokov is too limited a player to do it well):
Gustavo's positioning is excellent here: his defenders have the option to pass the ball to him, and he has the technical ability to pick out a man with a good pass.
And so Luis Gustavo filled the role that Rakitic was supposed to fill. That's not to say Rakitic had a bad game, but he was, for large parts of the game, anonymous, and is obviously still getting used to this new position. He could do worse than look at Luis Gustavo in this game to see what is required of this new type of deep-lying midfielder, in the Busquets and Schweinsteiger mould: defend well and start attacks. This requires positional discipline, concentration, 3D vision of the pitch at all times to pick out the best passes, and a team that is trained to make runs off and towards the ball, so he can surprise and vary his game. It's a team game, and Hoffenheim is a much better unit than Schalke.
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