De Zerbi has been regarded as a young and emerging Italian coach who, until now (currently in charge at Brighton & Hove Albion), hadn't managed top-table clubs. Nevertheless, he consistently demonstrated the courage to inspire his players to be part of something beyond defensive and counter-attacking teams, producing entertaining soccer both in Italy as Sassuolo’s head coach and guiding Brighton to the club’s highest positions ever in the Premier League during the 2022-2023 season.

Aside from the system of play, two principles have remained unchanged in the style of play of his teams: building up slowly and transitioning quickly with vertical passes through the center, altering the pace from the middle to the final third to unsettle the opposition.

This e-Book explores the foundational ideas behind De Zerbi's playing style and analyzes the evolution of his teams' play through statistics, match analysis parameters, and images from recent matches. The underlying concept is to interpret the entertaining, fascinating, and effective style of play expressed by the Italian coach's teams.

This e-Book aspires to serve as another reference point for studying the playing style of "one of the most influential Italian coaches of the last twenty years", as Roberto De Zerbi was defined by Guardiola. By delving into the footballing history of the coach, this text aims to study how his teams play and the typical team shape used by the Italian coach to express his offensive style and principles of play.

The e-Book contains 10 useful exercises for coaches to transfer the tactical concepts identified in the analysis into the training sessions.