Tactics Journal research does four things.

It monitors more football content than any person could. Articles, press conferences, podcasts, coaching interviews, analysis — across leagues, languages, and cultures. Every hour, it pulls in new content and stores it as searchable embeddings. German tactical blogs, Portuguese analysis, press conferences where managers drop phrases weeks before anyone writes about the concept behind them.

You gain experience from the entire world of football, not just the English-speaking portion.

It finds ideas that haven’t crossed over yet. Not by reading headlines. By classifying sources as frontier or mainstream, then looking for ideas circulating in smaller, independent sources before they show up in major coverage. Ideas backed by multiple sources across different football cultures score higher. Single-source weak signals get penalized.

It writes daily deep research reports. Only candidates that pass a quality gate get written up. Each report is researched against a stored corpus and the live web, citation-checked, and revised. Every report requires counterevidence. If the evidence is thin, the report says so.

It tunes itself. Built on the same idea as Karpathy’s autoresearch, the system experiments on its own detection and reporting settings. Keeps what works. Discards what doesn’t.

Everything will be open source. There is no point in hiding how your product works when it is this easy to take something, replicate it, and customize it to fit exactly what you want.

A report will be published daily. One report per week will be available to anyone for free. Subscribe for $15 per month to access every report. More subscribers means better models, which means better reports. The quality scales with interest.

Subscribing is cheaper than hosting it yourself. A subscription costs a fraction of the ~$40/month you’d spend running it yourself on hosting and LLM calls.

I’m still testing and fine tuning things. Join the waitlist to get early access.

Most people interact with AI through chatbots. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini. You ask a question, get an answer, then go apply it yourself. The work still falls on you.

Agents are different. You don’t ask them a question. You give them a job. Research, execution, testing, delivery. The tedious work runs in the background while you focus on the things that actually matter.

Two breakthroughs stopped me in my tracks.

OpenClaw by Peter Steingberger showed what autonomous agents look like when they act as a personal assistant, working unprovoked. Not waiting for a prompt. Just doing the work.

When you try OpenClaw, Hermes Agent, Zo Computer, Manus AI, Perplexity Computer, or Claude Cowork you see where the world is going. When you see things like Mission Control or Polsia you witness the power of building agents that work for you.

autoresearch by Andrej Karpathy showed something else: a small system for training LLMs where an AI could run experiments by itself. It made a change, tested it, checked whether the result improved, kept what worked, and discarded what didn’t. By morning, you had a trail of experiments and a better result. It was built for LLM training, but the loop itself can be adapted to other kinds of optimization.

The cost to build and run things like this is collapsing toward zero. The differentiator is no longer knowing how to build. It’s having the imagination and courage to create something.

Mark Cuban said it recently, “Software is dead because everything’s gonna be customized to your unique utilization.”

The generic tool era is ending. What replaces it is individuals building exactly what they need.

Even if you have no experience in coding, with tools like Codex and Claude Code, anyone can ship something. You are not behind if you start today. But there is no excuse anymore.

And if you don’t want to build anything, there will be someone ready to build it for free or at a lower cost.

This will bring changes for the Tactics Journal. There will be two arms: Opinion and Research.

Opinion will always be authored by me. I watch matches. I think. I write.

There are two types of LLM users: those who use it to learn everything, and those who use it so they don’t have to learn anything. I want to use it to enhance what I do every day.

When everything can be made self-made, what becomes scarce is the thing that can’t be generated. Human time. Human attention. The proof that a real person chose to spend their limited hours on something rather than everything else they could have done. A handwritten letter means more in a world where AI can write a perfect one instantly. The effort is the message. The opinion side of this site will always be me. My observations, my voice, my time.

The research side is an embodiment of what I think we should be paying attention to, tuned by me. I watch matches and write about what I see. The system reads everything I can’t and surfaces what I’d miss.

There are new breakthroughs, solutions, models, and ideas coming out every day. You need a full-time job just to keep up with it. But the trajectory is clear. The cost of intelligence is approaching zero. The cost of human attention and judgment is not.

I want to build platforms where agents can act unprovoked. Not waiting for a question. Just doing the work they were built to do.

The people who build these things for football, for journalism, for scouting, for anything will have an unfair advantage. Not because the technology is secret. Because they had the taste to know what to build and the initiative to build it before everyone else.

When a hostage escapes, you don’t critique how he cut the zip ties. You congratulate him.

The tactical tinkering, the one-on-one battles, the big matches—technically still there, but hollowed out. Every big decision is forced upon the manager based on who is available. And most of those picked to play aren’t fully there physically.

Those running the Premier League, Champions League, Europa League, Conference League, FA Cup, and Carabao Cup have these teams tied up. If they don’t make it out of a competition alive, you can understand why.

Imagine how much more exciting these games would be if players had time to prepare. If the best eleven could face off against another best eleven in an even setting with actual training between games.

They had that time years ago. But every year another match is added, another batch of teams, another expansion. Now there’s a game every day of the week.

When does it end?

All this money spent. Most of Europe’s most talented players collected into one league, and we will never see them compete near their ceiling again.

That’s why I don’t have as much to say lately. What is there to say? Their high line isn’t working? They should have converted more of their chances? One manager DOMINATED the other manager tactically? The players look beyond exhausted. I’m looking at them and in my mind I’m saying ‘what are they supposed to do?’

It is a watered down product.

You know the feeling. You’re watching the big game, the ball is on the wing, and suddenly—BZZT.

Your phone lights up. The group chat is going wild. You haven’t seen the goal yet, but you know it happened. The moment is ruined.

Streaming lag is the enemy of live sports. So, I decided to fix it.

This is an idea that I’ve had for a number of months that I put into motion the past few weeks.

If you are tired of muting your phone during matches, I want you to try this.

Join the Beta

City abandoned one of Pep Guardiola’s core principles of play; making the pitch as big as possible in possession. This season, their wingers have license to leave the touchline and join the center of the pitch, with at times no fullback rushing to replace them. Against high pressing teams like Bournemouth and Liverpool, City keep tighter distances between players. It’s working.

When you lack a speed advantage in a straight line, shorter spacing helps shift momentum. When the opposition doesn’t offer you space, you must create it. Persisting with larger distances is no longer the way to regain control.

The Problem: Playing “Ping Pong”

The opponent marks you man-to-man. Everywhere you go, they follow. There is no free man.

They step forward with every pass. They squeeze you into corners and wait for mistakes. Eventually they force you to punt the ball long out of your own half.

It becomes a game of ping pong. You clear it, reset, try to win it back. But this is what they want. They live in the mud. They enjoy chasing. They trap you in one-on-one duels that become a two- or three-on-one. Their forwards train weekly in these conditions. They have an edge when you play their game.

And that long aerial pass to no one? It gives the opposing team time to shift into position.

The Solution

When you have technical superiority but no speed advantage, tighter spacing is the more effective way to play out of pressure.

A CIES Football Observatory study using SkillCorner data from 7,050 matches across 28 leagues argues that retaining possession under high-intensity pressure is shaped not only by individual quality, but also by team context—such as teammate proximity/passing options/compactness—and notes that a player “on his own” under pressure will find it harder to keep the ball than one with more nearby options.

In other words, more passing options due to tighter spacing directly improve ball retention when pressed.

How It Works: Manchester City vs Bournemouth

Abandon the wings. Start with shorter spacing, draw the opposition in, then escape and attack the space behind them.

Bournemouth press high. Every City player is marked man-to-man.

City connect a series of short passes that draws Bournemouth in further, then expand and release Erling Haaland—the one player who gives them the speed advantage—for the first goal.

They repeat this until they gain control. Once they do, they spread out again, returning to what’s familiar.

The Exception: When To Expand

When you have clear advantages in both speed and technique, stretching the pitch makes sense.

Think of PSG with Kvaratskhelia and Vitinha, Bayern Munich with Olise and Kane, Barcelona with Yamal and Pedri. They have more than one way to beat their man in isolation.

Increase spacing, use your athleticism to force the defense to expand. Beat your man and drag defenders away from teammates. The opposition abandons their marks to cover, and suddenly they’re stuck in their own half.

Defenders contract toward the ball like a magnet. Break past them and they’re forced to expand.

What It Means For Liverpool

Last season, Liverpool had that lethal combination: technical ability and athleticism in midfield, pace in attack with Diaz, Nunez, and Salah.

This season, the dynamics have changed. They lost that speed advantage and must adapt.

Liverpool have a technical advantage over Brighton but not a speed advantage. They need to connect passes and combine to progress past Brighton’s press.

Would you rather their attacking players be 5 to 10 yards apart or 15 to 30?

When spacing becomes too large, players like Gakpo, Wirtz, and Ekitike get smothered in isolation. These are players who thrive in tight spaces and short-passing combinations—as a collective, not as individuals stranded on islands.

When they shorten distances, like they did against Inter Milan and Brighton, they play to their strengths.

The Blueprint

This is not an overload for the sake of an overload.

It’s a short period of a match where you use the ball to attract pressure, which creates space to attack.

Use technical ability and intelligence to force the opponent to dismark and expand. Not one pass and a dribble—a series of short passes with constant movement. Make it harder for the pressing team to isolate the ball carrier, then use relational tools: one-twos, give-and-gos, wall passes, combinations on the diagonal.

A byproduct: tighter spacing in attack makes it easier to defend if you lose the ball. You’re already compact. Now the opponent plays your game.

Once you escape pressure, the pitch opens. The press is broken. Now you attack the space they vacated—wide areas, channels, over the top. The same defenders who squeezed you moments ago are now scrambling to recover shape.

This should serve as a blueprint for teams with similar deficiencies. Correcting the spacing is the first step.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

When you view United on the diagonal, Bruno Fernandes operates as a roaming box-to-box midfielder, closer to a number ten than a defensive midfielder. Mason Mount joins from the left to form a makeshift asymmetrical midfield three, with both he and Fernandes offering attacking thrust while Casemiro anchors behind them. Further forward, Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo have license to swap positions and drop deep, offering a passing option to feet or running beyond the opposition’s back line. On the far side, Amad Diallo acts as the main outlet, the target for the switch of play.

This concept of short-passing combinations and runs on the diagonal is not a new tactic for Ruben Amorim. He has addressed the concept of combining on the diagonal several times in Portuguese when he managed Sporting.

Following a match against Marítimo on January 8, 2023, Amorim explained in a post‑match press conference why he substituted centre‑back Coates with Gonçalo Inácio. Without Coates acting as a makeshift striker, Sporting tried to reach goal “with many short diagonals.” Amorim admitted the team’s finishing was poor: “Muitas diagonais curtas e depois aí teríamos de definir melhor, mas não era o nosso dia,” roughly translates to “many short diagonal passes, and then we’d have to finish [our chances] better, but it wasn’t our day.”

After a 0‑0 draw away to Manchester City on March 9, 2022, Amorim justified using Paulinho as a left‑sided forward. He said the striker is “very intelligent, very robust physically, and it was clear from the diagonal runs he made, linking up with Slimani.” He added that Paulinho’s runs off the flank provided a second reference point to hold up the ball, suggesting that diagonal movements from wide areas were part of the tactical plan.

When speaking English, however, his message sometimes gets lost in translation. As Amorim mentioned when his team was compared to Crystal Palace—a team that doesn’t organize on the diagonal but plays with a back five and use wingbacks—he said with a wry smile: “We play in a different way. And you can understand that by data. But now it’s hard to explain everything. But you don’t say that all 4-3-3 [teams] play in the same way, right? We play in a different moment, we defend in a different space, we try to attack in a different way.”

The players themselves are starting to grasp the common principles of play. After the 4-4 draw to Bournemouth, Amad Diallo explained that the structure “depends on the opponent. Sometimes we play in 4-4-2, sometimes in 3-4-3, and sometimes in 4-3-3. Maybe people outside don’t see it. We can change based on what Ruben [Amorim] asks of us. The system doesn’t matter to us.”

The concept of Diagonality is a hard thing to describe. If you aren’t looking for it you will miss it. It is a different way to look at a game. But when you see it you can’t unsee it, and other teams have shown it is effective.

How do you press a team that has their defenders on one side of the pitch and forwards on the other?

Even Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola, whose team is heralded as one of the best high-pressing sides in the league, acknowledged the difficulty of pressing Amorim’s system: “I think it’s the same system they always play but they adapt depending who you put to mark them. In the end it’s a very flexible system depending on the outside players: if you mark them with a fullback they will go lower; if you mark them with a winger they will go higher. It’s also the positions in the middle—Bruno [Fernandes], even us with Tyler [Adams]—we were changing two against two but it’s not two against two; they’re different. Until we matched up well we suffered in the first 15–20 minutes…”

It’s hard to defend passes on the ground when players are aligned on the same diagonal, letting the ball run through their legs, using deception to progress with quick flicks and one-twos. One switch of play and you are caught with your pants down, fully exposed.

You have to assign roles to these players instead of positions to fully appreciate what they are doing, what they are actually trying to achieve instead of what we want them to achieve when we look at rigid formations in straight lines from back to front.

When Bukayo Saka tracks back for Arsenal, we don’t call him a wing-back, we call him a winger. The same applies here.

Amad Diallo tracks back to mark the left-back in defense, and cover for the right-back when the back post is open. But he isn’t good at tracking the ball or his man. He’s not blazing fast in a straight line like Bryan Mbeumo is. He’s alright in the duels but he’s not a player you’d want to have in the back-line.

Manchester United’s best defensive performance this season came against Brighton. It was the first game that Amad Diallo stayed further forward to mark the opposition’s left-back, Maxim De Cuyper.

Bryan Mbeumo was the one to track back and mark the speedy Yankuba Minteh, to defend the space beyond the back line when United lost the ball. He was better at sweeping in transition because of his pace and he’s better at tracking the ball.

United align on the diagonal from left to right. When they lose the ball, their right side is more exposed in transition. Either Mbeumo or Amad have to track back and sweep. The strong left side presses and covers while the weak far side sweeps until they regain control.

They stopped having Mbeumo track back against Everton because of a change in personnel. One side is always offensive and one side is defensive. Mazraoui, the right-back, is defensive and Dorgu, the left-back, is offensive. Since then they’ve abandoned having Mbeumo track back and the defensive performances have become mixed.

Is their execution always good? No, but they started to become more consistent attacking wise. Does their defense have enough quality? No, they don’t have enough quality in the center-back position. Are they the most entertaining attacking team in the Premier League? For me, still no question, yes.

This post is in response to a report in The Athletic that United have been practicing in ‘a new formation,’ the 4-3-3, behind the scenes. They’re practicing it because they’ve already been playing in a 4-3-3. You just have to look at the pitch on the diagonal to see it. It’s all just telephone numbers.

But all of this comes with a massive disclaimer. Bryan Mbeumo and Amad Diallo will be going on international duty to the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) for several weeks. My guess is they’ll use Patrick Dorgu as the outlet on the left instead of Amad Diallo on the right, possibly organizing on the diagonal from right to left to compensate. While leaning heavily on vertical lofted passes into Benjamin Sesko and Joshua Zirkzee. The issue is they’ve never tried that without Bryan Mbeumo on the pitch. I’m very interested to see what they have planned and how much of a mess it will be.

Pep Guardiola starts off by saying, “What I admire most in Rayan Cherki is not the skills.” That’s the start of a compliment, that’s a positive. He continues and says, “I never saw [Lionel] Messi play and make a cross like he has done. Messi is the best player to have played the game, and I never saw these kind of crosses.” What an honor it is to get mentioned in the same breath as Messi. Hang this quote up on your wall, and frame it. Show it off to your friends.

But wait, is it a compliment? Pep continues and says, “Crosses is fine, it’s fine - it doesn’t matter if it’s right [foot], left, part of your foot, the head, doesn’t matter. If it’s effective, fine.”

If it is effective, it is fine? “I had this teramusu from the local restaurant, it was fine.” No one wants something that is fine. “I watched Dune, it was fine.” It wasn’t fine, it was remarkable. You tolerate something that is ‘fine.’

Pep continues by saying, “I like simplicity because I learned from Messi. He never made a mistake, and never made a mistake with the simple things. Never. Simple things he does perfectly. And after dribble [past] four, five. And what I want from the players is the simple things to do it well, and after that if you do this [rabona], players have special talent that mum and dad give to you, and he can do whatever he wants. But if it doesn’t work, now it will be a problem. Now you’ll be in trouble.”

‘You’ll be in trouble’ is a warning. It is not a warning like, “oh, in a game you’ll lose possession” or “you’ll look like a fool when you don’t pull off that next rabona,” no. It is a threat to limit your minutes if you don’t take the hint to play more simply.

As Kyle Walker once said in the tunnel to another AC Milan player a full year after leaving Manchester, he said to Joao Felix, “Just pass the ball, we are not Messi. Nobody is Messi.” Play simply. Don’t make mistakes. Pass the ball. Execute. That is the message that is drilled into these players. We are special when we play simply.

When asked directly about how special Cherki’s assist was, Pep defiantly said, “No, the special was Ruben [Dias’ goal]. Ruben was the most important one, the first one is always the most important one - it’s really, really, really good.”

The pot shot from a center-back, 30 yards out, gets the stamp of approval, but a rabona is just ‘fine.’ The shot is unpredictable, but it is controlled. A shot is a simple action. The ball either gets saved, goes out of play, or it goes in the net. Dias isn’t putting the team at risk by taking that shot. Manchester City needed the goal. It was controlled.

Cherki by contrast executes a rabona when Manchester City was only 2-0 up in the 65th minute. If he fluffs the cross and gifts Sunderland possession, and they concede a goal, now they are ‘in trouble.’ Then you are defending a 2-1 lead with 25 minutes remaining, with tired legs on the pitch, after you nearly blew a 5-1 lead to Fulham the match prior. This is the lesson that Cherki needs to learn, in Pep’s eyes.

That threat of limited minutes is how players ‘Get Pep’d.’ The flicks, the tricks, a rabona, the unpredictability in an uncontrolled environment is not applauded, it is tolerated. It is indirectly discouraged because it is not simple. Simple actions are applauded. Use your head, be smart. It is worth avoiding a rabona for the sake of consistency.

Pep continues by saying, “And yeah, Rayan, what I want is a good cross. The way? Right, left, doing what he’s done, it’s fine. But the best player that plays the game was [Lionel] Messi; he never, never made naive things. It’s always simple things. What defines Messi is the simple things always is the best. And all these type of players, the big, big talents - Rayan is a big talent - if the cross is good, it’s fine. But if it’s not good, mhmm that is not good.”

He’s not happy with the rabona. That is a critique. This is something he’ll not only enforce in this moment. If you watch Manchester City every week, you’ll see a player make a mistake when they ‘try something’ like Cherki did, and then even if it works, off to Siberia they go. You might not see that player for weeks or months. They’ll come on as a sub if they are super talented, like Cherki, but they can’t be trusted to start in most big games. Learn to play simply, or you don’t play. Even if you can pull it off, in the end, you are not Messi. Play simply. This is the message.

I’m not saying Pep is anti-tricks. He does applaud tricks when the environment is controlled. But when you think about it, Pep is right. Messi never tries ‘tricks.’ Every action is simple and reproducible for him. For Messi, every environment is a controlled environment.

Pep wants to change the way his players think. A player comes in with loads of creativity, a free thinker, and that creativity is sucked out of them. To remain creative and unpredictable, you can’t hold back like he wants them to. It takes a very special player to resist ‘Getting Pep’d.’ to maintain that level of spontaneity that got them signed. Their unpredictable nature needs to be controlled and harnessed for the sake of the team, the collective. Learn the ways of the collective or have fun on the bench.

This is the most telling quote that ties this all together. When asked about the title race, Pep says, “From my experience - I’m sorry I don’t want to feel arrogant but I have quite experience of winning Premier Leagues and titles - it’s the consistency. And consistency comes just from one thing: the way you play. Not from a result one day, or a victory to go two points behind or four points in front, it’s the consistency to be how you perform, how much you grow during the year. And today maybe was one of the best performances of the season during 94 minutes.”

Control is the name of the game because it leads to consistency. Take calculated risks and be unpredictable in a controlled environment where a mistake won’t put the team at risk. Don’t put the team at risk unnecessarily. Play simply. Don’t rock the boat.

Is ‘Getting Pep’d’ a compliment to Pep for being able to get his players to achieve this level of consistency? That’s for you to decide. I personally don’t like this way of thinking, but I haven’t won six Premier League titles.

There are three players to watch.

1. The player with the ball, the passer.
2. The player making a run to drag defenders away from space, the decoy run.
3. The player looking for and waiting for that decoy run to create the space they need to get open, the third man.

In its simplest form, a decoy run drags defenders away from the space you want to attack, and then that frees up space for a pass. You ignore the decoy run and pass to the third man once the space opens.

Without the decoy run, the pass into that third man is blocked off. There is a defender between the passer and receiver.

Once the decoy makes the run, the passing lane opens and the third man can step into that space to receive the ball.

It’s rare to see a team time the third man’s run and the pass to the exact moment the decoy finishes their run. I’ve never seen it done this deliberately, live.

As the first half between Bayern Munich and Arsenal progressed, it became apparent something was happening with Bayern Munich’s off-the-ball movement that was disruptive. This was it.

You could see it in the eyes of the third man. They were scanning for that decoy run, and they had to have the patience to wait for the run to finish to then make their run.

The instinct is to go the moment you see the decoy move, but that would ruin the whole action.

The defenders bite on the decoy. The pass never goes there. They think the danger has passed — and that’s exactly when the third man arrives.

It is like that scene in Elf. He’s opening the jack-in-the-box, nothing happens. He doesn’t know which one is going to scare him. Then finally, when he least expects it, out comes the jack-in-the-box.

I can tell it is deliberate because of the way in which the third man holds their run and then takes off running at a full sprint once the decoy finishes their run. Then the passer knows to look for a second run. He scanned to see the decoy run ball side and then looked to the far side for the third man run. It was never a surprise to any of those three players. It was practiced.

This off-the-ball movement is what led to Bayern Munich’s first goal.

Lennart Karl, the decoy, checks forward towards the ball and then makes a curved run to his right to drag the left center-back away from the right side of the pitch. Then, once Serge Gnabry, the third man, sees that movement, he initiates his run to attack the space on the wing, and the pass is played to him over the top.

You’ll notice in each of these examples that the player that was defending the space, blocking the pass into the space, is dragged away by the decoy, and then when the pass is played into that space, that defender has to pivot away from the decoy and turn to switch to marking the third man to defend the pass.

That pivot and turn from the defender is what frees up Karl for the pass from Gnabry for the goal. The left center-back follows Karl, then the defender pivots and turns to challenge the pass to Gnabry. That pivot and turn opens a gap for Karl to slip in behind the left center-back once Gnabry passes on his first touch.

The decoy run freezes the defense. They think the play is dead, and then you hit them with the third man run.

Everyone is drawn towards the decoy, then they are drawn to the third man, and then finally the decoy makes the run to the far post.

Pass ball side, lay it back, pass far side, and then the decoy is free again on the far side. You can ignore the decoy initially, but they’ll be peeling off to the far post for the tap-in if you can find them.

This movement from the third man gave Bayern Munich the illusion of constant motion even though patience and waiting — no movement from the third man — is key to this play’s success.

Other teams should look to copy this because it is disruptive and overwhelming.

President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address in two minutes, yet it became one of the most famous speeches in history. The keynote speaker before Lincoln, Edward Everett, spoke for two hours. Everett later wrote to Lincoln, “I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes.”

Simple explanations are unfairly seen as less thoughtful or less researched.

Winston Churchill once said, “If you want me to speak for two minutes, it will take me three weeks of preparation. If you want me to speak for an hour, I am ready now.”

Two people are writing about the same subject. One person writes a book and the other person writes the same information on a single sheet of paper. The person that wrote on the piece of paper would have to put in more work than the person that wrote the book. We should want to be the person writing on the single sheet of paper. They need the explanation to be accurate but still make sense. You know their message will be simpler.

Act like they have someplace to be. Simple ideas are sticky, you remember them.

You’ve Got Mail is a remarkable movie because it gets to the point. In the very first scene, it cuts to Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks opening their laptop and sending AOL mail back and forth to each other. You get the premise of the story immediately. That movie became popular because even as the movie progressed, everything revolved around a simple message that was communicated simply.

Writing 10,000 words on a team’s upcoming match is not the hill you have to climb. The hill you have to climb happens in the edit. Do you need 10,000 words? Am I adding things that aren’t needed? Is the message clear if I remove this sentence? Is there enough there to be able to understand the what, the why, and the how?

Explaining something simply is a very very hard thing to accomplish, but simple ideas spread. You can apply this to anything: coaching, teaching, speeches, telling stories. Anything.

I’m going to show you two different ways a team could setup on the diagonal. You tell me which team looks the best setup to pass through the opponents defense.

Team A are setup on the diagonal. When the left-back receives the ball, and that player looks up, there’s three to four risky passing options, one safe backwards, and an open switch to the right-winger. Those risky passing options have other risky passing options in close proximity with open passing lanes into feet. They have created a web of passing lanes—not blocked off by the opposition because they are interconnected—that they can use to pass through the defense on the ground or with small flicks over defenders in the air.

Not using the diagonal is like cutting a steak with the grain: you’re following the meat’s fibers, so it stays chewy and tough. Cut against the grain on an angle and it falls apart—just like organizing on the diagonal cuts across a compact defense and makes progression quicker and easier.

Team B are setup to play around the outside. Every pass inside is blocked. They will need to dribble past defenders and use more pace, be more athletic to penetrate the opposition’s defense—something that is harder to maintain over a full match, especially if you don’t have players who can dribble past players or who are not athletic.

Most teams don’t show you to the inside. They force the pass wide to the outside, where they can trap, smother you, and block passing lanes into the center of the pitch. In most cases, the ball is passed to the left-back or left-winger.

If that man receiving the ball on the wing can consistently dribble past several defenders, congratulations; that is rare—you have a unicorn. Capture the unicorn and never let them go. But even if you have that one unicorn on the wing, or the more rare unicorn in the half-space, the midfielders will still need help.

If the man receiving the ball cannot dribble past several defenders, they’ll need players to bounce off of. Even the unicorns will benefit from that help. The goal, then, should be to have several players form ahead of that player receiving the ball to act as a wall to pass off of. A wall pass.

You’ve kicked a ball against a wall. Bounce the ball off the wall, receive, and keep the play moving.

When you setup to help the man receiving the ball on the diagonal, players ahead of the ball can stagger each wall. Play the ball into one wall, bounce it to the next wall, and the next wall in quick succession on the ground. That creates avenues through a compact press.

The second tool is the pass-and-move. Because players are in close proximity to each other, they can utilize quick flicks and dummies accompanied by movement to combine and move around the press. The staircase. Receive, pass, and then immediately move.

If you can’t dribble past the press, you need to use your teammates to pass through the press and progress by moving forward once you play the next pass. You need players in close proximity who are aware of where their teammates are and ready to offer that wall pass to work past a compact defense.

The free man on the opposite wing is always there as the safe positive outlet out of pressure. The pass back or sideways is the negative outlet. You want to progress forward.

This is the law of contraction and expansion. Allow the defense to contract on the ball on the wing, disrupt their shape by passing through them, and then play out with a switch to the free man on the opposite wing to force the opposition defense to expand. When they expand, then you attack their weak points with the ball side players joining the right-winger in attack.

When you don’t prioritize organizing on the diagonal, the opposition defense can use cover shadows to block passing lanes into the center of the pitch. That forces you to pass around the back, back and forth, around the horseshoe of the defense.

Working and organizing from the diagonal and creating overloads are great tools if you know how to use them. If the players are too static or they are not looking to play off of each other, if they are not looking to play those one-twos, it simply becomes a structure without a purpose. The attack lacks conviction.

In these examples, Team A is Germany, and Team B is Liverpool, but this could apply to any team. I spent Saturday watching each match, as I normally do, and focused my efforts on looking at the game from the diagonal—Who utilizes it. The teams that organized on the diagonal had an easier time passing through the opposition on the ground. You can see it in the goal highlights, but it’s more evident in open play before the highlight begins because they sometimes don’t show the build-up to the goal.

Diagonality is a subject that will be talked about more and more as time passes, as more people notice its potential to disrupt defenses. I did talk about the importance of the diagonal in June, but I’m late to the game at fully understanding its significance. This is not a new concept. There are many more people I could name — many of whom speak Spanish or Portuguese — but three I’d recommend following for related content are Jamie Hamilton (1) (2), Spielverlagerung (1), and JOGO FUNCIONAL (1) who are covering this concept extensively.

This is another way to change the way you look at football. It is important that we find different ways because when everyone sees the game the same way, teams end up playing the same way.

The posts that resonate with people are the ones that have a visual. Not visual as in images, visual words. I looked back at my old posts. The ones that hit had something familiar there to help bridge the gap.

I have talked about aliens invading, ants carrying a leaf to a colony, putting makeup on a pig, telephone numbers, and my favorite, tonic immobility in sharks. Those things have nothing to do with football, but when I anchor something foreign to something familiar, it helps it click in the reader’s mind.

It doesn’t have to be an analogy. Throwing in descriptive words with purpose changes the way your idea is perceived.

This interview with copywriting expert Harry Dry changed the way I communicate. Every sentence out of his mouth carries a visual element. His three rules are “Can I visualize it? Can I falsify it? Can nobody else say this?” If you can’t answer yes to those three questions, you are producing rubbish. If you answer yes to all three of those questions, you have a winner. The concept of visualization in speech and text is eye opening.

You begin to see that successful people rely on imagery in their speech and writing. Find successful people and copy their process. Don’t steal their ideas, copy their process.

If it can work in marketing, it can work in football. Getting people to buy in to a plan or idea is a huge part of coaching. We’re selling our concepts, our plan, our instructions.

Football is complex — describing it simply is difficult. It is easier to keep things complex. It is a global sport. Football transcends language. People that play it or watch it speak different languages. There is a lot of verbiage and terms that people don’t understand. It is worth it to make it simple because simple ideas spread. Simple ideas are more memorable. Creating a mental picture in your writing and speech makes those ideas easier to grasp.

I don’t have writers block because I write like I talk. No one gets talkers block, you can do this too. But this way of talking with visuals challenges me. It takes time to research and then recall past references.

This is why it is important to have interests outside of football—history, art, music, even animals—to shape those descriptive details.

A live match was an event you could not miss. A scarce exclusive experience to watch living legends.

There were fewer channels. You couldn’t watch every match; you had to watch the match. The match everyone else was watching. You could only watch it now.

Pull out your phone. You can watch every match from this week, on demand right now, whenever you want, forever.

Open Instagram. You can see Erling Haaland dressed as the Joker for Halloween.

Open YouTube. You can watch a twelve-minute edited video of the England squad training from a day ago.

Open Twitter. You can argue with Mohamed Salah about the state of affairs in the Liverpool dressing room.

And then they play a 90-minute match every three to four days.

A good portion of the population are like you. They are obsessed. They can’t resist consuming everything. But when you consume everything, you never get time to miss the players.

They aren’t special; they are relatable. They are doing special things, but they don’t have the star power of a Wayne Rooney or Ronaldo Nazario. Why? Because we never had this level of access to them.

You saw them once, maybe twice a week. You read about them in a newspaper when they were cheating on their wife or if they put in a transfer request.

There was a larger distance between them and us. They had otherworldly powers we would never possess. We were the mere mortals who got to watch them.

If the aliens invade, they’ll become less magical when you get to know them, when you can relate to them.

The Royal family are not allowed to cry because they are above us. They are not like us. They are otherworldly.

That is why it feels less like we are watching living legends today.

The spotlight has to be on someone, though. The legends today are in the dugout, the manager. They are the significant characters in this play with the least exposure. That is who you tune in to watch.

Football is art, like a movie. You wouldn’t start watching a movie 5, 10, 15, 30, or 45 minutes in. You start from the beginning and then you finish the movie. A movie doesn’t need the time permanently displayed because it has you hooked. The film director knows you can’t miss a single minute, or you’ll be lost in the plot.

Like the players, you have an internal clock. You can sense how far you are into a half. If you must know, you politely peer at the time on the clock when there is a break in play, but you won’t stare at the time constantly. That’s something a nervous manager or fan does.

Why did I find the games from the 60s, 70s, and 80s to be more captivating? The time was not permanently displayed. I wasn’t distracted.

The scorebug is the graphic at the corner of the screen that displays the teams, the score, and the time on the clock.

When there is no scorebug, it is just you, a commentator for color, a loud crowd, the players, and a ball—nothing else. There are no distractions from the game.

I understand why you would want to have the teams and the score shown on the screen permanently. It is convenient.

But I’m a minimalist. I like open floor plans and minimal furniture in a room. When the time is hidden, you feel like you are in the stands. You pay closer attention to the smaller details. A ticking clock is distracting.

Before the 90s, the time and score would flash on screen every 10 minutes to remind you the game eventually ends. That was all you needed.

Good games go by quickly, and bad games never end, but you don’t want the game to end unless your team is up.

Like a movie, you want to be surprised when the game ends. It builds the suspense and tension. The narratives surrounding the game have you hooked. If you look away, you’ll miss an important action. You don’t need to know the exact time.

For business reasons, it was natural for the big TV corporations to add a timer to the scorebug. Blame David Hill, in particular, for implementing it in 1992 at Sky Sports. The audience gained access to more channels. Viewers began to channel surf. People’s attention spans shrunk. They needed to keep people alert and maintain retention. It’s convenient to know the time if you have someplace else to be.

But why is the target audience people who are not interested in watching? Join late, know the state of the game, leave early, repeat.

That one decision to permanently display the time shaped the way we view football. It makes people focus more on the result than the art because it distracts them from the less significant parts of the game. The highlights are the focus, but you are missing everything in between the goals. It caters to those who aren’t interested. It takes the viewer out of the stadium. It is a less immersive experience.

2000-01: David Beckham

2001-02: Thierry Henry

2002-03: Ruud van Nistelrooy

2003-04: Thierry Henry

2004-05: Frank Lampard

2005-06: Frank Lampard

2006-07: Wayne Rooney

2007-08: Cristiano Ronaldo

2008-09: Cristiano Ronaldo

2009-10: Didier Drogba

2010-11: Wayne Rooney

2011-12: Sergio Aguero

2012-13: Robin van Persie

2013-14: Sergio Aguero

2014-15: Eden Hazard

2015-16: Jamie Vardy

2016-17: Diego Costa

2017-18: Sergio Aguero

2018-19: Sergio Aguero

2019-20: Mohamed Salah

2020-21: Kevin De Bruyne

2021-22: Kevin De Bruyne

2022-23: Erling Haaland

2023-24: Rodri

2024-25: Mohamed Salah

2025-26: Gabriel?

The talisman does not have to be the top scorer. You see their name and picture their team lifting the trophy. They are the face of that team’s season.

They are the kind of player whose absence makes you sigh and think, “This is going to be a long day.” They are the one you’d feel nervous not seeing walk out of the tunnel with the rest of the starters.

Arsenal have enough depth. Their B team could challenge for a Premier League title. But when you picture a goal from a set piece, you see Gabriel.

A team without a talisman isn’t competing for the title — it’s waiting for next season to begin.

This is the human equivalent: one ant can carry a Mini Cooper; six ants can carry a delivery truck.

This is the football equivalent: if one midfielder can’t force his way through two lines of outstretched legs, the spacing between the midfielders and forwards must shrink.

Pedri, Florian Wirtz, Phil Foden, and even a powerful mazing dribbler like Jamal Musiala or Morgan Rogers would benefit from decoys, other players to distract the opposition, a wall to bounce the ball off, other players to play one-twos with, and more than one passing option.

There are three zones.

Zone 0 — the zone of conflict. The ball is kicked into this zone, and this is where the header is being challenged by a defender and an attacker.

Zone 1 — the zone of mutual support. Players close in around the challenge, ready to collapse toward the ball the moment contact is made to claim the second ball.

Zone 2 — the co-operation zone. Players on the fringes wait to assist the player who escapes with the ball.

There are two key advantages the attacking team has.

They can organize while the defending team reacts. The defender reacts by attempting to clear the ball and must generate power on the header. The attacker, meanwhile, can redirect the header downward into areas where supporting players are positioned.

The defender’s task is to clear the ball beyond those orbiting nearby, but the attacker can use their body to restrict the defender’s ability to get full power on the clearance. The defender can’t afford to let the attacking team take advantage of their overload.

Because the attacking team just needs to limit the effectiveness of the defender’s ability to head the ball away from the other attacking players that surround the ball, you don’t need to have a tall, physically imposing forward heading the ball. It helps, but it’s not a requirement. You just need someone who can put off the defender enough to redirect it into the path of the overload your other attackers create.

You will see this at many teams across the sport of football, but two Premier League teams that lack physical strength in the midfield or forward lines but excel at overloading the zone of mutual support during aerial duels are Manchester United and Manchester City.

Haaland is improving at heading, but he would admit heading the ball with his back to goal and with a man on his back, contesting headers, is not a big strength of his, despite his big frame. He admitted before the season started that he was practicing extra to improve his heading. With Sesko not starting every game for United, they’ve had to find creative ways to make their surrounding overloads count when they kick the ball long to smaller forwards like Mount, Cunha, or Mbeumo.

It’s not like Arsenal, where they are incredible at finding these overloads near the ball, incredible at coordinating movement when they kick it long, and then they have the tall, physical players to outmuscle you. These teams with the physical disadvantage need to get creative to win the second ball.

That is 6 ft 5 in Virgil van Dijk and Alexis Mac Allister up against 5 ft 7 in Bryan Mbeumo. Mbeumo jumped high in this example, but not high enough to win the header against Virgil. Virgil alone is winning that header nine times out of ten.

Manchester United aren’t intending to ‘win that header’—all they want is the second ball. Virgil van Dijk could head it down to Gravenberch and count it as a header won, but Bruno will be there to win the duel, winning the ball. Who won the header then in the end? Well, Manchester United have the ball.

Bruno Fernandes comes swooping in to create an overload in the zone of mutual support. Their full focus is long ball, second ball, then close combinations, and then transitions into space.

Bruno Fernandes wins the ball, and now we have a mini breakout forming with Virgil van Dijk in a compromised position. Bruno passes out to Amad Diallo, who is on the outside zone, the co-operation zone. Amad waits, and now he is activated, and the entire attack is activated with gaps in Liverpool’s defense. Alexis Mac Allister is writhing on the floor.

Liverpool are at a disadvantage because they didn’t prioritize winning the second ball. They were spaced out and outnumbered.

Amad Diallo carries forward, Bryan Mbeumo beats Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate to the ball, and United have the opening goal in the first minute of the game from one long ball, a header, two passes, and a shot.

You will often see Bruno Fernandes drift into that orbit, lurking to attack the second ball, or Jeremy Doku will move inside to overload the area in front of Erling Haaland for Manchester City when Haaland has his back to goal. There are other reasons why these teams overload the center of the pitch, but this is one of the main reasons why. They need the quick and intelligent players close in, focused on filling the gaps to act as the plus one to win those second balls.

Pep Guardiola always brings up second balls in interviews and press conferences. Manchester City only conceded one goal from a corner in the first eight games of this season. The joint top best team at defending corners. In response to why they conceded so few goals from corners, Pep explains that it is “because we were controlling the second balls, our pace, and our control was much, much [better]. In these games, the best way to defend is like that.” This fixation on ‘controlling’ second balls has a knock-on effect on how teams defend set pieces because now they are constantly practicing in-game. It becomes a habit to have someone there waiting to pick up the ball when it is knocked down.

This is not a new revelation. Teams have been doing this for several decades. There seems to be more of an emphasis on this aspect of the game now in teams you wouldn’t normally suspect. I would not be surprised if we see more and more use of vertical space. Lifting the ball off the ground isn’t a sin if you know how to maintain possession. In the past, it was a way to relieve pressure but now it is a direct threat to the balance of a compact defense. It creates imbalances.

When a team’s form changes, for the better or worse, most people’s first reaction is to say that the manager’s tactics changed. That isn’t always the case.

In most cases, the majority of the instructions the players receive go unchanged. There might be some minor tweaks to the tactics, but now instead, they’re executing each individual action better or worse. That is the reason for the change in form.

Results-based analysis is a trap. If you can identify the difference between the two things—tactics and execution—then you will be able to spot when the results aren’t reflecting the effectiveness of the underlying strategy.

Manchester United are a new team, a team transformed. They are sharper in every phase of play, they are finishing clear-cut chances, and the chemistry between individual sets of players is improving with each match. They are committing to challenges more confidently, and they are communicating the swapping of responsibilities and positions of players out of possession better. There have been some minor tweaks, notably Bryan Mbeumo tracking back more often and more aggressively in transition to defense, but Ruben Amorim hasn’t changed their strategy. They are executing the tactics better than they were, and now they are winning matches.

You can have the best strategy, the perfect plan on paper, but if the players aren’t executing, it doesn’t matter what tactics are used.

I would recommend videos from Footy with an Edge and Statman Dave, two sane voices who kept me sane to start the season as I marveled at Manchester United’s attack. They can see what I’m seeing.

Other times, the tactic doesn’t fit the player’s profiles, therefore it will never work. It is a dead end. You will have an edge over the masses if you can spot a dip when everyone else is seeing a dead end. You have to change if you have entered a dead end, but if it’s a dip, you have to continue doing what you know will work.

Featured image credit to Seth Godin’s life-changing book, The Dip, an essential read for anyone stuck wondering if they should quit. This felt like a football example for that book.

You should not want the opinion of myself; you should want the opinion of someone who has already interacted with that work. They leave a comment or a like; if you want feedback, you ask that person.

I have never asked someone to follow me. I have never asked for a like. I have never asked someone to read or share something I wrote. I’m not going to share it again later. If they aren’t looking for it, if they haven’t found it, it is not good enough, it is not for them, or they haven’t seen it yet.

This is an internal battle I have. Is my work good enough? What can I improve? What are the next steps to get to where I want? For a long time my work went unnoticed. This is part of the process.

I don’t have analytics turned on for this blog. I don’t know how many people click on each post. I used to have them turned on, but the real indicator for me was seeing who interacts with what I write.

This is not to shame those who ask. You’re doing something positive. I understand the urge to want feedback or recognition from someone you respect. Everyone wants that. I have many people who I look up to. I want them to view my work, but I want everything to be organic.

It is much easier to spread something organically, and when it is organically found, the responses will be more genuine.

You should use interaction as a guide. If the thing you produce is not gaining traction, it is because it is not inciting an emotion or response from the person receiving it. It’s not good enough for the audience you want to reach. Everything you make doesn’t have to be good, but if you want something to spread, it has to be. And it spreading doesn’t mean it is good; it means it reached the right people.

If I ask you for a response before you find my work, I will never know if you organically sought out my work. If I have to ask you to share something, chances are you were never going to share it yourself. Who wants to come off as rude? You will feel obligated to read it and like it. You’re missing the opportunity to know that your work is remarkable by asking.

If I’m following you, I want to read, listen, or watch what you make. I want to know when you post something. I’m going to find it eventually. If it’s remarkable, I’ll share it. If I think it’s remarkable, chances are the person I shared it with will also think it’s remarkable, and they’ll share it with someone else. Then that process repeats, and that is how your ideas spread.

“Unleashing the Ideavirus” and “Permission Marketing” by Seth Godin are two books that have shaped this thinking. I have watched this TEDTalk from Seth Godin, “How to get your ideas to spread”, every year, twice a year, for the past eighteen years. I pick up something new every time I watch. These are proven methods of spreading ideas organically.

You gain permission to ask once they interact because you know they are invested. That is the type of person you should want feedback from. The feedback you will get from someone who was already interested will be more useful.

I hate the idea of ignoring someone, but responding only reinforces the behavior I’m trying to change. My intentions were good, but the way I handled it wasn’t. So instead of ignoring them next time, I’m writing this post to share whenever the next person asks.

You should always look for feedback, but it should come from the right person.

I do not have a problem with direct free kicks because, right now—this could change with time—they mimmic a natural cross. There’s nothing natural about all of your tallest defenders attacking a cross, but at least it looks like football. There is a cross, and there is a header. There is minimal pushing, pulling, and no deliberate screening of players.

The contact you can make with your hands and arms on another player’s upper body during a long throw-in or corner turns the game into a new sport. It’s like a rugby scrum and a basketball game had a weird love child. In no other phase of play would you be allowed to place your hands on a player’s shoulders or chest and push or pull them, before or after the dead ball is kicked. You can’t even do that in basketball—the game football gets compared the most. During a pick and roll in basketball, the attacking player can’t move when they are performing a screen and they can’t use their hands to block the player, when they make contact with the defending player. That would be called a foul. In modern football today, we have pulling and pushing with several players moving and screening opposition. No fouls; all this wrestling is fair game.

For long throw-ins, it is simple. Why are teams forced to take short throw-ins quickly, but with long throw-ins you can collect the ball, look at it, inspect it, shine the ball with a towel to make it easier to grip, get all your defenders inside the box, and then, once everyone is in position, take the throw-in. That’s thirty seconds or more of time wasted.

The set piece does not end when the first player heads the ball. Everything thereafter can be rehearsed parts of the set piece.

Every part of a football game should mimic open play. All throw-ins should be treated equally and played quickly to get the ball back in play, and corners should look like a cross, not another sport. If we veer away from that, we will turn off many people, including myself. This is not the direction football should head into.

This isn’t an Arsenal or Chelsea problem, this is a league wide issue. A record 19% of the goals scored this season in the Premier League have come from a corner. 30% of all goals scored have come from a set piece, excluding penalties. 18 of the 20 teams are performing long throw-ins when the ball is in the final third. We are nine games into this season and eleven teams are sitting on four to eleven set-piece goals, some scoring more from dead ball situations than they are in open play. Five, ten, twenty years ago, eleven set-piece goals was an entire 38-game haul for one team during a full season.

I don’t blame teams for exploiting the system. As long as there are no rules to temper their effectiveness, it is fair game. Teams should be applauded for finding loopholes. We need to protect the game of football from the Premier League because they are no longer interested in playing football.

All of the space is gone.

Football has not been solved; positional play has hit a dead end. In positional play, you need space to occupy, space to attack. More money is piling into the league; man-to-man defensive systems are becoming more and more competent with each passing year. If you must occupy each zone, if you rely on pulling players out of position to open space, there is no more space on the pitch. They have run out of room on the game board; they have flipped the board over, and they are now playing hang-man instead of monopoly because they are getting beat by teams who are better at playing monopoly. The teams that are playing monopoly have the resources to quickly sign these players; that is the issue for the lesser teams who are exploiting the system now.

It is easier to walk players through a rehearsed set-piece drill in training than it is trying to solve problems in open play. Training that is crammed between a game on Saturday, then a game on Tuesday, then a game on Sunday, then another game on Wednesday, then a game on Saturday at 12:30PM. Premier League teams have the toughest competition from lower table teams when compared to other leagues, little rest, and they’re scrambling to find an edge. Well, the edge has been found. German, Spanish, and Italian teams can’t compete because you need to face this onslaught of set pieces week-in-and-week-out to have even a sliver of a chance at withstanding the deluge.

Why would you try to break down a team when you can just take it to the corner and hit it off a defender to win a corner or throw-in? Skip attacking a low block; skip trying to beat a team in open play altogether. Get a goal, dunk on the opposition’s defense with a rehearsed, easily reproducible play, defend, and then repeat.

It’s not even like you can allow the cross that is intended to deflect off a player and out for a throw-in or corner. If they get a shot on target, the goalkeeper is going to parry the ball out of play for a corner, or a defender is going to block the shot and it will go out for a corner.

This isn’t a cycle where teams will become better at defending throw-ins and corners. You can’t overcome physical pulling and pushing in the box, no matter how much you practice. This is an insurmountable advantage.

Excluding the obvious issues with the rules surrounding long throw-ins and corners, the advantage starts with recruitment. To compete, you need to sign a player who can take a long-throw or take a corner to gain that advantage back. If you do not have that player, you are left out. And then, once you have it, you can take advantage of the imbalance we have in the game with the physical touch inside the box.

This will not be viewed as the year of The Invincibles; this is the year of The Exploiters. And it is not one team; it is the majority who have the advantage, while the minority races to sign the players required to obtain that advantage. It is a perfect storm. The rules aren’t in place to level the playing field, and several teams have recruited to make this their primary focus.

This is the discovery of the atomic bomb.

There is a simple rule with nuclear war. If you do not have a nuke, get one. If asked to give up your nukes, never give up your nukes. If you don’t have players, plural, who can throw the ball 25 yards for a long throw-in or kick a ball with pinpoint accuracy for a corner, get them. If asked to give up those players, never give them up.

I fear this is going to impact the World Cup. International teams don’t have a ton of time to train together. Nothing is stopping them from focusing on set-pieces. You can be terrible in possession, the worst team in open play statistically, but as long as you can concede few goals and score at least one set piece per game, you have that advantage. The cheat codes are availble open source in the league. It could be a team we least except, or the obvious team, England and Declan Rice taking every single corner kick.

Instead, Arne Slot’s tactics don’t work. They lost. He’s a fraud. He got lucky in his first season. They are out of the title race. Maybe they are, but that is ridiculous.

United win, Ruben Amorim’s tactics worked. The long ball game was a masterclass, and he is a genius. They lose, and the long ball is never going to work in a top-flight team. This is the Premier League; United can attract top talent regardless of their league position. Every team should be playing the same way; you can’t think outside the box.

I argued that Manchester United are one of the most exciting attacking teams in the Premier League from open play four weeks ago. My opinion has not changed, and nothing in that game made me change my mind. They are the same team you saw the game prior and the game prior to that, but were slightly more organized defensively. That was Luke Shaw’s best performance in at least six months.

United performed as you’d expect but got lucky for once. Gakpo scores one of the three chances, and all of that goes away. The narrative gets turned on its head. Even a draw.

If Liverpool win, suddenly Liverpool’s summer transfer window was expensive but a massive success. They lose, they are in crisis; they have to sign Semenyo in the winter to save their project because, except for Ekitike, every signing is either unfit, Isak, or adjusting, also Isak. Or maybe when you lose a generational passer in Trent Alexander-Arnold and completely alter a working system, it takes time to adjust as a team.

Results-based analysis blinds us from what is really going on underneath the surface. It is made for those that don’t pay attention or for those who can’t separate one part of a game, the defense, from another part of the game, the attack, and vice versa.

I understand why that might be the case if you are a fan of the team because losing is the only thing a fan would care about, but I can’t understand why the score would influence a neutral. A neutral shouldn’t care if a team wins or loses.

When Wayne Rooney made a goal happen from nothing, no one credited Sir Alex Ferguson as the reason for why the goal happened, it was Wayne Rooney’s goal.

When Sergio Ramos ran back and made a game-deciding tackle, no one credited Jose Mourinho for the tackle, that was Sergio Ramos’s tackle.

They created the environment, they picked those players to start, but every action was not due to “their tactical genius,” it was a play made by a player.

Can a good or bad sequence of play in a game be accredited to the players nowadays, or is everything the manager’s doing?

In today’s game, we credit the player for executing and the manager for creating the opportunity. To me, that is ridiculous. There is a difference between creating an environment for something to happen and creating an opportunity. Creating an opportunity means you were responsible for the play happening.

The manager is a guide, they don’t carry a remote control. They control who is on the pitch, but they are not on the pitch. Even in the most controlled teams, they aren’t in the game.

This sounds like common sense, but it has to be said, you need good players to win. You need a team to win. You need everyone on the same page. If you don’t have that, you can’t meet expectations. It doesn’t matter who is in charge.

When you have the expectation that you’ll finish top four but the squad of a mid-table team, don’t get upset when your team underperforms that expectation. The players might be the issue, and the manager is there just trying to put makeup on the pig.

Southampton manager Will Still when asked how you get winning culture back into a club (video):

I stopped a drill the other day and it was like, we just lost the ball. I said, “You know, why are we losing it in there?”

[player] “I don’t know.”

“Okay, where’s the space? That space is over there. It’s like, so why are you not playing over there?”

[player] “Am I allowed to?”

Wow. And then you realize that it’s a psychological thing that no one actually notices.

And people expect when you walk in, the club spent a bit of money, be an unbelievable team. It doesn’t quite work like that.

“Am I allowed to?” That is the reflex that is being taught. Look to the coach for the solution no matter how obvious the answer is. The player needs permission to play an open pass. What are we doing?

Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca was asked about when and how he gives his players “freedom” — in the same way some of his predecessors did, like Manuel Pellegrini, under whom he played under at Málaga (video):

We do everything to allow players in the way we want to play, to allow players to have more time when they receive the ball, more space.

How do you balance giving players “freedom” within positional play?:

It’s not true. This is the big thing for me, the big mistake that people still think and still say. It’s not true because, as I said, we try to give players more space, more time to show freedom when they receive the ball, but if the freedom for you is that you can move everywhere, that is no freedom, that is chaos. Yes, I give you freedom, you can do what you want in that position when you receive the ball, and if everyone starts to move everywhere, you can prepare how you have to defend while you are attacking because now you can be right. If you want the freedom, you can move right, you can move left, you can move forward, back, this is not freedom for me, this is chaos. I also love to give players freedom, but in the right position because, at the end, it’s about team balance, it’s not about one player keeping the structure. I still think that the positional idea, positional game, gives the players a better picture, better space, better solution.

This whole quote is the essence of “defending with the ball.” It is defensive football masquerading as attacking football. You have the ball, you maintain more possession, and therefore the other team can’t score because the ball is in the opposition’s half, the opposition doesn’t have the ball, or the ball is turned over only in areas where you have the advantage in transition. The attacking team can point to high possession stats, field tilt, or wins to justify playing that way, but it’s usually not an attractive brand of football. It can be very boring, but unfortunately they’re not paid to be entertaining. Enzo Maresca’s stance shouldn’t be surprising though because he is Italian. Italian’s live and breathe defense.

Enzo says that the player gains “freedom” when they receive the ball, but do they actually? Think back to that Will Still quote. The player says “Am I allowed to?” when he has the ball at his feet, in the space the manager carefully curated for him, and he needs to be told where to play the next pass. The player needs to be told because he is afraid of being reprimanded for playing “the wrong pass or dribble,” the wrong pass or dribble that the coach determined was wrong, or the loud voices of prior coaches. Is that “freedom?” The player is not looking for the open man, he is looking to execute the expected action.

In positional play, as it is described, players aren’t in charge of coming up with the solution, they are there to execute. If players are individuals “at the wrong time” the attack falls apart because they didn’t execute the play. Individualism within positional play is faked. “You can be an individual when I say so” is what is being communicated to the players. If you don’t comply, you are benched, and that is the fear.

It does feel sort of elitist to say positional play is the only solution because no matter how you play, you have the better players, you should win in a number of ways. There are other ways to win games that involve fostering an environment that gives players more “freedom” off the ball in possession. There are different ways of looking at football.

Hungary over the international break is an example of a team that embrace organization through a shared of understanding of angles, the diagonal in particular, and relationships between the players to know where they need to be in relation to the ball and their teammates rather than sticking to specific zones or swapping zones. Objectively it is not chaos.

In recent history, not many have tried playing the way Hungary play with a team of Chelsea’s quality. Argentina did and they won the World Cup. If you want to find innovative ways of promoting freedom in open play, look at Hungary and listen to the South Americans. If they spoke English predominantly, took over teams with bigger budgets, and won, more people would be copying them because it’s a brand of football that is exciting. It produces play that is predictably unpredictable. It’s unpredictable for the opposition and the viewer but not for the team, that’s why it has the potential to work.

Positional play isn’t bad and it can be entertaining, but it has produced a lot of bad habits for players that go against their natural instincts. See the open man, play the pass. The managers who want to delve into the practices of the innovators will need to go to battle with decades of previous coaches that etched those bad habits into the minds of the players. That is the real challenge, and why strict positional play is the easier choice.

There is screening, where a player will use their body to block another player with their body, making no attempt to play the ball.

There is blocking, using the side of your body to shield a defender from reaching an intended zone within the box.

There is shielding, to open a pocket for the intended target of the corner.

There is a comically high level of physical touch that is allowed in the box during corner kicks. You shouldn’t be able to use your hands as much as teams are allowed to use their hands.

The better team has three things. They are better organized, they have better technique, and they have greater physical attributes.

In open play, they can only show off their organizational and technical superiority. One or two players can use their physical advantage at one time, if that, but multiple players can’t simultaneously. During a corner, a majority of the team can use all three of those key attributes simultaneously.

No matter how much a defense prepares or how well they execute, if they can’t overcome that physical disadvantage, they are dead in the water. That is what sets a corner apart.

It forces the opposition to do something they can’t do and don’t want to do. It’s the biggest advantage you can achieve within a football match. It creates chaos for the defense in a controlled environment for the attack. It is something that is more easily reproducible than trying to “run a play” in open play or string together an intricate number of passes.

Why focus on anything else when you can nearly guarantee a goal if you have an accurate crosser? Any sensible team with this edge would run the ball to the corner, hit it off a defender, and spam corner kicks the entire match until you eventually score.

If that level of physicality can be used in the box during a corner, then it should be allowed in open play to disrupt the opponent. Turn it into a hockey game with hip checks and all. If that isn’t allowed, and it shouldn’t be allowed, corners should be nerfed.

With every corner kick, play stops. Football should reward actions that don’t stop play. It’s boring. I don’t get excited when there’s a corner. My immediate reaction is “take it quickly, start play again.”

Before, corner kicks were a nuisance, a break in play, but now they are a massive advantage for the team that takes them seriously.

“Is this a fire drill, is this a fire drill, is this a fire drill, is this a fire drill” is my favorite chant sung by an away end of traveling supporters. It shames those in the crowd who show up for their home team and then leave prematurely. You can sing that same chant to the away team’s supporters, but it doesn’t have the same punch. A home team’s stadium emptying is soul-crushing.

I can picture the smirk on the face of that supporter leaving as the camera pans around the stadium. They think, “I’m making a difference” by showing their displeasure with the performance, but that difference is not felt by the manager or owners; it has a direct impact on the match. Then you have to feel bad for the players on the pitch as the camera pans to their exasperated faces.

Football is a game of momentum and emotion. The players feed off the crowd. Their faces drop, the intensity drops—in that moment it feels like there’s nothing to fight for, but they are professionals. They have to carry on.

In the cold world of tactical analysis, I would argue that we in the public don’t factor this part of a game in enough. This is not something you can see in the data. No formation or personnel change can replace the humiliation that is felt.

The chance to turn it around is not zero, but I would argue, if the stadium has emptied, it is a near-impossible task to save a match. You need the crowd behind you to turn a game around. You need that support. You need the noise.

That’s why you’ll see struggling teams trying to pump up the crowd with every positive action. They need the crowd behind them.

Teams like this play better away because there is a negative atmosphere at home. They are the underdogs when they play away from home. It’s easier to perform in front of a full crowd of people who don’t support you and are rooting for you to lose than it is to play in front of a crowd that supports you but knows you will lose.

This is a dynamic you can feel even if you’re a winning team. Think of the “meaningless” games where the team have qualified for the playoff, won the league, or any situation where the game is made to feel like a friendly. No one wants to feel like they’re wasting their time being there.

It’s one thing to be losing, but it’s another thing to turn up and know that the crowd is going to leave. You don’t have what it takes to keep them in their seats. That feeling is something you can anticipate, but it’s worse when you know it can’t be avoided.

When a midfielder drops and gets six or more yards of space, watch how simple it is for the next pass to be played forward. You won’t unsee it Pedri and De Jong demonstrated how effective it is for Barcelona against Newcastle, and here is an example from Manchester City against Burnley.

The three players to focus on in these examples are the defensive midfielder Nico Gonzalez and attacking midfielders Phil Foden and Tijjani Reijnders.

There’s normally a third player in the left half-space, either an inverted winger like Jeremy Doku or a fullback like Nico O’Reilly, but they aren’t important for this example.

Nico Gonzalez will often drop back to offer up a safe progressive pass when they are having trouble getting the ball past the opposition’s defense.

When he achieves five or fewer yards of separation from the man marking him, the Burnley defender in the second line doesn’t have enough incentive to follow him and jump when he drops. That forces Nico to play the ball wide to keep circulating play. The central space stays clogged, and Burnley remains compact.

When Nico gets six or more yards of separation, his marker has incentive to jump. If they don’t jump, he can continue to circulate the ball, but if the defender jumps, notice now the space for Foden and Reijnders increases. They gain separation from their markers, and space opens centrally.

Now you play the pass central to Foden or Reijnders. Burnley starts compact; they expand when Nico gets the ball, they contract on the ball when Foden or Reijnders receives the pass, and then there’s space in the channels or out wide. That exposes Burnley’s back line and offers avenues into the box.

The defense is compact; they expand, they contract, they expand, they contract, and then you score a goal. But you need them to expand or contract.

I wish teams like Manchester City would constantly rotate their midfielders back and forth, rather than have their attacking midfielders simply watch the ball circulate.

Why not have a combination of Reijnders, Foden, and/or Nico drop and achieve the six or more yards of space to force Burnley to expand? A never-ending pull and push.

Pass to that midfielder, and then force the opposition’s defense to jump. Then when they jump, keep rotating and dropping to open space in the middle to break up the compactness of the defense. To crumple them like a tin can and then expose their jagged edges once they contract or jump to the ball.

Then you should have at least one pass open centrally and a free man on the wing because defenders are getting dragged inside.

And it doesn’t have to be a massive amount of movement, or speed in movement, but it should be constant and vary. Vary who drops; one can drop, two can drop, or all three can drop. Surprise them and always achieve six or more yards of space with at least one midfielder, and then play through the middle.

It should, in theory, tire the team chasing the ball more than the team passing because it doesn’t have to be fast rotations, and this is mentally exhausting to follow for the defense.

Pep Guardiola in particular is a proponent of dribbling to force defenders to jump, but off-the-ball movement is something that I feel is not utilized enough in these scenarios. The same goes for most positional managers who face a compact, hard-to-break-down defense.

Those more positional attacking teams do this; you will see midfielders drop to offer an extra option for the back line, but they don’t do it frequently enough. I feel teams should constantly be looking to always have at least one midfielder open with six yards or more of space to keep the center of the pitch open.

As Pep Guardiola said, “I thought it was a 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1, or telephone number my wife.”

We try to translate what we see into words, but the game has evolved to be much more dynamic in and out of possession, managers don’t care what we call it.

You’ll never see me use those numbers when I write because, first, I think it oversimplifies a complex process; second, it makes the reader or listener assume the formation is fixed; and third, it is a definitive statement to say “Chelsea are using a 3-4-3 formation.”

I’m on the outside looking in. What if the coach views it as a 5-2-3 instead and is communicating that to the players? That formation change represents a shift in mindset on the part of the players on the pitch. One formation is more offensive and the other more defensive.

I think it is our job to try to understand what the players are thinking, not what we want the players to think. If I can get a better understanding of what is actually being communicated to the players, then that makes it easier to describe why certain actions happened during a match and to diagnose problems.

An example of this comes from former Wolves manager Gary O’Neil, when he described the formation Wolves used to beat Chelsea in this Coaches’ Voice video. For context, in the video, Gary has set up his tactics board to show his team playing in a 4-4-2 formation:

We had Toti Gomez playing left-back, Craig Dawson left-side center-back, Max Kilman on the right, and Nelson Semedo in a right-back position. Rayan Ait-Nouri actually played left midfield. A lot of people watching the game would have seen us more as a back five because [out of possession] Ryan [Ait-Nouri] had a job to do against [Malo] Gusto, sort of tracking him down, but Ryan was the left of a midfield four.

Gary then goes on to detail every aspect of their plan and mindset throughout the game—how they held back and defended in a way that was more passive—but he admitted:

We used to like to be quite aggressive without the ball, but we didn’t feel like we needed to on the day.

[…] It was a really unique, solid away-from-home performance because normally, as a coach, I love getting pressure on the ball. I want Pablo [Sarabia] to jump, I want Pedro Neto to jump, I want us to be aggressive, I want the back line to come up when we jump, and I want us to restrict the spaces.

When you see the lineup on TV during the pre-match or the analysis after the match, no one would have described it the way Gary O’Neil described it—as a 4-4-2, midfield four. A back five is a defensive formation on paper. They held back to counter how Chelsea played, but deep down the players—Rayan Ait-Nouri in particular—were normally instructed to think offensively.

This is a common theme for teams that “play in a back five” on paper. Take Manchester United, for example. When they don’t have the ball, Amad Diallo plays as a “right wing-back” and will retreat back to help the defense in what looks like a back five. But with the ball, you could classify him more as a right-sided midfielder. What formation number do you assign then, if that is the true intention from Ruben Amorim? To me, they’re playing in a back four when they have the ball—the formation the media and fans want the team to play—but because they “play in a back five” on paper, they get typecast as a defensive team.

That is why I like to stick to describing each individual’s position or role within the team, and if necessary, sub-structures (i.e., 3-2 at the back, 2-3, back four, back five, etc.). One moment a player can be playing left wing, then attacking midfield, and then they might drop back to left-back or left wing-back. That requires a longer explanation, but I feel that’s a more accurate representation of what is actually happening.

There are times when you want to force an idea, to make it work, but when you’re finished, you know it’s rushed. That’s a negative feeling.

Once you have a great idea, it doesn’t feel like the next one will ever come, but it does. And when it does, you can feel it.

There are games where I’m searching for an angle, searching for something to point out.

Not every game or action is worth reacting to.

There are times in a match when I think a change needs to be made.

Sometimes patience is the best choice.

That view misses what’s actually happening. United’s attack is not about pre-set patterns. It is built on relationships.

Bruno Fernandes is the focal point of their play. His quick forming connection with new signings Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo has turned their forward play into something this is genuinely beautiful to watch.

The formation they use is not the story, the story is the way in which each individual player interacts with each other.

The Underlying Complexity of United’s Attack

In Amorim’s system, United are not trying to dominate possession. Each attack is not choreographed in the way more positional teams like Manchester City or Arsenal would play. Instead, it resembles street football: flicks, tight one and two-touch passes, minimal touches, angled runs on the diagonal in crowded areas. It demands enormous trust and understanding.

Each attack can look different because of the way players combine in tight spaces, improvise runs, and react to one another. The players have to remain in similar zones on the pitch to ensure they can consistently connect to execute those shorter passing sequences.

They’re predictable only in their directness—you know they’ll attack immediately once they win the ball, whether via quick combinations or a ball over the top—but every attack is unique.

The alertness required to play this way is built in training. The coach creates the environment, then hands over creative control so players can improvise and create within shared zones.

When confidence is high and the shared understanding is sharp, their play becomes increasingly unpredictable. If those connections between the players are off, they can look stale; without those short combinations, the default option will be to kick the ball long to reset play.

There’s no single sequence that defines their attack. You can’t capture it by pointing to one clip. That’s precisely what makes it both direct and unpredictable.

The Chelsea match is the only outlier due to the pouring rain. It’s difficult to play the ball on the ground when there’s large puddles of water on the pitch. The first 15 minutes against Fulham are a great representation of the attacking dynamics I discussed here.

The Difference Between This Season and Last Season

The key difference this season is that Bruno Fernandes finally has partners to bounce off when he pushes forward—because of his connection with Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo.

Past forwards—Marcus Rashford, Antony, Alejandro Garnacho—are less suited to improvisational, decision-making in chaotic moments. They are A to B forwards who are not made for the smaller spaces. There was a disconnect, a pent-up frustration, as if Bruno and the front line were playing two different games.

Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo, by contrast, thrive on combination play. They want to bounce passes, improvise, and adapt to chaotic moments. Both are Premier League-proven and in form: Mbeumo’s 20 goals and 7 assists for Brentford, Cunha’s 15 and 6 for Wolves—numbers produced in teams with far fewer attacking resources. When Bruno joins the attack through the center, he finally has partners on his wavelength—confident, experienced, and able to match him.

That blend of experience and confidence will rub off on the rest of the squad. It has already breathed life into the attack. Mason Mount, Amad Diallo, Joshua Zirkzee, Diogo Dalot, Patrick Dorgu, Casemiro, and Kobbie Mainoo have all shown signs of mirroring the fluidity forged by Bruno, Cunha, and Mbeumo. New striker Benjamin Sesko may contribute in time, but he remains unproven at this level.

The Bruno-Cunha-Mbeumo axis is central to their ceiling. They could survive losing either Cunha or Mbeumo for a spell to injury against lesser teams—but not both. They have numerous players who can play in several positions, which gives Amorim options, but they cannot afford to lose Bruno.

What It Means For The Future

Results so far only hint at their potential. Manchester United opened the season with a valiant display against Arsenal, limiting them to just three shots on target before conceding from a corner in a narrow 1-0 home defeat. At Fulham, fine margins cost them—Cunha struck the post and Fernandes missed a penalty—turning what could have been a 3-1 victory into a 1-1 draw. Against Burnley they created enough chances to score at least five goals, Amad’s miss from Mbeumo’s cross into an open net the clearest of them, yet had to settle for a 3-2 win. Manchester City away is the second hardest fixture on their calendar behind Arsenal away; a 3-0 loss with injuries to Cunha and Mount is disappointing but expected. The 2-2 draw with Grimsby Town, followed by a penalty shootout exit in the Carabao Cup, felt more like an embarrassing fluke—born of rotation and a dreadful showing from goalkeeper Andre Onana—than a reflection of their true level. The 2-1 win over Chelsea might jumpstart their season, though it came under unusual conditions — a red card and heavy rain that suited United’s direct play while disrupting Chelsea’s short passing.

Manchester United has the highest xG per game (1.94) in the Premier League this season. No other club has a higher total xG (9.7) or has taken more shots (79). They had the toughest start to the new Premier League season of any club, according to Opta Analyst.

The team Amorim inherited last November was disjointed and it wasn’t built for him. They are a mid-table team. They had a terrible record in the Premier League but he got them to a Europa League Final. They signed quality players in the summer and these new relationships between the players will take time to build. This is not the same United squad we saw last season. Coming away with seven points from Fulham, Burnley, and Chelsea is far from a crisis when you would expect them to lose to Arsenal and Manchester City.

With sharper execution, the conversation around Amorim might already be very different—less about a “simplistic approach,” more about an attempt to restore Manchester United to their old glory days: direct attacking football, emphasis on the wings, quick interchanging passes in advanced positions, and relentless transitions. The difference being that the teams of old had world-class defenders.

Barring major injuries, the problem won’t be their attacking setup or chance creation; it will be finishing, confidence, and—most of all—the defense.

Because United overload the wings and funnel play wide in possession, the center can be exposed when they turn the ball over. Defenders are encouraged to be aggressive and can over-commit, leaving space in behind. The quality of their defense doesn’t match the quality they have in attack. Luke Shaw is a below average emergency option at center-back, but he’s not a natural center-back in the way Leny Yoro is. If you replaced the back line of almost any side in the Premier League with United’s defenders and goalkeeper, their performance would immediately drop.

They should struggle to avoid conceding at least one goal per game. If you can’t outscore your opponent, you can’t win, but at the very least as a neutral they are one of the most fascinating attacking teams to watch.

If Amorim can shore up the defense without blunting the forwards too much, it could spark the turnaround United need—even if it requires some concessions in attack.

No other team in Europe comes close to the technical ability that Barcelona possesses, specifically in their first touch and passing. They play with the ball on a string. It looks like a video game. The difference in quality with the ball at their feet is jarring. PSG comes the closest, but it’s not the same. When you have that type of quality to start, you can do whatever you want in possession.

Anthony Gordon went on to say, “We played against the top teams like Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea, and Arsenal—but the way they passed the ball in the midfield and the way they were fluid in their movement and combining made it really hard for us to press.”

It is a game, a dance, of meters between Pedri and Frenkie de Jong to try to gain six to eight yards of space, to escape Newcastle’s man-to-man press and their second line of defense. To gain that space, those two have to drop to serve as an option to pass to or move forward to shake their marker. I wouldn’t say they are trying to create space for each other, but that is a byproduct of the movement. They are never in one place, they never stop moving when Barcelona has the ball, and they aren’t fixed to a position. They are responsible for progression from deep, so they are the deepest-lying midfielders, but they aren’t constrained to one playing on the left and one on the right, or one forward and one dropping. There was always one pass open centrally. That is what makes them hard to mark.

It’s a learning experience on how to defend for Newcastle, but it should be a bigger learning experience for the teams that should want to attack, like Barcelona, because Newcastle is a very hard team to break down. Other teams should want to replicate the way they shake their marker and create space in midfield.

It is a pull and push. A midfielder drops with six yards of space and receives the ball, and the natural thing for Newcastle to do is to go and try to win the ball. That is the pull; Barcelona pulls them in. Then the moment a pass is open centrally or in the channels, the Barcelona midfielder plays the pass. That is the push.

Think of it like breathing. In settled play, defending in their own end, Newcastle want to have their chest flat, minimal movement, and barely breathing. Pedri drops and receives the ball; now Newcastle has to expand and breathe in. Once Newcastle expands, now there’s space between the second line and back line. When Pedri plays the pass into that central space, now Newcastle contracts to the ball and breathes out. Barcelona’s job is to make Newcastle hyperventilate, breathing in and out quickly, and then space opens up on the wings for Rashford and Raphinha. Newcastle crumples up like a squeezed tin can, with jagged edges. One or more players are pushed out of line, two or more are pulled towards the ball, and then the deeper-lying midfielders can join and combine with the rest of Barcelona’s attack to help in the quicker combinations once the ball is progressed forward.

It is an itch Newcastle couldn’t scratch because Pedri and De Jong are relentless in their pursuit to get the appropriate space.

The key is the distance they are always looking to create. At least one player is always available with six or more yards separating them and the closest defender. Then they suffocate you with their technical ability because they can play passes and take touches you could only dream of playing.

Strangely, Chelsea left Serge Gnabry unmarked on the far side. He will be the target for the cross in this set-piece routine.

When Joshua Kimmich starts his move forward to “kick the ball,” Chelsea initiates the offside trap immediately in unison. The defenders have to fully commit to the offside trap. If one player deviates from it, they risk keeping an attacker onside. There’s no time for them to react or communicate a change on the fly.

But Kimmich doesn’t kick the ball. He rolls it short to Michael Olise, which allows Olise to dribble towards the box. Then Kimmich continues his run forward to make Cole Palmer hesitate as he chooses between following him or Olise, which gives Olise more room to cross.

Meanwhile, in the box, the Chelsea defense has pushed forward in unison to the edge of the penalty box once Kimmich touches the ball. All the Bayern Munich attackers ignore that movement and stay in an offside position.

Serge Gnabry’s job on the far post is to stay onside and get on the end of the cross from Olise. Once the cross falls to Gnabry, all he has to do is head it or pass it square on to an attacker in the box. A simple pass to make, which will lead to a simple tap-in for the attacker.

All of Bayern Munich’s attackers inside the box will be unmarked because the Chelsea players are five yards away from them. They will be onside because they will make sure they stay behind Gnabry before he squares the ball to them.

While other teams have attempted to beat this predictable offside trap from Chelsea, this was the most effective and promising counter to their trap that I’ve watched live. Bayern Munich’s execution fell short, however, as Michael Olise’s cross was not accurate and Serge Gnabry mistimed his run, straying offside.

Luis Enrique on why he spent the first half against Lens in the stands and the second half on the bench:

For some time now, I’ve been watching rugby coaches who analyze matches from a very different perspective. I like the possibility of seeking that improvement. I wanted to follow the first half from the stands and it’s magnificent. It’s different. I can control everything.

It’s an interesting option that I’m going to use in the future. After that, you can perfectly give the halftime talk because you’ve seen perfectly who played well on the field. We have a lot of direct information.

This is a great option for matches where you know you’ll have the quantitative advantage over the opponent. You lose the ability to interact with the players but gain the advantage of seeing the entire field, every player, every action.

This comes at a time when a team like Brighton is investing in the ‘Coachwhisperer’ technology which allows Fabian Hurzeler and his staff to talk into a microphone and communicate with players during training through a vest that the players wear. You have to wonder if in the future managers will be able to use that same technology during matches while sitting higher in the stands to get a better view.

We know each team has staff in the stands relaying information and images to the bench, but it’s different when you can see it with your own eyes live.

Argentina manager Lionel Scaloni remarked about how his staff feed him their analysis during the match:

We have people up top analyzing. It’s important. In fact, when I was at Sevilla, I used to do that. I watched the matches from above […] but it can be quite misleading. The player sees things from another perspective. From up there, everything looks so easy, but then when you talk to the player, he’ll tell you, ‘It’s not like you say it is.’ You have to put it into context, but it does help.

This incident with Luis Enrique reminded me of a quote from him this summer when he was asked why PSG started kicking the ball out of play from the kickoff. Was it to win back possession quicker?

Yes, the reflection would be interesting if we were in a coaching course and sharing it with my colleagues. In fact, we copied it from Olympique Lyon. I saw it. I liked it.

Hey, what’s the reason? I’m not going to tell you because we’re clearly going to change it. I don’t know when, or yes, if I do know, we’re going to change it because teams adapt.

In football, nothing is magical; it doesn’t work. When you overcome pressure in a certain way, the opponent adapts. When you create superiority in a position, the opponent adapts. I mean, there’s no magic formula. It’s not like a coach sets up a system or makes a play and that’s it. No, that’s the difficulty of playing football today. All the coaches are prepared, the players are physically and technically prepared like never before.

So either you adapt, improvise, and stop being predictable for the opponent, or you’re dead. That’s why it’s greatness and motivation for me as a coach.

What we did last season isn’t valid for next season. We need to change, we need to improve things.

I like the kickoff. At first it was fine, but teams are starting to find solutions. It’s a play that doesn’t represent anything in a game, but it involves a reflection that I would do if I were with my colleagues. Since I’m with journalists, I don’t do it, lest you learn too much.

This is why it is important to spot and then act on trends right when they happen. Word spreads fast once something works. Get an edge or be left behind.

Even though Luis Enrique spotted an adjustment from the opposition and elected to stop kicking the ball out of play from the kickoff, I could see teams like Arsenal, Liverpool, Newcastle, Manchester City, Tottenham, Bayern Munich, and Barcelona start to use this tactic in the Champions League this season. Even the possession-heavy teams could benefit.

Kicking the ball out of play from the kickoff can help quiet the crowd because it slows play down, and you are immediately able to pressure the opponent in their own end to force mistakes in the duels from the resulting throw-in.

There could be other instances I’ve missed, but I’ve seen Newcastle, Bournemouth, and Arsenal start to utilize this tactic against Aston Villa and Liverpool at the start of this season in the Premier League. All three of those teams generate chances in the opponent’s half of the field by forcing turnovers.

Aston Villa were on a high to end last season. They won thirteen of their last seventeen matches.

Ollie Watkins had a full preseason injury-free for the first time in a long time. He looked fresh and scored in all five preseason friendlies.

They looked set to start the season well, but what changed?

The Aston Villa players are ambitious. Ahead of the 2026 World Cup, they need to be noticed to start for their national team. The star players will want Champions League, and Villa can’t offer that, but they qualified for the Europa League. Players like Ollie Watkins, Morgan Rogers, and Emiliano Martinez were rumored to be linked with moves to teams like Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, and Arsenal.

Goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez, a key leader, was crying as he waved goodbye to the Villa fans to end last season. He thought he was gone. He was left out of the squad for the first three matches because he was waiting for the call from Chelsea or Manchester United that never came.

Aston Villa were hamstrung in competing against the other top clubs for the exciting summer signings in the transfer market due to the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR). They were forced to sell a club favorite, their beloved midfielder Jacob Ramsey, to Newcastle before their first match of the season.

Everything changed once Jacob Ramsey left, and you can tell both by, one, the body language of the players and two, their direct quotes.

The most telling statement came from Tyrone Mings; he said on Instagram, “Don’t wanna hear any bad words or anything negative on this name. You don’t know the half.” That is the sound of a player talking for a player who did not want to leave.

Once the season kicked off against Newcastle in that first game, they looked like a completely different squad compared to preseason. They were and continue to be lifeless with the ball.

Emiliano Martinez was sitting watching the game from the stands as Unai Emery chanted “Marco Bizot, Marco Bizot, Marco Bizot” in a pre-match press conference before the game. Ollie Watkins and Morgan Rogers, both lacking service, their faces look dejected.

The club can’t compete with the top four contenders in the transfer market, a beloved player leaves, and key players and leaders are anxious to find a new challenge. The vibes are off.

It’s a feeling you get when you look at their body language or when the camera zooms in on their face. If the vibes are off, it doesn’t matter how they set up.

The mood of the team trumps tactics, and that is something that is often ignored by us on the outside.

Now that the transfer window is closed, they’ll take a look around the locker room and look at Unai Emery; he’s a top manager, and they are in the Europa League. They’ll peer at their phone and see the promotional content for the World Cup. If not for the team, they’ll do it for themselves.

They’ll score but it doesn’t feel like the players are playing expecting to stay next season, so some questions on the motivation.

In the first half, Ryan Gravenberch marked left back Ricardo Calafiori, and Dominik Szoboszlai marked the left winger Gabriel Martinelli.

That allowed Dominik Szoboszlai to stay closer to the backline, but it did create a lot of space in the middle of the pitch because Ryan Gravenberch was dragged further out wide.

It forced individual Liverpool forwards and midfielders to mark several players at once. If you could bypass one Liverpool player, there was space free in the middle of the pitch.

That meant all Arsenal had to do was execute passes in order to get into Liverpool’s half.

According to Ryan Gravenberch, in a post-match interview, he detailed what Liverpool changed in the second half:

In the first half, it was always really difficult to press them. They had always a solution. Rice dropped into midfield, Zubimendi. It was really difficult, but in the second half we changed the way that we pressed.

The left fullback from them (Ricardo Califiori) normally I had to go out. But in the second half, we changed it, and we did man-to-man in the midfield with Dom (Szoboszlai) go to the left fullback (Ricardo Califiori) and (Ibrahima) Konate to the left winger (Gabriel Martinelli). I think that was really better because in the first half we couldn’t get a grip on it.

Ryan Gravenberch and Florian Wirtz both marked both of Arsenal’s deepest-lying midfielders, Declan Rice and Martin Zubimendi.

This more balanced and straightforward approach to defending made it more difficult for Arsenal to play out from the back.

It is riskier because Dominik Szoboszlai would be far out of position if Arsenal were to cleanly break out of the initial buildupinto Liverpool’s half of the pitch, but Arsenal never had the pace on the break to consistently threaten Liverpool’s back line.

It allowed Liverpool’s forwards to expend less energy chasing players behind them and focus their time on pressing Arsenal’s defenders when they received the ball.

Szoboszlai was more useful higher up the pitch to allow Gravenberch to mark someone else, which then allowed Wirtz to mark someone else, creating more pressure.

It was a more aggressive stance, but it was a risk worth taking because it helped them create chances off simple mistakes in the buildup, it forced mistakes from goalkeeper David Raya, and they overwhelmed the midfield.

Even if Arsenal executed all their passes, it was more difficult to find the third man free, which made it increasingly difficult to play out from the back.

That is one reason why Liverpool was able to regain possession more in the second half. It was a simple yet super effective change.

The way in which he prepares the lower half of his body for the shot can make his arms look shorter than they are when he dives. He looks to get down quick rather than explode off his trailing leg. He may have trouble with high shots to his right or left because he favors protecting against shots below his waist. He prepares to defend against low shots and looks surprised with higher shots.

He likes to cut down the angle of the shot by positioning himself closer to the top of the six yard box. He is not afraid to come off his line at all times but if he has time to think he will sit in a more neutral stance. That is one of the reasons why he is good at cross claiming; he is an itchy-footed keeper.

If the ball bobbles around in a crowded box he has trouble tracking the ball but if he faces a clean shot, his quick reflexes and positioning can bail him out on occasion.

He has strong hands and parries well when he faces clean shots, but with deflected shots his parrying is inconsistent and he will sometimes parry away from his intended direction which can lead to scrambles on the line.

He favors covering the near post and parrying shots from wider angles towards the penalty spot which can lead to easily converted tap-in goals from onrushing attackers.

The headline will be his raw stats. Amongst goalkeepers in the Belgian Pro League in 2024/25, according to Sofascore, he had the most saves (173), the most saved shots from inside the box (114), most penalties saved (4), most high claims (48), and most goals prevented (15.57).

There is a lot to be excited about for the future but Manchester United fans should temper expectations. I don’t think he should start ahead of the more experienced Andre Onana or Altay Bayindir because he needs more time to improve and develop his consistency in parrying and general awareness. It would be unfair to throw a player of his experience into goal immediately.

Grumpy players won’t play well, and egos within a competitive environment breed distraction.

I don’t care how good the tactic is, how fit the players are, or how ready they may seem to start the season. If the vibes are off, it will show on the pitch.

The teams that are settled are ready for the season. They know who will be staying and who will be going.

The teams that have rumors and speculation swirling around them tend to struggle because the players’ minds are in another place.

They are stuck in a tiny town with no nightlife and bad weather, playing for a team with no aspirations of finishing at the top of the table and no European football.

You are a professional footballer, and you can see your dream of playing for a big club, and it is one transfer away.

Or you are a player stuck on the bench getting little minutes in the prime of your career ahead of a World Cup in which you know you could play.

Those players want to move. Both are distracted.

Now imagine having several of those players in training, in the workout room, in meetings, and in a game. They are on their phone with their agent, they are looking for housing in the new city, they are rearranging their lives, and they are preparing for the next game.

They are professionals, but this is the human side of football that doesn’t get talked about enough. We need to put more weight into this aspect of the teams we talk about.

Sometimes splits are amicable and some are not. There are egos and players should have ambition.

This is why it is hard to predict the lineups of certain managers. We don’t see the moods of the players in training. It is something you have to see with your own eyes. You see it in the body language of the player.

Once that window closes, now each player should be fully focused on the season. They know who they are competing against in the lineup.

But then you have the disgruntled players who didn’t get their move or the move that fell through at the last minute.

Manchester United under Ruben Amorim this season with their quick one-touch passing; the chemistry between Bryan Mbeumo, Matheus Cunha, and Bruno Fernandes makes me tune in. They are poor defensively, and their midfield has trouble completing passes at times, but I don’t care.

Wolverhampton Wanderers under Gary O’Neil with Matheus Cunha, Rayan Ait-Nouri, and Hwang Hee-Chan was fluid and electric. A team full of dribblers will never not be entertaining. They had lacked center-backs, they conceded loads of goals, but I don’t care.

Bournemouth under Andoni Irola this season presses like no other team in the Premier League with such high intensity for the full match. A nightmare for teams that have the qualitative advantage because they love to chase, and force errors. They don’t let you breathe but their forwards are frustrating to watch; they can’t finish, but I don’t care.

I don’t care about the outcome of the match. I’ll tune in regardless.

You can tell, if those managers had a better midfield duo, better defenders, or better forwards, they should succeed. They’d win. Then you can be there sat in the front row ahead of the crowd when they win.

If you can take one thing from each of them and apply it to another team to improve a weakness, it is worth it to watch. You can learn something, it can spark an idea.

Most importantly, you can appreciate the individual performances of the players while ignoring their frustrating teammates.

Every team has their strengths and weaknesses. If you combine one thing from one team and one thing from another and add in some depth, you have a winning team. But in isolation, that one team will have to compensate for their weaknesses. To compensate, they’ll make sacrifices.

You are missing out if you don’t watch these lesser teams live because in order to perform above their means, they have to come up with unique ideas in attack or defense.

Isolate those individual ideas, apply them to a team playing at a higher level, and you will be able to solve unique problems.

Find ways to benefit from the struggling teams. You’ll appreciate the teams playing at the top level of football more.

He’s their most important player because of how versatile he is, how he patrols play on the fringes of the formation, maintaining rhythm and control, and how well he works with and how in-tune he is with Mohamed Salah.

Szoboszlai is no where near as good a passer as Alexander-Arnold, Trent is a generational passer, but he has the necessary timing of when to play certain passes and when to clear his lines by punting it up field. Liverpool live off those one- or two-touch long balls from the right back. It resets the opposition, forces the opposition defense back, and it creates space in the middle of the park.

He’s the only starting midfielder that is in tune with Mohamed Salah. You can see it in their body language. When Szoboszlai receives the ball, he is looking for Salah. You can see Salah start to initiate specific runs off the left back from the wing when Szoboszlai receives the ball. When Salah has the ball, he knows what space to occupy to act as a decoy or outlet. Trent Alexander-Arnold had that same understanding, and that is why that triangle between Szoboszlai, Salah, and Trent worked so well in previous seasons. That is an understanding that Frimpong and Wirtz don’t yet have with Salah.

I’d argue, and he showed this in previous seasons, he’s a better defender than Alexander-Arnold, especially in the box. You saw that against Newcastle in the first half when he shielded the ball away on the line for Newcastle’s first chance in the box, dove in to block Gordon’s shot in the six-yard box with a sliding tackle, and headed away several crosses at the far post. He has a strong frame, and he tracks far post runs extremely well, positioning his body off the man.

He has always shown the ability to track back and defend off the right, deputizing for Trent in transition to defense when Trent gets stuck further forward up the pitch. Szoboszlai would rotate back and cover for him. He is an extremely underrated defender and tackler. It’s not surprising that he can defend one-on-one on the wing; it’s not new to him.

And then you could argue he’s a better dribbler. Of course, that inverted right-back role works perfectly for him because he’s at home in midfield; he inverts and then has the football IQ to know when he needs to move back out wide.

He’s not as fast as Trent, but it’s a good in-between to help bridge the gap as they transition from the familiar dynamics of Liverpool with Trent Alexander-Arnold, to a different system with Jeremie Frimpong. If they get in trouble because Frimpong has none of the passing capabilities of Trent or Szoboszlai or if Konate becomes too isolated, they can revert to this. Or they can start Frimpong and then have Szoboszlai rotate back to right back more frequently.

The only critique on his performance against Newcastle was that his defending became a bit loose towards the middle part of the game, as he became fatigued. More loose than you’d expect. Curtis Jones had to help bail him out on one occasion.

The icing on the cake for his performance was the dummy for the winning goal. He plays right back the entire game, Conor Bradley gets subbed on at right back, and Szoboszlai moves into midfield. He finds himself in a striker’s position up top, running towards the right side of the six-yard box. Salah squares the ball at pace across the box towards Szoboszlai, but he recognizes Rio Ngumoha is wide open behind him because he drags the Newcastle right back with him. Szoboszlai feints over the ball, lets the ball run through his legs to Rio, and Rio scores the winning goal. He’s a world-class player, and that speaks to his versatility.

I’m a big proponent of midfielders playing as fullbacks. Look at Federico Valverde at Real Madrid as an example. Dribbling and passing ability out wide at the back always helps, and Liverpool will need that control.

All is well when you find that unicorn goalkeeper that can be both a decent shot stopper and a one-of-one world-class irreplaceable ball-playing goalkeeper.

All is well when you have an unlimited budget to scout and sign that gem, that needle in a haystack, one-of-one.

As a kid, if you are a good passer and good with your feet, why would you want to become a goalkeeper? That is the problem. The pool of goalkeepers who are sick in the head and who like being in goal even though they are gifted with their feet—that pool of players is minuscule. They normally get dragged out of goal to play other positions as kids.

I’m a simple guy. A goalkeeper should be good at saving the ball. Other than Manuel Neuer, I can’t name a ball-playing goalkeeper that sustained world-class-level shot-stopping for more than two consecutive seasons.

And no, don’t name goalkeepers who are just good with their feet and known for passing. I’m talking about the tight spaces, short passing ability, and even dribbling ability.

In the Premier League, I think the level of the lower teams has risen to a point where you are going to face a lot of shots. You need a goalkeeper who can stop those shots. If the goalkeeper is not saving those shots, you likely aren’t scoring two goals a game, you’re losing games, and you’re sacked.

The teams at the top are signing taller goalkeepers. Liverpool signed Giorgi Mamardashvili. Manchester City has signed James Trafford and is reported to be in negotiations to sign Gianluigi Donnarumma. Chelsea has Robert Sanchez.

The league is trending taller in every position, except for a few edge cases in midfield or academy players. Sesko at Manchester United, Ekitike at Liverpool, Haaland at Manchester City, Havertz at Arsenal, and Isak at Newcastle. Defenses are getting taller; have you seen the defender Liverpool just signed?

Tall trees in goal, tall trees in defense, tall trees in midfield, tall trees in attack, everywhere.

I am a massive proponent for short goalkeepers. David Raya is one of my favorite goalkeepers, and he’s as tall as Iker Casillas but better with his feet. You can be short and be a world-class goalkeeper. Height is overrated in the majority of cases. I would take superior reflexes, positioning, and IQ over height any day. For the purposes of defending against corners and reach, being tall makes things easier. It’s a sad factor of life.

Tall goalkeepers historically are not great in tight spaces; shorter passing is their weakness. If you can find a tall goalkeeper who is good with their feet in small spaces, protect them at all costs and pay whatever the other team wants; they are one in a million.

If you can’t, if the league trends taller, you have to sign a tall goalkeeper. If the tall goalkeeper is not good with their feet, adapt the team to them. It’s worth the pain to change to avoid conceding.

In preseason after watching them play, I talked about how they were going to set up. I talked about how when they use a back four, one center-back is passive covering and the other center-back is active pressing when the ball is in the opposition’s half. This speaks to Thomas Frank’s flexibility in his approach. He adapts to the opponent.

Everyone operated in the same way as they did before, but the right center-back, Cristian Romero, tightly man-marked Erling Haaland and followed him wherever he went, and the midfielders dropped back to help cover.

You would think that’s an obvious thing to do. Don’t let Haaland breathe; mark him tightly. But with how aggressively Tottenham pressure teams in the build-up, man-to-man everywhere, it was a massive risk that paid off because Manchester City couldn’t finish their chances, but a risk that paid off.

Numerous times, Cristian Romero was all the way up close to the front line when Manchester City was building up, following Haaland. And then you’d see Mickey Van de Ven simultaneously actively pressuring all the way to the wings, to the touchline.

It is a risk because it can be manipulated. If the man-marking assignments don’t change, with defenders handing off responsibility to the next defender depending on where the ball is, the attacking team can use players as decoys to pull critical defenders out of position, to the wings, for example.

But the problem is that Thomas Frank is going to build a tactical base that is strong, and then he’s going to make one change like that. That one change to make Cristian Romero active changed the game. Manchester City had massive issues passing out short from the back because of that one change. And then they capitalized on Manchester City’s mistakes to score and win.

I was expecting a game like they had against PSG. Kevin Danso comes on, and they defend deep in their own half to counter. It would have been hell for Manchester City, but when Thomas Frank believes in his players, he’s not afraid to take a risk. We saw that at Brentford, as they punched above their weight on several occasions.

Pep Guardiola is known for being hard to predict with his tactics and lineup choices. I’d argue Frank roulette is as unpredictable as Pep roulette.

I wasn’t worried about Tottenham defensively. The foundation was paved by Frank quickly in preseason. Impressively quick, but the individual quality of their defenders was top before he came in.

The reason I’m fascinated by them right now is that I like following managers that improve the players they have. Managers cry out for new players, new players, new players, but Thomas Frank improves what he has. He must be kicking his feet and giggling every day at the amount of depth he has compared to what he had at Brentford.

It starts off as a normal play, passing out from the back. Then Lucas Paqueta is bodied off the ball. Now West Ham are immediately under pressure in full reaction mode. Get into position; prepare to defend against the immediate chance.

I want you to watch two players for Chelsea: Pedro Neto and Enzo Fernandez.

They should prioritize Enzo Fernandez in the center of the box first, which they do. Thomas Soucek should be sprinting to cut off that pass into Enzo.

Then they need to ensure the cross is blocked to the far post. I don’t care if they have it covered, in my opinion, the pass to Pedro Neto should be blocked. Reason being, it is a very awkward pass to defend for the far side center-back, Jean-Clair Todibo.

This is the first mistake made. Nayef Aguerd comes out to help Thomas Soucek cut off the pass on the ground, towards the penalty spot, to Enzo Fernandez. Aguerd likely realized there was a gap for that pass and he tried to close it down, a gap that Soucek should have covered, but he didn’t have it covered.

Once Aguerd shifts over, the entire backline shifts over with him. Now there’s a massive space behind Jean-Clair Todibo.

The entire game now rests on Aaron Wan-Bissaka covering for Todibo and filling that space, not allowing the cross into Pedro Neto on the far post.

It is a domino effect. If Soucek cuts down the space in time, and Aguerd doesn’t shift over as aggressively, then the rest of the defense doesn’t shift over, and they’d have the far post covered by Todibo and Wan-Bissaka, not just Wan-Bissaka. If Todibo covers the far post, then Wan-Bissaka doesn’t have to cover Pedro Neto as tightly, allowing him to help close down Enzo Fernandez, another central forward ahead of Enzo, or help double-team Pedro Neto.

James Ward-Prowse sees the pass into Enzo Fernandez is shut off; he then backs off to cover the top of the box to defend against a cutback.

Aguerd and Soucek allow the cross to the back post; they don’t block the cross from Joao Pedro to Pedro Neto. Aaron Wan-Bissaka doesn’t get in front of Pedro Neto, allowing him to score easily on the far post.

It is easy to pass blame on Aaron Wan-Bissaka. He is the obvious scapegoat. But it is a crime to allow this type of goal to be scored when your team is using a back five, and you have to place full blame on the entire team for the goal. They lack appropriate communication.

If Wan-Bissaka isn’t going to tightly mark Pedro Neto, he should be telling Todibo to drop back. That would trigger Max Kilman to shift back.

Soucek can see the rest of the box and should be telling Aguerd to block the cross at all costs because the back post is not covered. Soucek would then cut off the pass into Enzo Fernandez, and James Ward-Prowse would then try to track back more with Enzo Fernandez to make sure that pass is cut off.

Everyone is assuming Aaron Wan-Bissaka has fully covered the back post, but there’s too much assuming happening.

Every possession dragged on. Someone should tell them you can’t score extra points for holding onto possession.

It felt like the only way in which Real Madrid were going to score was from a lapse in judgement on the part of Osasuna, and that was the case with the penalty. One mistake from the defender, tripping Kylian Mbappe on the edge of the penalty area, and you lose. It was not even in an area of the pitch in which Mbappe could get off a good shot with very few to aim at in the box.

There is a difference between creating situations in which the opponent can make a massive mistake and creating chances. Real Madrid were not creating chances.

Hyper-positional play, like we saw them play today, is a great tool when you have a massive qualitative advantage, men in the box who can finish from a header, and players on the wings who can beat their man in isolation. The frustration as a viewer comes when the forwards don’t know how to utilize those moments in isolation.

I don’t feel the need to mention the formation because it felt like a non-factor. It was a horseshoe around a gaggle of Osasuna midfielders and forwards and a front line of Real Madrid forwards looking back at the ball as it is passed back and forth, back and forth, then they take a hopeless shot from 20 yards out. Start over and repeat.

Before the match, Xabi Alonso, when asked about making the team more compact:

Well, it’s about making sure all the lines are aware. Of course, for the forwards, it’s important that on transitions they don’t get left isolated. Not just those two names (Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Jr.), but everyone who plays those positions.

At the same time, when we attack, the defensive line has to push up and the midfield line as well. We don’t want to just leave it to the forwards and see what happens. We want to function as a team, everyone engaged in what each play requires.

That will help us keep better distances both when defending and when attacking. If we’re too spread out when attacking, then getting back is usually harder and with bigger distances. So today it’s very important to be aware of this.

They did a good job of this against Osasuna, but it feels like the intention behind the idea of this is to limit the effectiveness of the opponent’s transitions.

Defend with the ball first, and work the ball into the box second. If working the ball into the box impedes their ability to maintain proper spacing to defend, they elect to not try to take the risk of actually attacking the box.

That mindset produces an unattractive style of football. You win but it feels like a loss.

It’s like if you took over management of a Michelin-starred restaurant with the best chefs in the world on staff and an unlimited budget, and then you only served salad and water.

I will never get those 90 minutes of my life back. By the 85th minute, as a neutral, I was actively rooting for Osasuna to tie the match.

Without the manager, the coach, they’re nothing. They need structure and guidance, but they also need to have that confidence to become irreplaceable. That is one of the manager’s main jobs, to instill that confidence.

Being irreplaceable is a hard thing to achieve in football as an attacking player. If you offer something no one else does, you are special, but if you offer something no one else does and your actions result in goals, you are irreplaceable.

You give those players the ball, and they will find a way to surprise you with a goal. Assisting the assist, an assist, a goal, goals.

You’ve seen your team make that same exact pass and get into those same areas of the pitch, but these players put something extra on that next action once they receive the ball that other players can’t when they drive, dribble, pass, or shoot, that other players can’t.

You can replace them but you’ll never achieve what you could achieve with them.

The manager is responsible for creating an environment for those moments, but it doesn’t matter how good the tactics are, how much they prepare, how much they train, how many friendlies they play, how far they’ve travelled, or how much rest they get; you need players that create moments.

You need to become irreplaceable.

Against Arsenal, Newcastle United, and Bayern Munich in preseason, Tottenham used a back four.

In each match, they used a similar pattern to press against the opposition’s buildup. The second line would man-mark, the wide players would man-mark, the striker man-marks, but one player from that second line would jump out in a sprint to challenge the ball. That pressures the pass forward. The wide areas and second line are both tightly marked.

This pressing structure is designed to force the pass into the free man on Tottenham’s left side, the ball side, so that the left center-back can jump from the back line to challenge that first forward pass. It is usually the first pass forward, but it doesn’t have to be, and the left center-back has to be ready to jump once the pass is played.

When the left center-back jumps, the entire backline shifts over to cover for the left center-back. The right center-back is always passive covering.

In this scenario the right center-back, Cristiano Romero, would be passive, covering for the left center-back, Kevin Danso. They don’t switch responsibility, meaning if the ball is on Romero’s side, he does not then become active. One center-back is active, normally the left center-back, and the other center-back is passive. And the player jumping out from the second line, usually a midfielder, to press will almost always come from the far side.

In the UEFA Super Cup against PSG, Tottenham used a back five. I was not surprised that they were resolute in defense. The way in which the defense pressed changed, and the interesting part is not how it changed; it is who became active and who became passive.

To maintain that constant pressure on the ball, they have to remain man-to-man. Every forward pass is still contested heavily until a tackle is made. That hasn’t changed.

What changes is now the central center-back, Cristian Romero, jumps forward, becoming the active defender, helping challenge any forward pass into the central free man beyond the second line.

The left center-back and right center-back then become passive, covering for the central center-back, and both outside center-backs shift over to close the gap down the middle that the central center-back vacated.

You would expect Kevin Danso or Mickey Van de Ven to be chosen to be the active defender, because when they are in a back four, those two are the left center-back. The left center-back was always active. They are used to being the active defender. But the roles are reversed; Cristian Romero is the active defender.

Cristian Romero is a naturally aggressive defender, but it takes a lot of intelligence to switch between an active mindset one game, pressuring the ball, jumping, and maintaining positional awareness once you disengage from the challenge versus a passive mindset, scanning and being cautious, covering, and not committing because you are that last line of defense. And that takes a lot of organization and intelligence for the rest of the team to be able to seamlessly switch between the two structures.

We saw at Brentford, against tougher opposition and/or when they lacked depth due to injuries, Thomas Frank would elect to use a back five, and when they felt they had enough cover in defense, they would use a back four. More often than not they didn’t have the depth off the bench to choose from; the lineup picked itself based off who was fit.

Thomas Frank is a manager that adapts the game plan to the opponent, whereas his predecessor, Ange Postecoglou, had his team play his way and only his way regardless of the opponent. I respect both ways of approaching a game because both take guts, but both have their downsides.

Frank’s way takes guts because of the restraint, organization, and intelligence required on the part of the players and staff to adapt the way they play game by game. In one game you are playing one role, and in another game you are playing another. Sure, you could over time develop separate game plans to play against similar opposition to build up that consistency in each system, but that takes time. It’s best to stick to one way of playing until you build up that familiarity.

The downside is what you saw against PSG. You lose an important set of players to substitutions, the opposition makes a few key adjustments, and it is harder to counter adjustments in-game to a strategy made for that opponent. A back five and a back four require the correct personnel. If you have already made substitutions, there are too many variables in play to make the large-scale adjustments needed to counter those adjustments by the opponent. You have to carry on, power through, and try to continue using what has worked in that game to not surrender momentum. That’s when a two-nil lead in the 85th minute can turn into a two-two draw and penalties by the 93rd minute.

When you adapt the way you play to the opponent you are proactive to start and reactive to the changes, with less options to fix the new issues.

Whereas if you are playing your way, and only your way, it can be easier to counter those adjustments because your weaknesses would be more noticeable, the team has more practice time in that system or structure, and you should be able to proactively adjust by subbing in personnel to defend against the new issues you are facing. It is easier to be more proactive towards the end of the game. That’s the upside. The downside is that naturally, you become more stubborn and unwilling to change mid-game because why change what has worked in the past?

The luxury for Thomas Frank is that he has more quality in-depth in attack at Tottenham, with a better defense. Unlike at Brentford, he should not have to have his strategy be dictated by injuries. If one man went down at Brentford, there was no one of similar quality on the bench. Except for Mohammed Kudus, no other player stands out, but the rest of the players are all fairly equal. It will be hard to keep those attacking players like Dejan Kulusevski, Wilson Odobert, Brennan Johnson, and Mathys Tel on the bench.

While a back five could provide short-term stability and simplify play against stronger opponents, a back four is better suited to the team’s current personnel for the long term unless they plan on letting those players go.

The goalkeeper, the defenders, the midfielders, and the forwards all will look for the obvious pass. The safe pass to maintain possession. Afraid to make a mistake.

When you have someone in the center of things controlling the rhythm and then breaking the rhythm in a way you wouldn’t expect, it changes how the rest of the team behaves.

When you don’t have that, the midfield becomes a void. The midfield becomes a space to shift play from one side to the next, not the distraction it should be.

You should want every defender’s eyes trained on the deeper midfielder, watching. You want their body language to relax as they wait for the pass, and when the pass is played quickly the first time, you want them to be caught off guard.

The opposition’s defense has to pay attention because those hard-to-find passes distract. They have to pay extra attention to each touch Zubimendi makes. Substitute his name for any true six in world football. You know how important that type of player is.

They have to wait and watch, and then the pass is played and they react. Now you are giving your attacking players more space when they receive the ball because the opposition’s defense is paying attention to something else.

It’s a strange phenomenon how it impacts the team’s scoring output. Every action thereafter becomes sharper because the forwards become more confident. The forwards are no longer afraid to make a mistake, to be expressive, or to take risks.

The forwards should not be the ones trying to distract; they are the final solution. The deeper players should be keeping the opposition on their toes.

That is what Arsenal has now, and I think you will see they will have an easier time scoring goals from open play, and if they want, be able to maintain possession for longer.

The midfield is there to distract and draw defenders in, the wingers execute, the forwards execute, and the defenders sweep. The entire team is more connected. And that rubs off on the rest of the midfield and the creators in the team.

This is the video in question.

In it, Pep stops an attacking drill to scold left-winger Jeremy Doku. He instructs Doku to receive the ball, strafe sideways to the left to draw in the defense, and then pass back sideways diagonally to a teammate so that teammate can put a cross into the box. I assume Doku didn’t do that because why else would he be yelling at him?

How many times have you seen Doku attempt that exact action in a game? Many.

In settled play, nine times out of ten when he plays left wing, Doku receives, shuffles left sideways, takes a few touches, and passes backwards to the right. Jack Grealish, an incredibly creative player before he joined City, does the same thing after having the same automation beat into him. Phil Foden and Bernardo Silva both do the same thing, but they’ll never beat their man in a straight line without a pass being fed into them, which is fine for them. And this only is used on the left wing; the right winger is normally free to take on their man.

It is an attempt to open the channels between the right fullback and center-back. Open up the channels for a through ball or play the cross towards the penalty spot.

In theory, it could open up more space in the half-space, but if they maintain possession for long enough, the midfielders are there to quickly clog that space.

For the purpose of defending with the ball, it can push the opposition further back into their own half and lower the potency of an opposition’s counterattack if they were to turn over the ball. But to me, that is the only redeeming quality.

If you insist on defending with the ball, this is an okay tool to use. Do I like defending with the ball? Hell no!

You see how electric Doku can be when he isn’t forced into an action. That type of profile, Grealish, players that can beat their man shouldn’t be afraid to lose the ball.

I should never be able to close my eyes and know exactly what a winger is going to do with the ball when they receive it. It’s as if Manchester City are playing a man down when the same play is repeated over and over without any variation in the choice of the dribble.

Football is a team sport and they’re playing a role but stop neutering wingers, especially the talented ones. It’s frustrating to watch and it is rarely effective for attacking purposes.

They should defend against the initial build-up man-to-man with one midfielder surging out from the second line to challenge the ball. Between defending the buildup and the final third, the central midfielders are sort of passive. Then once the ball is played forward centrally, the left center-back has to be ready to charge the receiving player from behind. Then they create chances off of those duels, but the problem so far for Tottenham in preseason is that they have lacked coordination or ideas after winning the challenges.

The right center-back is more passive because they have to cover the space behind the defense as the ball-side lunges one hundred percent into each challenge, but once the ball is worked into their own defensive half, all defenders meet each pass with heavy pressure immediately until the central midfielders can help double up centrally or out wide.

The fullbacks and left center-back are active, the forwards are active in the piston press, and the right center-back and central midfielders are covering. The center of the pitch is passive until or if the ball is worked into the final third. You need that balance initially central to maintain control of the speed of the opposition’s attack. Once the ball is worked into the middle third or final third, then the far side becomes passive and the near side is active, but they maintain that close man-to-man distance for as long as they can.

The two keys to the tackles are distance and speed. Most tackles are at a full sprint to ensure they are within one or two yards of their man. The man with the ball wants to play slow, but the defender is at full boar for each challenge. The man receiving the ball can never relax.

Passes into the fullback’s man, central midfielder’s man, and left center-back’s man are immediately met with a hard challenge. The left center-back challenges balls behind the second line of midfielders. All challenges are at full force; they shouldn’t let out of the challenge until they make full contact with the ball, and the skill will be to not draw a yellow. Cristian Romero and Joao Pahlinha should have trouble not accumulating yellow cards.

They signed Joao Palhinha because he is a monster at winning duels in the midfield. Listen to this stat. Only Moises Caicedo (305) and Idrissa Gueye (303) have made more tackles than Joao Palhinha (300) in the Premier League since the start of the 2022/23 season, and Joao Palhinha didn’t play in 2024/25 because he left Fulham for Bayern Munich. Rodrigo Bentancur is another decorated midfielder, and Archie Gray and Yves Bissouma are young, exciting options off the bench. Either could start ahead of Bentancur, but it seems that Thomas Frank favors Palhinha and Bentancur. I like the experience both of them bring, but Palhinha is older, and Bentancur is injury-prone. If Bissouma can get back into form, he should unseat either Bentancur or Palhinha.

That’s one thing that Thomas Frank will have at Tottenham that he didn’t have at Brentford: more quality in depth in every position.

Once you win the ball, it is direct and quick, with no waiting around. You need runners like Mohammed Kudus, Brennan Johnson, and Wilson Odebert to attack the wings to generate chances for Dominic Solanke. It can be switch-heavy at times to give the man receiving more time and space. It can also become a slow buildup to try to vary the pace of the game, to help slow down the opposition’s attack.

This is of the mold of what Nuno Espirito Santo managed to do at Nottingham Forest last season. Under Steve Cooper, they were a disjointed side. More disjointed than Ange Postecoglou’s Tottenham, Steve Cooper had problems in attack and defense, whereas Postecoglou had massive issues in defense. Nuno came in, and he simplified things. The edge they gained was their duels and fast counterattacking play. It has become a cliche to say “every ball needs to be challenged,” but with Nottingham Forest, every ball is challenged. Last season they ranked top of the Premier League in combined defensive actions: tackles and interceptions (1020), blocks (427), and clearances (1220). They had over 132 more clearances than Crystal Palace (1088) and Everton (1088). Classic nonsense defending, heavy into challenges and clearing the ball. Simple counterattacking play.

Every team needs an edge to compete in the Premier League at the top. At least one to outperform the squad they have. Tottenham have similar profiles to try to steal that edge quickly, and Thomas Frank is a flexible and tactically astute manager.

Thomas Frank has inherited a much better defense than he had at Brentford with Cristian Romero, Kevin Danso, and Mickey Van de Ven at the core. Frank may feel obligated to play Destiny Udogie, Djed Spence, or Ben Davies at left-back to save the legs of the center-backs, but the left center-back is the most important player on the pitch because of how active they are jumping out from the back to defend, knowing when to jump or stay back to not constantly put the defense at risk, and they have to win each duel because when they jump, they leave the defense naked behind them.

For that reason, starting with Romero, Danso, and Van de Ven at the back together with Pedro Porro attacking down the right wing is probably their strongest lineup. Kevin Danso is a better tackler and has more positional awareness compared to Mickey Van de Ven. Having fast athletic players like Mickey Van de Ven and Pedro Porro on the wings to challenge every ball wide quickly, Kevin Danso jumping out from left center-back, and Cristian Romero back to cover sounds like the most promising combination.

I’m excited to see how well they start the season. Thomas Frank will first need to lay the defensive foundation quickly and then eventually try new things in attack, like he was doing at Brentford last season. They will concede goals because this is an aggressive way of playing that requires time and practice, but they should be more defensively sound in the long term. Then of course he will be working on set-pieces. I’m less concerned about how well they defend and more concerned about their ability to create chances.

Trent Alexander-Arnold does everything on his first or second touch. He rarely takes a third touch before spraying the ball forward into space or into a teammate’s feet.

This is Liverpool’s most potent automation because it is an explosive athletic sequence of passes.

A direct pass on the first or second touch forward catches the defense off-guard and draws them into the man receiving the pass. Then try to play up and over the backline in on goal, either over the top or across goal.

Notice Mohamed Salah’s body language when he receives a pass like this. It is immediately positive. He jumps into receiving the pass, and he knows exactly where to direct the next pass to generate that high-quality chance. It opens up play.

Alisson and Virgil van Dijk are the only two other players who are capable of playing this pass out from the back. Alisson from the half-volley with the ball in his hands and Virgil van Dijk near the halfway line. Trent Alexander-Arnold was that third option, the escape route out from pressure. Dump it to him, and then he punts it forward.

With Florian Wirtz you are going to get a lot of straight horizontal passes to feet and through balls. A more cramped style of play.

To get Salah more involved in the play, they might have to try having Dominic Szoboszlai drop back into that right fullback position, let Jeremie Frimpong bomb forward to act as a right winger, and then have Salah invert into the half-space to combine with Wirtz and the center-forward.

In the long-term they have too much quality in the starting lineup to be having issues in attack.

Defenders, especially fullbacks, have to not only attempt to win the ball themselves, but they also have to help the team win back the ball.

To win the ball back for the team, you have to do things like showing your man to one side or the other. Force the man with the ball to one side, the side or area at which it is easier for the team to challenge the ball and win back possession.

When the defender shows the player to one side, that may compromise their defensive position. Their stance. You have to make yourself look “bad” for the betterment of the team as a whole.

Want to not allow the attacking player to dribble to both the left and right? You have to open your legs wider to block with your hips. When you open your legs, you give the attacking player the ability to nutmeg you, to put the ball between your legs, but you have given the rest of your team more time in the process because that action slows the attacking player down.

If they nutmeg you, that’s fine; you did your job. I see it as a positive if there is an intent on the defender’s part. It is an intentional selfless act.

I never look down upon a defender when they get nutmegged because they are doing it for the team.

The same goes for times when an attacking player blows past a defender who is showing the attacking player to a side. Their job is not in that moment to make the tackle; their job is to herd the attacker into a more favorable position for the team.

Some attackers are more dangerous crossing, and some are more dangerous cutting in towards the top of the box. Some targets inside the box are dangerous from a header or a cutback. It all depends on the situation: what is the least dangerous position for this attacking player to dribble into, and where are my other teammates to help defend?

If your team does not want to defend the cross, don’t allow the cross. It is easier to accomplish that as a team and the defenders can favor blocking the cross to allow the man to run inside. If you have the advantage in the air, allow the cross and win back the ball.

Don’t compromise the team’s shape to make a tackle. Play to the attacking team’s weaknesses as a team, not as individuals.

We think of players as assets, that are expendable and interchangeable, although with how online everyone’s lives are nowadays, we are closer to these players than ever before. We came to know Diogo Jota not just as a remarkable footballer but as a wonderful person and teammate. We learned about his beautiful family, his roots, and his passions beyond the pitch—his love of playing FIFA, the Football Manager save during the 2020 COVID quarantine where he took Telford United to the Premier League by 2029, and his creation of an eSports team called Luna Galaxy, among many other things that made him so special.

Normally when you hear of the passing of a player you focus on how great they were on the pitch, and the memories of the moments you had watching them. Diogo Jota was an incredibly memorable, clinical, exciting goalscorer and great teammate. He created many unforgettable moments. But I’m gravitating more towards focusing on the person he was. These are people who have a tremendous talent, but they are human like you and me.

Both him and his brother had a full life to lead after their careers.

My first thought was with his wife, Rute, who now, after just marrying two weeks ago, as high-school sweethearts, has to mourn the death of her husband and attempt to explain to their three young kids that their dad will no longer be with them. That is heartbreaking. And then my mind shifts to their parents, losing two sons. This is an unimaginable situation for anyone. My heart breaks for their friends and teammates, my prayers go out to them during this trying time.

But it angers me that these players don’t get enough time to get away from football. Diogo Jota, with his little brother, drove back to Liverpool for the start of preseason when this accident occurred. Had he not just had surgery on his lung, he would have likely flown by plane instead, but due to orders from his doctors he had to drive from Spain to cross the ferry and carry on by car into Britain. This is life, though; things happen for reasons we will never know.

Football is a passion but is a job that allows for no true breaks at this moment in time. It is a nonstop, 365-days-a-year, never-ending grind. Not only is the health of the players at risk; they don’t get enough time with their families, with their wife, or with their kids. It is past the point of inhumanity the way the football calendar is run by money-hungry corporations to have tournament after tournament, competition after competition, and match after match on repeat. A season that never ends.

You won the Premier League with Liverpool, a dream; the Nations League with Portugal, a dream; and married the love of your life of 13 years, a dream. All within the span of a few weeks. Then it all goes in one instant. Life is too short to not be able to have the right balance, to be able to enjoy life off the pitch to the fullest extent and still follow your passion on the pitch. We don’t have the right balance right now.

As Liverpool defender Ibrahima Konate put it rightly in his beautiful letter to those two brothers, this can happen to any of us. We must take every opportunity to live life to the fullest, and the players deserve that right.

Rest in peace.

Every team wants to be positive with the ball, but teams progressed more slowly and methodically last season. Pragmatism is a word often uttered. The main reason for slow play was the increase in the number of games; tired legs don’t want to run, and the managers pray for control. Control possession, and you both control the game and you save the player’s legs. Defend by keeping the ball, but there must be no mistakes.

In theory, slow progression should help with fatigue during a game. In practice, it does not help because it is hard to create enough space to penetrate and get off a high-quality chance if you have a clear quantitative advantage. You make one error, and not only does it halt any progress you made over that period of slow progression, but it also forces the team to run in transition to defense.

The team becomes fatigued because they are constantly defending transitions in a neutral stance. Neutral stance means that you attack slowly, flat-footed, facing towards the opponent’s goal, and have to shift the hips to sprint in the opposite direction. Walk, sprint, walk, sprint. The sprinting team, the defending team, has the momentum and the impetuous. They are the ones creating the most chances. They save energy in defense, waiting for the mistake or the turnover; it comes, and then they sprint on the front foot with momentum to attack the goal in transition as the attacking team backpedals.

The team with the better players should be fighting fire with fire. Play quickly to force the defending team into a negative stance, chasing the ball. Use your qualitative advantage to overwhelm the defense quickly, forcing them back, forcing them to face their own goal. Increase the number of defenders facing their own goal to avoid having to face a large number of attackers in transition.

If you can match their momentum in defensive transition, you get numbers back to defend, and then you have the qualitative advantage in defense. Therefore, you can force a bad shot or turnover, and then you get to counter with the inferior team defending the transition.

The attacking team constantly has the momentum, and you don’t want to give the defending team time to breathe. The only thing that should save the defending team is halftime and the full-time whistle.

Overloads central will need to become more aggressive to make that happen. More attacking players, midfielders, and forwards will need to contribute to the play in the center to play quickly. Fullbacks hold width to facilitate that and attack the half-space on the underlap and wide areas on the overlap, as they traditionally would.

What is the point of having a qualitative advantage if you are not going to use it, if you can ensure that you won’t make any mistakes in possession? If you can’t ensure you will make no mistakes in possession, then you have to play quickly to maintain that advantage because playing slowly has too many cons and less upside.

Embrace the fact that football will be a game of many transitions because there is not a team in football right now that can ensure they will make zero mistakes.

Looking for the unexpected move is a holding midfielder’s most important role within the team because if they can catch the opposition’s defense off-guard with a misdirected dribble or a cutting pass, now they are chasing and reacting in a compromised position to start.

If you watch Busquets receive and dribble, he always looks to bait his man into choosing a direction, but you’ll notice he has an upright posture. He uses his upper torso, his chest, to feint more so than his feet. If his intention is to go forward, he’ll lean back. He leans back; the defender thinks he is cutting back. The defender’s momentum takes him back, and then Busquets moves the opposite direction, forward out of pressure.

If he wants to move backwards or side to side, he’ll stay more upright but not leaning forward. That creates indecision, and players naturally want to move forward. The defender then commits his momentum forward. Once Busquets sees them commit, he dribbles back out of pressure.

Agile or quick wingers will use their hips, but slower midfielders use their upper body.

It is an instinct, an art, not necessarily a science. It is a gift to be in tune with both the opposition and your team. You have to be in tune with the opposition because you have to pay attention to when they let their guard down. They let their guard down, you draw them in with misdirection, and then you play the least obvious pass to constantly keep them chasing. Which gives the advanced midfielders and the forwards more space.

What gets better viewership at the Olympics: the 100-meter sprint or the 10,000-meter endurance final? The sprint gets more eyes because it is more of a spectacle. There’s a massive buildup to the event, an anticipation, and then the pistol goes off. It is short, quick, and intense. And then we have a gap of four years to wait for the next final. You can’t miss it.

Football is an endurance sport, but we live for those matches that are sprints. The excitement, the spectacle, an event. There are fewer sprints now because there are too many games. The players are tired and injured. There are no gaps; it is an endless slog of matches piled on top of other matches.

We need a break, and I need time to come up with new ideas. We need time to miss football, and the players need time to rest.

Football needs time to breathe, or we risk suffocating it.

I don’t envy the teams that create a culture in which there is a fight over the captain’s armband. A culture in which there is underlying envy and a waiting for the “king” to fall so that someone else can take it. There is a “succession plan” and a “waiting” for the current captain to fall off, to then promote someone else.

Who cares who wears it?

A leadership group should be established. The goal is to win. Everyone helps lead, which then helps the team win. The mentoring and motivation come from the core of the team, with no infighting over who is the captain.

The armband is a simple accessory that can be passed around from game to game. There are no debates over who the captain is; everyone is a leader on and off the pitch, everyone keeps each other in check, and everyone pumps each other up on the training ground, during pre-game, at half-time, and after the game.

That, to me, is the sign of a mature team, and I think that promotes a more emotionally stable environment. Build that team if you don’t have it and promote that type of environment.

This is the most recognizable repeated pattern that can form anywhere on the pitch. It is a simple bridge to break a line that can be assembled anywhere at any time.

The perfect balance comes when those three players, including the man with the ball, align. If you add more than three on the same diagonal, it can become crowded.

Once the pass is played, the fourth and fifth men join to combine, and that is when the skill shows because each player needs to have a complete understanding of where the next pass may be.

I rarely see the Europeans organizing themselves in this way, which can lead to more wing play and less time within the penalty box. More time on the perimeter. The South American teams are finding a way to break through in unpredictable but natural ways using this method of organization.

They can pop up anywhere; it just has to align from out to in. From the wing to the center, from the back to the half-space, anywhere. Pass to the center, and then work the ball through. Out to in and then through, quickly.

The ball can either be dummied through to the third player or taken in by the second player. The key is the deception because you never know what combinations will be created after that first pass.

Every attack is unique, and you are always anxiously waiting to see what new combinations the players will come up with on the fly. I say “on the fly,” but these are practiced and coached patterns, but not in the sense that they are planned. It’s an unpredictable way of building up, which forces the attacking team to never stop moving, looking, and thinking. It is much more entertaining to watch.

It has been six months since I stopped posting on X and while it was not a pleasant place to visit every day, there are people whose company I enjoyed. Who I miss talking to.

I’m still learning. I miss learning from them, and the most impactful way of learning is by having a conversation. Not by occasionally lurking. By having a constant dialogue.

There are a ton of talented individuals out there. It is important to get different perspectives. The dialogue back and forth spurs on new ideas. Then you take on those ideas, adapt them into how you think, which improves your way of thinking.

Others spot things I can’t see, things I may not be paying attention to. Some people hyperfocus on things I don’t, like specific teams or a specific tactical philosophy. That is a massive asset.

To have your thoughts read by real-world professionals at the highest level is something that I never thought possible. That can only be made possible online, and it has been made possible for me.

Being able to share my thoughts online with others is not the reason why I watch football. If I stopped posting altogether, anywhere, or if I never started sharing my thoughts in the first place, I would still watch the same amount of football as I do now, as I did before. That would never change.

Writing about football is my way of reaching out to like-minded people and sharing my ideas. I’ll continue sharing those ideas here.

For the majority of wingers today, if you close your eyes and hear a kick of the ball, you can guess where the ball is going. With Ronaldinho, you couldn’t blink because if you did, you would miss something new.

It was a great distraction for the rest of the team because the opposition had to pay attention to Ronaldinho and what he would do.

Football should be producing players like Ronaldinho, but it is not.

Are you going out of your way to watch any individual player or the manager? If your answer is the manager, then there is one of the “problems.”

In order for the manager to have the ability to be unpredictable, he needs to have control. For that reason, being unpredictable as an individual player is frowned upon. You can’t step out of line. You must be hard to predict, always evolving, always ready for a surprise if you want to be competitive in a sport where all eyes are on the opposition. But that unpredictability happens through the team, not an individual.

You stand out now by being exceptionally athletically gifted. Salah, Haaland, and Mbappe are all freaks of nature. Genetic monsters.

But what happens when someone like Cole Palmer pops up? A player who is not a physical freak.

It is the Conference League Final for Chelsea against Real Betis. Chelsea are down a goal and have been uninspiring thus far in the match. Palmer has the ball on the left-hand side of the pitch, on his left, facing away from the goal, with a defender goal-side at his back. Palmer puts his left sole on the ball, looks infield, and instead of passing back, he turns unexpectedly to the byline. The expected move was a simple pass backwards, but he instead turned, accelerated away, crossed to the near post, and Nicolas Jackson headed in the goal to tie the game.

Palmer had a telling quote after the game about the goal; he said, “I was sick of getting the ball and going backwards and sideways. I thought, When I next get the ball, I’m going to go.” I cannot think of a better quote to sum up my frustrations with the current state of football at the top flight.

Football should be producing players that think like Palmer, but it is not.

I desperately want players to try to think this way. Maybe to think less. Try things. Take risks. That should not be frowned upon.

An opposing team’s defending fullback’s nightmare is the thought of a competent winger, an advanced central midfield creator, and an overlapping fullback because it is too overwhelming to contain. You simply have to brace for the cross or the penetrating through ball into the left or right side of the penalty area.

Football became positional, rigid, and slow. Because of that change there was more need for numbers in midfield. As a “fullback,” you had to know how to either play in the midfield, which few can do because they lack the ability to work in small spaces, or help as an outside center-back, which even fewer know how to do because they are not physically strong enough or good enough defenders to survive as center-backs. Their pace is the only thing that can bail them out. Therefore, traditional fullbacks moved to other positions in the lineup or elsewhere.

Once football shifts back to the transitional game, fast fullbacks are necessary, and now we need them. It is a need, not a want. It is the most game-breaking position on the pitch. It is how you set your team, your attack, apart from the rest. They raise the floor. You must have them on either wing to have a chance at creating a sustainable transitional attack.

The second these managers get their hands on two fullbacks to play on both sides of the field, they will switch their formation, their entire lives, to accommodate them.

It is like surviving on rainwater for several years, and then you discover a water well. A spring. An oasis of overlaps and underlaps was underneath your feet. You no longer have to do all that work collecting rainwater; use the well.

They are necessary because you can’t simply attack with your forwards alone. You need that run on the wing, the overlap, the threat of a cross across the penalty area to open space in the box, and the help to relieve the wingers of their duties of one-on-ones. Now they have partners in crime to tackle them in a two-v-one.

If the winger has no other option than to take on his man every time they touch the ball, all game, they will have to go backwards because the defending fullback will have help from at least one midfielder, and the only outlet out of the challenge is back. And we’ve seen that. It is an awful way to survive. A challenge the winger will likely not win. And that goes against the very nature of a winger. Traditionally, they are the dazzlers. You are not dazzling anyone when all you do is pass backwards every time you receive the ball.

And this starts a domino effect. The box-crashers become more important when there are fullbacks because now you need someone to head in all those crosses. The midfielders need to know how to cover and defend out wide. The center-backs need to know, now more than before, how to defend on their own when the fullbacks get forward.

It will be an exciting time to watch football when we have an overabundance of world-class fullbacks because it will allow the game to become transitional again. Whether the pragmatists like it or not, the game will be more engaging.

Winners must set a deadline on when they will complete their goal. You can’t cower behind a promise of the future when you set a deadline. You win, and then you promise more.

A loser’s mentality is as contagious as a winner’s mentality. That is a major problem for someone who doesn’t set a deadline.

If winners offer an excuse for why they didn’t achieve their goal, they do it when they are leaving, not when they are still on the job. You either stay or you go; you don’t stick around.

Winners are always memorable. You remember a loser for the sum of their work. You remember winners for their moments. You remember a loser’s moments because it reminds you of the promises they made.

You will not be able to turn down an average product sold by someone who has the mentality that it will change your life. It is going to change your life now, or it won’t.

Don’t paint your car red — it gets more attention from the cops. That is a common belief that red cars are more likely to get pulled over or ticketed because they stand out more on the road. They look faster.

Phil Foden for example looks faster than he is because of his haircut, the racing stripe fade on the sides makes him look pacey. He has some acceleration off his first and second touch, but in a straight line, he is not fast. But you expect him to be fast, because that is how he would like to be perceived.

This is the same player but you’d expect each individual to play differently based on their haircut.

From left to right; the long hair player looks like a deep lying playmaker or a destroyer type defender, the second player a roaming playmaker on the wing who likes to take on his man, the third an athletic box to box midfielder or general athlete, and the fourth player a tall fullback, a target man center-forward, or a pacey winger who isn’t a gifted dribbler.

Profiling players is not all about their physical attributes. How tall they are, how wide their hips are, their shoulders, how big their bum is, how long their legs are. That makes up the majority, say eighty percent, but you have to admit the twenty percent is their looks. Do they look the part?

It is like being cast in a movie. If you don’t look the part you are playing, you won’t sell.

If you want to be perceived differently, change your look. It can buy you more time and open new eyes.

The pass to the right center-forward needs to be led ahead and to the left of the right center-forward to force the trailing center-back to move to the inside.

Then the right center-forward plays the pass on their first touch to the left-center forward. The right center-forward immediately peels off to the left towards the goal.

Having the left center-back cheat to the inside, leading them infield, is important because it creates that necessary separation for the final through pass.

The pass from the right center-forward to the left center-forward needs to be played behind the right center-forward so that they can play the following through ball with their right foot. Otherwise, they would have to play that pass with the outside of their foot and will generate less power on the pass. Or worse, they’d have to take a second touch.

If the right center-forward takes a touch, this play doesn’t work because the right center-forward will be offside by the time the through ball is played.

If the pass is well timed, on the left center-forward’s first touch, it is an easy chance if the right center-forward has the pace to outrun the two center-backs.

One of the biggest challenges is that systems with two center forwards are uncommon, making this type of passing sequence rare—but it is always satisfying to watch.

If the right center-forward doesn’t get enough separation in on goal, the left center-forward or another attacker should be open for a cut-back across goal for the tap-in because both center-backs will be drawn towards the main threat, the through ball.

The left center-forward doesn’t even necessarily have to be physically strong, because they should have enough space to get off that through ball on their first touch.

The major perquisite is that the center-forward being played through has to have sufficient pace, or an additional pass will be required after the through ball.

Can you be both a team that can execute every set piece to perfection and one that has a lethal attack? Yes. But when you get that good from a dead ball, you tend to want to take advantage of that edge.

You begin to play for the free kick, the corner kick, or the throw-in. That can alter the areas of the pitch you want to attack and the way the attack interacts with the opposition offense. They want the foul; they want the ball to go out of play so they can run the play they’ve been rehearsing all week in practice.

They want to use that gift they have. Can you blame them? It is a free goal if they execute, and even if they don’t execute, the chance of there being a quality chance from a mistake during the dead ball is high.

When it works consistently, it feels like it should be banned from football. It doesn’t feel fair. But when it doesn’t work and the other team immediately does something simple, you feel silly because you have that same quality, but you are focused on other things.

The opposition counters, jogs down the other side of the pitch, plays two or three passes, a player of high quality cuts in from the top of the box, and the shot hits the post. Almost a goal.

All that practice, all that maneuvering into position, all those attempts from a dead ball, and the game is gone in an instant because the opposition is lethal.

I’d rather my team focus only on open play because more often than not, if they did, they’d be better off. Especially against teams who are equal to if not slightly better in the midfield or forward positions.

I’d take a lethal attack that can tear a defense to pieces, limb from limb, any day over a team that is diluting their focus during open play. Focus your recruitment and mind on open play, and then the rest will follow.

I understand the fascination with defending, especially the team aspect of moving as a group to hunt the ball as a pack. The organization in the press. The technique to tackle. When to jump, when not to jump. That’s beautiful, but defending is a necessity.

I want the ball. If I can’t have the ball, I want my team to have the ball.

I have to study Italian to speak Italian. That is defending me. To attack effectively, I need to defend because I need to take risks.

If I’m not taking risks, I am doing nothing with the ball, otherwise known as “defending with the ball.” The team in possession holds the game hostage. They don’t have to defend because they have infinite possession. They don’t concede possession because they take zero risk. It’s like selling all of your stocks, depositing the money, taking it out of the bank, and then burying it in the ground. You don’t lose or gain anything at that point; the game ends in a draw.

When I am in a rondo, I don’t enjoy chasing the ball as a defender in the middle. I want to be on the edges, passing.

Depending on others sucks. To enjoy defending, I have to depend on others.

The other team has to be bad at attacking or bad at maintaining possession. If they are good at either, my team will never get the ball.

I have to rely on my teammates to maintain my same high level of commitment to the press. We have to defend as a unit. We can’t let up. We have to chase as a group. If one person lets up, the entire team concedes.

When you attack, you don’t have to rely on anyone. You are independent. It doesn’t take a team to score. One person can create a goal.

When you rely on the defense, everything is outside of your control. When you chase, you expend more energy. You are in a reactionary stance.

It’s like going to work every day, but the time you leave for work changes every day. You learn of the time the morning of. That is what relying on defending feels like.

I’d sleep better knowing I was in control of how the game would play out. To determine when things happen myself.

Real Madrid did the opposite in their match against Arsenal yesterday. Arsenal had a stronger right side of defense, made up of William Saliba and Jurrien Timber, and a weaker left side, made up of Jakub Kiwior and Myles Lewis-Skelly.

When Real Madrid entered Arsenal’s half, Kylian Mbappe moved closer to left center-back Jakub Kiwior, avoiding right center-back William Saliba.

The natural progression has the ball move from the center of the pitch out wide to the right-winger, Rodrygo. Then Mbappe drifts over to combine and play past Kiwior down the right.

If you can generate high-quality shots from that wing, it works, but when it doesn’t, you will have to play the ball from right to left either on the ground or through the air.

Playing from right to left is more difficult than left to right because if you run out of room or options on the right, you have to switch to Arsenal’s stronger side, and those players on the left will be isolated.

I think playing left to right, entering on the strong side to isolate the weak side, is a safer play if you have players, like Real Madrid has, that can play through Arsenal’s strong side. It is safer because now you are isolating the weak side of their defense. The side that will be more likely to be less positionally aware, less adept at organizing their defensive shape, and worse in the duels.

Trap the strong side in a small quarters battle and then either play through them to cross to the isolated weaker side or switch to the isolated weak side with more space to attack the box.

Arm wrestle the opponent’s strong arm, and then when they tire, take on their weak arm.

Two obvious scenarios where I think attacking the weak side would be more advantageous are if the opposition has a greater offensive counter-threat on the weak side. If you overload the weaker left side, that pushes the defenders, midfielders, and forwards further back to defend against the overload. Those players are now not part of the initial counter. The players on the strong side would lead the counter if you were to turn the ball over.

Of course, if there is an obvious qualitative advantage difference between the left and right sides of your attack, attack down your attack’s strong wing, but if both wings have close to equal quality and the impact players are within reach of either wing, attack the strong side of the opposition’s defense to isolate the weak side.

maraud intransitive verbto roam about and raid in search of plunder

Every player is marked one-v-one. What is the ultimate plus one? A center-back that is not afraid to get forward. One that is encouraged to get forward.

Why does the center-back have to be limited to the back line when, with coordination, the center-back can be used in attack?

No one sees it coming.

If I had to pick one player to play this role, it would be Declan Rice.

A player that is defensively sound and good at winning duels because a maurading center-back will be caught higher up the pitch frequently. A player who is not afraid to make runs through the channels, through the half-spaces, towards the front line. Someone who is tall and fast, a mismatch for the fullbacks that will attempt to follow them. Most importantly, a player that is good at shooting and who will overpower the opposition’s defenders when the ball is crossed into the box.

Everyone is marked one-v-one, and then they go, they go, and one defender has to dismark from their attacker to follow the center-back getting forward.

As long as there is coordination, it will work. And when it works, the center-back is either going to draw a defender away from a forward, they won’t be marked, or the opposition’s forward will mark them.

It is an even bigger mismatch if the opposition’s forward tracks back with the center-back because they usually like to switch off in defense. That is an immediate plus one in attack because they won’t track back with the attacking center-back with the same amount of intensity or urgency.

In moderation, because you want to maintain that level of surprise; in the hyperpositional world of football, a tall, fast, coordinated, marauding center-back who is good at dribbling can become a missile.

It is hard to counter-press aggressively in your own end when that constant threat is there lurking.

If a more attacking player makes a mistake, they are at risk, but if they make a mistake, the entire team is at risk.

They are there to make the rest of the team look good. If they perform, the attacking players get all the spotlight. If an attacking player is not performing well, the entire defense is in the spotlight. And it only takes one attacking player to be off for the attack to be off.

If they are solid, you should have to really pay attention to them specifically to notice the amount of impact they are having on the team. Actions will become expected, and if the expectation is not met, then you will notice.

This is not only a tactical battle; this is a battle. You have one eye on what you should be doing and another eye on the opposition, waiting for the hard challenge. You only have two eyes, so there’s less time for creatives to create and pick out passes. That’s exciting. We had a lot more rivalries at the top levels of the game ten years ago.

We try to manufacture rivalries between the top teams, but there’s no venom between the players. You can tell. It is between the fans and the media that helps fan the flames. But the players go to dinner together, they go on vocation, they cordially shake hands, they joke during the game, and they hug in the tunnel. It is forced.

Football needs a bully. More than one bully. That can be an edge for a team. Someone, one or two teams hate because the opposition plays differently against rivals. They tackle harder; they are more aggressive positionally, but when they become aggressive, they drain their energy and leave space behind.

When I find out that I could win eighty percent of my chess games if I open with 1.e4, why would I ignore that? Now, that solution will sit in the back of my mind every time I begin a game. Why am I trying to find my own solution when I can go with the data? Problem solved. But that takes the joy out of the game because the opponent is doing the same. Now the joy comes from beating the computer, and that feels like an empty win.

When a player is told that an action like a shot, pass, or dribble equates to a percentage value chance, why would they ignore it?

Then, what are the chances that other teams have these same values or close to the same values in their data? Then, everyone is avoiding the lower probability chance because they have that stat in the back of their mind.

Data and projection are tools but not the solution. It is necessary today to gain an advantage; fun can still remain, but I don’t like how it can place doubt in players minds when they go to take a risk because there is so much data backing up why they shouldn’t take that risk. And if there’s data backing it up, it becomes hard to defend your case for why you took the risk when you knew it probably wouldn’t work out in your favor.

I have data backing up why I should bench you.

Picture a team on the attack. The attacking midfielder waits; they scan, they wait, they move towards the ball, they wait, and then they check to the ball with their hand outstretched, asking for the ball to be played to them in a pocket with their back to goal.

It is in this second that the passer has a choice: trust that player knows their limitations and they can get out of that pocket of space, or ignore them and pass elsewhere.

That attacking midfielder needs that pass because that is their bread and butter. They receive, turn, and then play forward.

But they rely on the passer to know when to play the pass. The passer needs to know that the attacking midfielder can turn out of that space. If there is any hesitation, the defense has time to spot the pass and close the pocket, limiting the effectiveness of the attacking midfielder when they turn. The attacking midfielder should not have to outstretch their hand; the ball should immediately be played.

This connection takes time to build, and in that time when the rhythm is being built, the attacking midfielder needs to find other ways of imposing themselves on a game because if the pass never comes, and it won’t if the two players don’t have the right connection, they will waste time checking to the ball. Time that could be expended elsewhere to help open space for others who can create for themselves.

At least center-forwards have the excuse that they have to stay forward, but even they need to find new ways to contribute if the pass doesn’t come.

Each change is tested prior. For example, Josko Gvardiol was trialed in midfield several times, inverting into midfield for five minutes in one game, twenty minutes another game, in different game-states against different levels opponents. Lower table, middle of the table, in a big game. They are always performing these small tests that they piece together.

When Manchester City face Real Madrid in the Champions League, you see the line-up and notice they are starting five defenders. Manuel Akanji, Ruben Dias, Nathan Ake, Josko Gvardiol, and John Stones. No Rodri or Kovacic, no regular holding midfielders in the line-up. You’d expect at least one of those defenders to play in midfield because Manchester City is not the type of team to play with a back five in possession. Manuel Akanji and John Stones have both played alongside Rodri in the midfield, and both have been trialed without Rodri together as a pivot as holding midfielders. In Manchester City’s last match against Real Madrid, Akanji played alongside Rodri in midfield, and in the game prior, Stones played alongside Rodri in midfield.

Knowing that you’d assume Manchester City will start with a back-four made up of Manuel Akanji, Ruben Dias, Nathan Ake, and Josko Gvardiol. Because John Stones has the most experience playing in midfield, he would be the lone holding midfielder, with Bernardo Silva dropping back to help him if Real Madrid pressures them high. If Real Madrid are not as active in the press and allow Manchester City time on the ball, Manuel Akanji will then invert into the midfield alongside John Stones. That is what you’d expect.

But this is the unpredictability factor that Pep brings. He does that, but he adds an extra element that Real Madrid would not plan for. He has Josko Gvardiol invert into the midfield alongside John Stones, which allows Manuel Akanji to stay back, focused on defending against Vinicius Junior. Bernardo Silva moves around to cover for Gvardiol when he inverts. Gvardiol inverting forces Real Madrid to defend more narrowly, opening up the wings to pass out from the back. Then, when they have enough time on the ball and control, Manuel Akanji steps into the midfield alongside John Stones and Josko Gvardiol.

Now, do I think it is a great idea to use a 2-3 substructure against a front three made up of Vinicius Junior, Kylian Mbappe, and Rodrygo when all you have is Ruben Dias and Nathan Ake back to defend the counter? No, but luckily for them, Rodrygo wasn’t as active down the right wing when Real Madrid countered.

Pep is known for always being in control of positioning. You can’t move here; you have to pass there. When you get the ball, you do this instead of this. If he is in control of their movements, what happens when he doesn’t have the players? He loses options.

When it’s working, it works, but it works because he changes things up all the time. The opponent never knows what they will be facing. When a player goes down injured, you look to the bench. If the entire team is tired, he has to make sacrifices. They start making sacrifices, they stop experimenting, they don’t have the ability to do those little tests, like the one they did with Gvardiol, and then they lose that unpredictability.

Without unpredictability, they and any other team are boring. They become efficient, even when they are winning. Some teams give the players control, but Pep’s team is choreographed. From the outside looking in, it seems like if he doesn’t okay the idea, it doesn’t happen. But once he okays the idea, they are free to work within its constraints.

The unpredictability allows them to gain control, not the other way around. They’ve been losing control and have become more boring to watch this season because they have lacked options.

If we don’t know what the script is, how do we know when the players go off script? Why do the players need a script, they are free-thinking professionals?

The threat of less minutes is a big threat. I can understand why a player would be afraid to express themselves because if they are wrong, and sometimes even if they are right, they’ll get less minutes if they deviate from the script, the plan.

I can agree the players need a script. They need a form of guidance, but the manager is not kicking the ball, they aren’t in the challenges, they aren’t spotting the spaces.

The headline should be, the players made a difference, they adapted to the manager’s instructions, because we don’t know who to applaud.

Applaud the team by default.

The inventor of Super Glue, Harvey Coover, didn’t call it Super Glue when it was created. He first named it Eastman 910 adhesive because it was the nine-hundredth test in the company’s search. A one-off brand that will be iterated upon by one company, rather than the iconic Super Glue name used by everyone.

That is what it feels like to write about a match or a play. That thing you pointed out gets branded to that match, that specific date, while a broader idea that could become timeless gets lost. That one-off idea expires the day you point it out because the noise of the match distracts those that are reading.

Super Glue is timeless. Sharing something that is timeless or unforgettable seems more interesting. Talking about distracted strikers in general is timeless; talking specifically about Kai Havertz and Darwin Núñez would have been a one-off.

And there’s less pressure to get it out now because the event happened yesterday, and it needs to stay relevant in the mind to make sense. If it is timeless, you could wait a month, and it will still matter.

You are never going to remember Eastman 910 adhesive but you will remember Super Glue.

Normally, injuries are not an excuse. In today’s game, it is a legitimate excuse, and that is a problem a coach cannot solve. Playing the same eleven starters each week, playing in four competitions, with no rest between games and very little help off the bench; that is an impossible problem.

The teams that play in all the competitions don’t train anymore. Is that what we want? We want them to train during the games. We want them to have zero time to prepare new ideas before they get on the pitch in front of us.

Do we want to force the managers to find a game model that is dull and slow to save the player’s legs, their energy? Is that what we want? Because that is the only sensible conclusion to this problem of injury crisis after injury crisis after injury crisis and general tiredness. The solution won’t be a game of transitions. This might force more attacking coaches to become more defensive.

Defend to counter; take advantage of teams that play with a high line. That will be exciting for a few months, but then teams will shift to playing deeper. Or maybe they won’t; maybe the game will become more open than ever before. Then it will become a race to sign the faster players. Those you can play through over the top. Someone who can beat Mickey Van de Ven in a footrace.

I assume every player is right on the edge of suffering a major injury. Right there on the edge. Most injuries are career altering. One major hamstring injury and your explosiveness is gone. Knowing that doesn’t make this more entertaining.

We aren’t in The Colosseum watching Ollie Watkins and Mohammed Kudus fight off a lion; we are at Villa Park watching Aston Villa versus West Ham. I want to see every player at their peak. Anything below that is not only a disservice to them and their bodies; it is a disservice to the fans, to us.

A position is but a constraint you put on a player. They can play in any position, other than as a goalkeeper. You need experience in practice to fill in for a goalkeeper. I think it limits the player’s potential when you label them a center-back or fullback. Why can’t they play other positions?

Imagine a center-back, fullback, and holding midfield backfield made up of Declan Rice, Moises Caicedo, Amadou Onana, Aurélien Tchouaméni, Khéphren Thuram-Ulien, and Carlos Baleba. There’s a better combination of players that I can’t think of right now, but with that amount of athleticism, technical prowess, dribbling, and passing ability to play in all three positions. All of those players rotating in and out of the wide areas, the back line, and the midfield. Then they are all capable of helping higher up the pitch. The opposition wouldn’t be able to keep track of them. It would be dizzying and exciting.

The traditional center-backs like Gabriel, Ibrahima Konaté, or the Levi Colwill’s of the world would have to adapt to the movements or be left out. They are adapting now so it shouldn’t be that hard.

Holding midfielders and fullbacks that can play in both the midfield, defense, and out wide are incredibly rare. Why not collect all of them? You’d have a massive competitive advantage, a monopoly.

Very few strikers can perform multiple tasks. Multiple tasks can become a distraction. You don’t want their attention to be divided.

The distracted striker is moving with the rest of the team. Their eyes are focused where the rest of the team focuses. Their eyes are trained towards the ball. They are focused elsewhere on tasks outside of the penalty area.

The focused striker is studying the goalkeeper, the goal. They are peering over their shoulder at the goal, trying to spot areas they can attack a cross or a through ball. Every action they make is geared towards the shot or the header.

Some players are driven by defending, some are driven by passing, and at least one needs to be driven by goals. Once they get into the box, all the striker should be focused on is scoring.

Most teams won’t prepare to be set to defend against the throw-in immediately. They will be jogging back with their back facing the ball or backpedaling. The quick throw-in pins them back on the next throw-in because they’ll then remember you take them quickly. They’ll have to follow the throw-in receivers back into their own half of the pitch, further away from your goal. They have to get into position.

If the other team knows you take throw-ins quickly, before the match, they won’t make the mistake of not being in position, which means you can’t surprise them; they will be pinned back from the start. But you have to keep taking them quickly to maintain that pin.

Strike when they are arguing with the ref. You can almost always guarantee someone will be arguing with the ref from a throw-in or a free kick. Quickly run a play to take advantage of the distraction; pin them back some more.

The throw-in and free kick are big opportunities to pin the opposition back and to always keep them on their toes. Make them think about defending first and attacking second. That is a massive distraction.

Teams that are good at set pieces think differently. They are waiting for a signal. Signal is there; go. They know where to run, and those that take the throw-in or free kick know where the run is being made. They run plays. Teams that are not good at set pieces, so most teams, are not good at thinking about these signals. They are never ready. They are unprepared for rehearsed situations that the opposition can reproduce. For the team that rehearses, they will move without having to think.

In the past, goalkeepers weren’t as sure as to who to throw out to. They had to wait because the run wasn’t being made. Now, the moment they get their hands on the ball, they are charging out to the edge of their penalty box looking for the run and playing the ball immediately, with no hesitation. They aren’t waiting for the run; several specific runs are being made, always. When they are looking to waste time, the run isn’t made, but the run is always made when the countering team needs a goal. I feel like you could blindfold some of these goalkeepers and they would know where to place the ball.

Pin the opposition back from a dead ball to make them think about defending first.

I can watch many games and find problems within them, but nothing speeds up that process of finding new problems more than a question because the question presents a problem to solve.

Send me your best problem, and I will try to solve it, or you can solve a problem I have.

One problem I have right now that you can solve: I want to know why we need holding midfielders when they are hard to come by. Can we allow them to go extinct?

If you are competing in each competition, with the goal to win in each competition, it is impossible to avoid rotation. How do teams rotate effectively? They involve everyone. How do you involve everyone? You have them start. Not come off the bench; start.

Look at your bench. Are you afraid to play them in a big match? If the answer is yes, for most top teams, that means those players have not started enough prior.

The growing pains come when those players are introduced into the lineup. They come onto the pitch cold; they are off the rhythm; they stand out because they look slow, and they aren’t matching the timing of the rest of the team. That means they’ll put a touch wrong, they’ll mistime a run, they’ll misplace a pass, keep everyone onside, forget who to mark, and forget to make the run in the crucial moment of the game. They will get in the way.

A world-class player will look mediocre if they aren’t in rhythm.

That process of getting rid of the growing pains can take several matches and many weeks. It can be painful if you are starting from scratch. But once you have a squad of seventeen players, you are golden. Then you can look at your bench, and if they are experienced, you can be confident the rhythm won’t be broken. I want those seventeen players to feel what it is like to warm up and start from kick-off. If you feel it, you can start.

When you have that squad of seventeen starters, everyone is fresh. Everyone is ready. It is harder for the team to dip in form when there is an injury. You remain flexible, and you can sleep at night.

Teams that play every two to three days that don’t rotate can’t sleep well at night because if one of their starters falls, they’re done. Season over.

That is what is in the mind of an innovator.

Skip past the part where we diagnose the problem and then get right to the solution as quickly as possible.

It helps to document what hasn’t worked. That is what public football analysis is. We point out the things that should be obvious. Highlights for those who don’t know what to look for, for those that missed the game, or for those that watched casually.

The solutions are boring because they did not happen yet. They are theoretical, and we can’t implement them ourselves. We have to wait for the team, and then we can point to our solution and say, “Hey, I was right; look, I was right. Everybody, come here. They did what I said they should do, and it worked.”

If all you offer are solutions, you’ll never have to point them out because that is all you share.

That feeling that when the ball is played in the air, and an attacker is running at his back, he is going to make the right decision and win the ball for the team.

Not many players, let alone defenders, offer you confidence that they can execute every action close to perfection. No worries.

Because you know he will make the right decision, the rest of the team can be planning for the next move, rather than having to factor in a possible mistake.

That is a major advantage because you can count on one hand the amount of teams that have this type of player.

I would put up my hands in the air to the rest of the team, in the shape of two zeros, nil nil. Forget the goal; treat it like the game just started.

If you have the mindset that you are up, you’ll relax. You shouldn’t want to relax. You should immediately want the next goal because it is zero-zero.

If a team that normally presses high relaxes, they’ll simply be open. But when the team that doesn’t press high relaxes, they’ll both be open and form a wall on the edge of their box.

When they form a wall on the edge of the box, now the defenders and midfielders have room to pick their pass. Midfielders can collect in front of that wall, turn, and find passes over the wall to the forwards and out to the wings.

I understand the forwards on the first line of defense will want a rest after running and running and running on each counter, but this mindset to relax seems unproductive for the team that likes to defend deep to counter.

I think the best teams, even those that like to counter, are those that never stop. They don’t take leads for granted.

If you are going to commit to defending deep to counter, I think you must always maintain the same level of intensity throughout a match, or you risk consistently giving the edge to opponents with the qualitative advantage.

A team that is not used to choreographed movements will play worse if they are forced to follow strict instructions. I believe that. They should at least, depending on the opponent they are playing against. No two games are the same. 

But if you practice something enough, if it works consistently, and it is reproducible, why would you not want to run that play every game? 

If you can run a play, pre-planned for open play, like teams do on a set piece, can it to a level in which there is no thinking required on the part of the player? What if you could plan for every action?

I don’t think that is a good scenario to manufacture because the best players do. They don’t need to tell you how they are going to do it, they just do it. And I would assume most can’t verbalize why they are doing something. They know how to do something in the moment, and they adapt in real time. What makes them good is their ability to find a solution in the moment.

Other players can run plays, making minor adjustments to the route they are running within that play, reacting to how the opposition reacts to the play. But how do you include the players that perform better when they are able to find their own solutions? Do you exclude them, forcing them to adapt?

I think teams that do that will struggle more when there is adversity because they’ll have to wait for the solution rather than creating their own solutions on the pitch, and the solution will come after the game, not during the game.

In my apolitical view, the site has been overrun by crypto scams, porn bots, conspiracy theories, racism, and misogyny. It is has become nearly impossible to have any productive conversations. It is a cesspool of rage-baiting content made to drive engagement. It is an angry platform driven by division and controversy. Reading the site makes your day worse. It makes you want to start disliking your hobbies because the worst conversations around them become sensationalized.

If you can somehow get past that, then there is their targeted and increasingly rampant attack on external websites, like mine, through the disgusting practice of link suppression.

It started last year when I learned more about the site’s increasing concerted effort to suppress links. Here is an example of how posting a link to X works.

First, I add a link to my blog post in an X post. I am sharing my hard work, something that should be celebrated by X because I am providing content to them for free.

When you post a link, X applies a link shortener to that link automatically. You can’t remove it. The link changes from tacticsjournal.com to a t.co (Twitter) domain URL.

When this was implemented over a decade ago by the previous owners, the purpose for that link shortener was to provide stats to Twitter to help them measure how many people click on that link on their end. It was annoying because it caused the page to load slower. When you clicked on the link from Twitter, your browser loaded the t.co link, and then it had to redirect you to tacticsjournal.com. The difference in loading times compared to directly linking to the intended destination URL was minimal at the time.

Things changed in the past year or more.

In September of 2023, The Markup confirmed the fears many in the community had that X was throttling links using their link shortener. And not just throttling all links equally, which is bad enough as it is; they targeted any specific domain name they liked, like Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, Substack, plus other news organizations.

The Markup:

On August 15, The Washington Post reported that X had slowed by about five seconds traffic to websites that had been criticized by owner Elon Musk, including the competing platforms identified by The Markup and media properties like The New York Times and Reuters. The Post also reported that X reversed some of the throttling after its story was published.

Slowing traffic to websites can harm the companies that run the sites and the people who use them. Even a 2.5-second delay after clicking a link can feel extremely slow to users, potentially discouraging them from waiting around for content to load. A 2017 Google study found that the probability of a user “bouncing,” or abandoning a site, increased 32% when page load times increased to three seconds from one second. Substack co-founders Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie, and Jairaj Seth wrote that they hope X reverses its decision to impose a delay on Substack links. “Writers cannot build sustainable businesses if their connection to their audience depends on unreliable platforms that have proven they are willing to make changes that are hostile to the people who use them,” they said in an email. Meta and Bluesky did not respond to a request for comment.

The Markup ran tests, tests you can still run for yourself in that article I linked, that to this day slow down the loading speeds of links using their link shortener. You can notice right now when you are using X’s website or app.

This practice of throttling links has been expanding since then. They can target whoever they like; they can decide to target all links theoretically. It has affected my blog, and it lowers viewership greatly.

Once people learned about this, I thought that would be the turning point for everyone to leave X, but it wasn’t.

X does not want people to leave for an external website because in their mind, that means the user will never come back. But the nefarious targeted attacks on specific domains did not stop at just throttling links.

It has been confirmed by many sources, after X’s algorithm was made open-source, and by Elon Musk himself, that X docks you points on your post, in their algorithm, if you include a link. They limit it from being seen by your own followers and those that it could be recommended to. That shrinks your audience further, and people miss posts because they simply don’t show up in their feed.

What is the point of contributing to this website if my content is not valued and not being shared with the people that follow me or to a greater audience?

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), the largest organization of journalists in Europe, representing over 295,000 journalists in 44 countries, has announced that it will stop posting content on X.

President of the EFJ, Maja Sever:

We cannot continue to participate in the social network feed of a man who proclaims the death of the media and therefore of journalists.

The social media site X has become the preferred vector for conspiracy theories, racism, far-right ideas and misogynistic rhetoric.

They join The Guardian and many other European news outlets:

We think that the benefits of being on X are now outweighed by the negatives and that resources could be better used promoting our journalism elsewhere.

This is something we have been considering for a while, given the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform, including far-right conspiracy theories and racism.

If nothing changes, more and more people will leave in the coming months. Journalists and writers are leaving. News organizations are leaving. Creators are leaving. And then all they will be left with are those that enjoy a constant stream of draining chaos.

If I do want to get real-time news, now I go to Bluesky. A rapidly growing social media platform that has very early Twitter vibes, is developer and creator friendly, and it supports the open web. They want you to share links. During the exodus that occurred over the past two months, Bluesky’s user base has quickly grown to nearly 26 million users. That is where everyone is going. The football community is there, the football tactics community is there, the reporters are there, and many other communities are moving there. The conversations are more civilized; they have better moderation organized by the community and controlled by you, not a company. Developers are flocking to Bluesky to create third-party apps, community-run feed algorithms, and more.

It is very hard to leave the 35,900 Twitter followers behind. I put in a lot of work to grow that audience, and I have a lot of relationships I’d like to keep. But I don’t want to contribute to X’s platform anymore. I am happy to report that the traffic to my site from outside of X has surpassed the traffic I got from X, despite the fact that my follower count is significantly smaller on all other social media platforms.

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Social media sites like X will come and go, but they have one thing in common: almost all of their owners are unlikeable. We get to choose who gets our time and attention. I have always advocated for others to make their own blog, own their ideas. Don’t rely on social media to share and store your work.

• Declan Rice’s Position Dictates How Threatening Arsenal Are
• For the First Time
• What happens when Van Dijk marks Odegaard instead of Gomez
• The way Manchester City prepare for a tactical change
• Positive orientation when receiving the ball
• Porto’s cover shadow masterclass against Arsenal
• England’s simple solution
• Erling Haaland’s exponential dribbling improvement
• Possession without progression
• Chelsea’s cliques
• Arsenal reinvented the wheel
• Could Erling Haaland be doing more?
• A team versus individuals
• Bologna rotate to free Calafiori
• Manchester City’s rotations
• Manchester City’s staircase
• Arsenal’s devastating six-yard box corner kick routine
• Press play again
• You cannot sit, if you don’t have a chair
• Tonic immobility in Arsenal
• World-Class
• Positional Laggards
• Carlo with an RPG
• Germany is in the street again
• We need results
• England doesn’t use their spices
• To defend or defend with the ball
• Antagonists to Protagonists
• Spain shows why a pass forward is significant
• Rodri talks, we must listen
• Spain’s simple passes forward are refreshing
• Will the zonal attack become outdated?
• Be jealous of Arsenal signing Calafiori
• Bald with a beard, but not the same
• Bayern Munich pass horizontally against Tottenham, constantly opening play
• The buildup is the most important phase to me
• The mind of an innovator
• Dynamic Stretcher
• Fight or flight
• An intellectual challenge
• Be crazy
• Avoiding the spectacular
• Arsenal had imposter syndrome
• Black sheep
• Positionism and Relationism change the way we look at football
• Manchester City defend with the ball
• Defensive football delays the inevitable
• Football at a walking pace
• The lessons from chess players that want more spontaneity
• Brick by brick
• Red cards ruin games
• Why I talk about the Premier League
• The attack must not be performing well if we are losing
• Appropriation
• Structure versus the players
• Attacking uphill
• Expected disappointment
• The most dangerous pass in football
• Roll out the red carpet

If you would like to read all of the posts, visit the archive or search on the homepage.

This is another way of thinking about defending. Roll out the red carpet and allow the other team to enter your half, herd them to limit where they can shoot, then allow them to shoot. Get it over with.

The sooner they take the shot, the sooner you regain possession of the ball. If you are a possession-heavy team, you are not going to turn the ball over often, which will limit the amount of chances for the defending team. 

If you know how to lose the ball, you will limit the attacking team’s ability to get off a high-quality shot because you will have numbers back to block the shot.

And what are the chances that the team on the counter transitioning from defense will rush the shot? I think the chance is high that they will fall into the trap of shooting quickly because it will come as a shock to the defending team that the opponent would allow them to shoot on the counter. They won’t know what to do with themselves. It is awkward.

Maintain possession, know how to lose the ball, herd the opponent when they win the ball, allow them to take the shot, get numbers back to block the shot, regain possession, and attack again. 

Make the center-forward happy by regaining possession quickly. If you can’t reliably win back the ball by tackling, this is the next best thing.

       

This is not a risky pass and a good place to lose the ball. The chance you will lose possession is high, but the advantages you gain from playing this pass frequently normally outweigh the negatives.

Knowing where to lose the ball is a skill. This is a good place to lose the ball because if you win the race to the ball, your center-forward is in on goal, one-on-one with the goalkeeper.

       

The defending team’s (white team’s) back line sprints back in an attempt to get to the ball before the attacking center-forward to quickly defend against that first pass over the top, while their first and second lines jog back.

If the defending team wins the race to the ball, the space between their back line and second line is large, making it easier for the attacking team (blue team) to counter-press. 

If this is a match where the blue team is maintaining a lot of possession, what are the chances they will be impatient? Most inferior teams, or teams that prefer to counter, would then immediately want to play forward. They wouldn’t have the patience to wait for their midfielders to get back.

It is easier for the attacking team to counter-press because the team attempting to play out from the back has fewer options. Their impatience will further limit their options. They win the race to the ball, and then the distance between the back line and the midfielders is large. They will have to play back to the goalkeeper or through the wings to get out of their half.

If the team counter-pressing wins the ball, they can take advantage of that space between the large space between the opposition’s back line and second line.

For all those reasons, it is worth it to lose possession a few times a half to stretch the opposition’s defensive shape.

That lightbulb clicked in my head when I was explaining a formation change to someone and only using words to describe what I wanted changed. The changes seemed simple to me; I explained it in one or two sentences, but they were asking a lot of questions; they were confused. I then said, “Let me draw it; I’ll be back.” I came back and shared the image, with a longer explanation, and then they responded back with, I’m paraphrasing, “You put a lot of thought into that; I would have never thought of that.”

Something that seems simple to me is new to this person. Everyone looks at football differently and has different levels of experience. I don’t know everything there is to know, but I have enough experience to know that many people can benefit from what I know.

I saw that X, Y, and Z needed to be fixed, and they only saw X and didn’t even know Y and Z were possible solutions to the problem. And then there is an entire set of the population that wouldn’t even spot X, Y, or Z.

       

Major prerequisite: You must have someone that is good at crossing, but even the most inconsistent crossers can have success because this cross doesn’t require perfect accuracy. Even an inaccurate cross can end up redirecting off an attacker or defender towards the back post.

The pass should be swung in at head height. Almost at the speed of a hard-hit shot. Putting a slight curve on the cross will help the player attacking the near and middle of the six-yard box to head the ball into the goal, and putting less curve on the cross will help them knock the ball on to the player attacking the back post.

If the crosser is accurate enough, teams can treat this cross like a set-piece rehearsed play to make it reproducible. That means they can involve players that would not normally end up in these positions, for example, a center-back. A center-back attacking the middle of the six-yard box sounds terrifying, and it will surprise the opponent.

The players attacking the front post and middle of the six-yard box will curve in towards the cross, whilst the player on the back post will curve their run away from the cross. 

It will be difficult for the defender, usually a fullback, to track the run of the player curving away on the back post because they will have their eyes on the cross. Every attacker and defender is moving towards the ball except for one, the player on the back post, who is sneakily moving away from the ball.

That back post run is what makes it dangerous because of the number of scenarios each run covers. They can head it directly in, flick it on, and the back post run will have a simple tap-in if the goalkeeper has a weak parry.

The student with a 4.0 GPA was expected to land their dream job, but their interview was horrible.

The realtor expected to sell the house for $425,000, but they didn’t get any bids.

The company was expected to beat earnings, but they reported just under, and the stock plunged 6%.

The striker was expected to score 7.02 goals, but they only managed to score two goals.

The team was expected to be 2nd in the table with 28.73 points, but they are 8th in the table with 24 points.

As humans, we hate uncertainty. I bagged two goals in the game, but what were the expected goals? Did I overperform or underperform xG? At its most basic level, it helps confirm what you thought the outcome should be. And that can lead to disappointment because of hindsight.

If you overperform, you’ll ask why you didn’t get more high quality chances. If you underperform, you’ll wonder why you didn’t finish more of those chances. You want more either way.

If we are going to look to learn from the past, I think the first thing we should look at is the technique rather than focus on the quality of the chance. Lead with the technique change, and use data to justify it if needed, not the other way around.

Even if I provide names, you don’t know how much pace they have, how tall they are, how short, powerful, or agile they are. You don’t know what they look like, and you can’t see how well they perform by looking at that board.

It could be a team full of grown men versus a team of children on that board; you wouldn’t know.

For those that are brave, that thought that you are allowed to take risks must feel liberating because I know you have wild ideas that you want to try.

If you are brave enough to take a risk, you have to be prepared to fail, and sometimes you will fail spectacularly. You learn the most when you fail because it helps focus you.

Tyler Dibbling takes risks when he solo dribbles up the pitch. 

Brentford took a risk by focusing their time on a kick-off routine that ended up breaking a world record.

Brighton takes risks in the recruiting of their younger talent.

This can apply to anything.

       

This pass out-to-in, into the middle of the pitch, leads to an uncontrolled touch. Even for a skilled dribbler of the ball like Cole Palmer, it is hard to get a satisfactory first touch. You take a touch; there is unforeseen backspin, the ball gets stuck between your legs, you are no longer facing play, and you are searching for the next touch. By the time you find the second touch, two defenders have put a leg in, and then you can’t get that pass out to the wings to release the attack.

I’m talking high wind. Wind that would annoy even those that avoid playing through the air.

It is harder to work the ball into the middle, out from the back, and then out to the wings in high wind for this reason. Playing one- or two-touch football is too unpredictable and frustrating.

       

With this pass in-to-out, the ball gets carried out to the wing quicker with the wind at its back. If you are facing the wind, the ball floats. In both scenarios, you’ll need the space the wing offers to take that first touch because the first touch will be difficult to control.

And then if you get a quick low cross in, shoulder height off the ground, into that back post, the defenders will have as much trouble controlling the ball as Cole Palmer did when you attempted that pass out from the back into the middle, because the forwards attacking the ball will be facing the goal, and the defenders will be facing the ball.

It is easier to control the ball when you are facing the goal than it is when you are facing with your back to the goal in high wind.

This isn’t a call for teams to be “defensive first” because I absolutely despise watching teams that play with that mindset.

A lot of teams aren’t built to be defensive, nor should they be. A lot of coaches like to attack first, and that should be encouraged because who would prefer there be fewer goals?

To win titles, you need consistency. If you can’t consistently limit the opposing team to one goal or less, then you will need to average two goals or more to be sure that you will win.

If you are conceding an average of two goals or more, you are in trouble. Now the fans expect you to score three goals and that isn’t sustainable.

Ange Postecoglou when asked if he sees himself as a messiah of some sort:

“I don’t think I’m an evangelist; to quote Monty Python, I’m just a naughty ­little boy. It’s what I love about football. There has got to be ­differences, people who are prepared to do things a little bit differently. That allows opinion and emotion.

“We all want to leave a little bit of a footprint on our journeys. I want that to be my footprint – that I was successful in a different way because that stays in people’s consciousness longer than doing things normally.

“It’s a bit of human nature but I don’t think we know what we want. We get something and we want ­something more. Whatever makes you happy, hold on to it, ­cherish it and embrace it. We’ve all got that uncle who, even on the best day, says it’s raining outside. Even though we’ve just won the lottery, we have to share it with someone because two people won it.”

“There has to be differences, people who are prepared to do things a little bit differently.” That is a key quote.

While others are happy fitting in, the remarkable ones must stand out. And if you want to stand out you have to stray from the norm.

The problem with wanting to stand out in football is that the crowd will constantly want you to copy what works, but sometimes the crowd does not know what is good for them.

Ange Postecoglou on being entertaining:

“I ­genuinely believe that a big part of our game is — maybe entertainment is the wrong word, but you go to the game to feel emotions that in your day-to-day existence you don’t get the opportunity to — both ­exhilarating and anxious. That’s what we love about it. There’s a lot of suffering in there but if you come out on the right side it’s an exhilarating feeling.”

“I go to the game to watch my team win,” the crowd member chanting outside the owner’s house says after their team loses seven straight.

I would only consider Ange to be “brave” if I didn’t think Tottenham could win playing the way they play.

Thomas Frank on the High Performance podcast:

When we beat them (Manchester City), two-one up there, and you need to do a little bit of a motivational speech—which I’m a little bit, I’m believing in, because you say it every week and I get tired of listening to myself—so anyway, last meeting before the game, I said to the players, “Of course, we’re going here to try to win. It’s against the best team in the world, the best players—De Bruyne, Gündogan, Foden, Grealish (at that time), Rodri, all of them—and I really, really hope Haaland plays because when we beat them, I want to beat them with all the best players.”

I said that to the players: belief is everything. If you lose the belief, you can never win. That’s for sure. I go into every game believing we can win.

Anyone wishing or praying for injuries or absences for the opposition does not have the mentality to win long-term. Maybe in moments, you get lucky, you win, but you need that belief in the tougher periods.

Featured image credit to the High Performance podcast.

When a team performs better than the year prior or the team wins, we go, “Wow, what a masterclass from the manager.” As if the manager kicked the ball once. All the credit goes to the manager. The manager came in and changed everything. No, the players changed everything under the manager.

In the English game, if we don’t like the notion that the coach is controlling everything, we have to talk more about what the players are doing first. People kicking the ball first, the man in suit second.

If all we consume is content about structure, we forget about the technique or the creative elements of a game. The smaller things that no one will notice. We look a lot at the bigger picture. We have to look at the players more. Talk about the players more.

When you watch a game in Brazil, for example, or even a game in the second division of Spain, you focus more on the players. I forget the manager exists, but then they pan over to him on the broadcast, and I remember they exist.

That is why something like relationism is appealing to those that are a little disenchanted by the same copy-and-paste talk around football. It is a different way of looking at things, and a different way of playing if the team is onboard with the idea. If I close my eyes, I can’t accurately predict what is happening on the pitch. That is exciting to me. There is more focus on what the players are creating on the pitch and little to no focus on the manager.

This is only one part of the theory of relationism, but players don’t magically form these diagonals because their coach told them; they are doing it themselves. They have more autonomy from the man in a suit on the side of the pitch. More choice. The coach coaches them on how to form the diagonals in practice, but there seems to be more of a creative element. Fewer barriers. Fewer instructions. 

Giving no instructions is an instruction in itself.

You can’t pin an action down on a manager. You can credit them for an idea that gets used several times in a match, but not an action. The manager and the coaches implement an idea, but they aren’t controlling each individual change in structure or every movement. The structure is ever-changing and made up by the players.

But I am Switzerland. I’m a neutral in this supposed fight between those that are against or for these resurfaced ideas. A middle man merely agreeing that there might be a problem. I want to find new ways of looking at football that could produce a change. When someone is creating a ruckus, I want to learn more, not shun them because I may disagree eventually or immediately.

At the top of the Premier League, the tactics, all the finer details, are as close to similar as you could get. If you can close your eyes and predict what is happening, then it is the same. If I have to draw a diagram and make a long speech to tell you how dissimilar things are between the teams, then they are as close to similar as you can get. I should know just by watching. It will be obvious.

In the middle and bottom of table there is some parody, in a general sense, there are different tactics being tried compared to the teams at the top of the table. And that is due to the players, their qualities, working around a lack of quality. If you want to look for something new, look at the middle or bottom of the table where they are amplifying their strengths, but the closer you get to the top, as you climb, the more the fans want you to copy the other teams because they are winning titles and you are not.

Pep Guardiola speaking in his pre-match press conference before facing Manchester United on Sunday:

“I said one month ago it should happen. And for it should happen, for one reason: the schedule, for the injuries.

“I know what would happen with all the players there. With Rodri there, with muscular problem, but being there, with Phil [Foden] there, with Oscar [Bobb] there, with the four central defender there. I don’t know the position [in the table] would be; I imagine what would be. I cannot prove it, right? Nobody knows it, what would happen. But I think we’ll be, I think better team. Everybody knows, I think, no, just for the fact what happen in the past. But the reality is completely the opposite. Sometimes some things happen.

[…] “All the managers depends on the quality of the players. I’m not special; I didn’t feel special before. Not now, but I don’t feel bad now because always [I’m conscious of the football player], did business belong to the players, and we are here to support them. But now for the problems we have with this schedule, crazy one.

“Why is Rodri injured? Played 75 games last season. When we finished our holiday, he was at the Euro to win the Euro with Spain and injured with Spain and come back in one game, two games. Do you know being fresh is ACL? No, I promise. Strong as Rodri, but come back tired, not on the top. But I need it against Inter; I need it against Arsenal, not being the top. You are not strong enough, and unfortunately, it happened.

“The reason why: the schedule.

“Give you one month and a half, two-month holidays, give, give to Rodri, two-month holidays after Euros, like the NBA, three months, they have four months they have, tell it. It’ll be perfect, and you have to play eighty games if you want, but give three month. But next season, next season Manchester City, or Chelsea already have the squad, but they have to be 30 players, 25, 30. And how you sustain the club that’s economical financially? We don’t have revenue next season; impossible, impossible. Why we have a revenue this season, we sell a lot of players, the academy especially a lot, and Julian [Alvarez], and the other ones, a lot. Combine the financial and the demands for the team, it’s tough. We would like to have 70, 80, 90 players; financially, the conductor for the team is perfect today.

“Today the amount of football is impossible, impossible. Even with 22, 23-year-olds, young ones.

“And one team will say, “Ah, no, because we work differently; we were perfect in the preparation, physical preparation. No, because our nutritionists are more special than the other clubs. No, because our beds are (chef’s kiss gesture), top to rest.” You see that, next year, seven injuries, doing the same.

“The schedule, don’t look at it another way, impossible.”

When a team like Manchester City is forced to play every two to three days for months on end, playing the same eleven players every game is a bit of an unsolvable issue.

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To prepare for the pivot to the left, see how Mazraoui points his left foot infield, away from his hips. He is preparing his body to pivot to the left as he engages in the challenge.

The first goal is to win the race to face the ball once he pivots. Let Doku win that battle, and he’s gone because of his acceleration.

And then this is the important part.

In order to gain separation, Mazraoui needs momentum. In order to gain momentum, he needs to plant his right foot in the ground.

He won the battle on the turn, first to face the ball with his hips. Now he plants his foot quickly to launch towards the ball.

First he faces the ball with his hips, then he launches towards it. And he doesn’t waste time; he doesn’t wait for his right heel to make contact with the ground, he launches off his toes.

The entire movement is quick and seamless. He is being proactive by always positioning his feet to counter the direction of his hips, ready to turn to win the battle to the ball, and then he quickly plants the right foot to launch off his toes. Challenge won.

Here, he has his left foot facing where he wants the ball to go as he makes the challenge, where he expects the ball to go. That way he simply has to move his trailing leg, the right leg, over to face the ball. Left leg stays pointed at the ball, trailing right leg makes that small move over to plant. He then quickly plants that right foot and launches off his toes towards the ball.

Most defenders don’t move at this speed, they would let Doku win the battle of the hips. The key is the hips and who wins the battle to face the ball. Mazraoui won that first battle to face the ball, which gave him the time to plant his feet and launch towards the ball before Doku even got his feet set.

And when you win the battle on the wings, and force a turnover, more often than not it will quickly lead to a high quality chance at the other end of the pitch.

This was Manchester United’s best chance of the entire game, and Bruno Fernandes nearly chipped Ederson to tie the game, 1-1. They would later go on to the win the game through a comedy of errors on City’s part.

Match: Manchester City 1-2 Manchester United, 15 December 2024

Russel Martin in his pre-match press conference before playing Tottenham on Sunday:

“I think it’s really interesting because every manager that sits behind a team has some form of beliefs and some form of value system and what they deem as acceptable or what they want to see, what they want compromised on, what the non-negotiables are.

“But the ones who are only criticized are the ones that are a little bit different from the norm. So if we all believed the same thing, I think it’d be pretty boring, but it’d be less open to criticism. I think his team is brave. It’s aggressive; they’ve been really unfortunate with injuries; it’s so similar to Graham Potter when he was at Chelsea.

“Everything he got praise for and credit for at Brighton, he then got criticized for at Chelsea. So, he went from being calm, studious, really brave in his approach at Brighton to managing a team with different expectations, and then all of a sudden he didn’t show enough passion on the sideline and was too emotionally consistent and all this nonsense. It’s exactly the same with Ange.

Part of what he is saying is that the manager shouldn’t need to change who they are as a person, their demeanor, because of the culture or results. You get what you are buying. If being calm and emotionally consistent has worked in the past, why change it? It’ll come off as fake and insincere, which will have a negative effect on the pitch.

But the greater point he is making is the notion that you need to change because form is wrong if you have proof that being yourself works.

“They (Celtic under Postecoglou) were brilliant. There was so much praise for being so aggressive, so brave, relentless restarts, energy. He did a great job, won lots of trophies, got to the Champions League, goes to Spurs, and starts so well.

“So, when results are good, no one questions the style or his conviction or belief system, and the minute it starts faltering, it’s always down to that. And I’ll get criticized for the same thing about being stubborn and all that stuff.

“But if you believe in something and it’s taken you a certain way in life and on a certain pathway and journey, to deviate too far from that I think is crazy. I can’t speak for him, but we are adapting.

“We adapt shape, we adapt approach, we adapt personnel, but with the same consistency in what’s really important, with the same concept of the game, so we can’t deviate too far from that; otherwise we become nothing really. Everyone is quick to criticize these days, but I have a lot of respect for him.”

Before I agree with nearly everything Russel Martin said, I would like to add to the avalanche of critiques. If it was 2011, I would enjoy watching Southampton, but now their way of playing short always is sort of boring and unproductive. Southampton passes for passing sake, which annoys me, but like he said, if everyone liked that way of playing, it would be boring because everyone would be looking to play that specific way. It’s not for me anymore, but it could be for someone else, like how people enjoy defensive football.

I applaud those that try to gain an edge by being different and have respect for those that recognize when they need to alter part of their way of playing to get results. But the thing I agree with the most is the idea that the manager can’t abandon their long-standing beliefs or who they are as a person because of the results.

20th Century Art Historians, The Canvas and Great Art Explained, on Gawx Art’s video called “Anatomy Of The Artist Brain”:

The Canvas: Sometimes it feels like art history is a huge game of telephone, as you’re saying, right? Where everyone gets inspired off of each other, which is fascinating. Because you look at Van Gogh—we were talking about Van Gogh earlier—Van Gogh did great art inspired by the Japanese. He even painted himself as a Japanese man, which it was like an homage to say, “I am inspired by the Japanese.”

Great Art Explained: Cave paintings all over the world have some similarities, you know, so it’s like the inspiration is there with the rocks or whatever’s surrounding you. By the time we get to the Renaissance, you know, people like Michelangelo and Rafa—they are definitely, definitely being inspired by other people.

Gawx Art: And when I listened to their answers, another question arose: copying, stealing, homaging—what is the difference? I didn’t hesitate to ask.

Great Art Explained: That’s, I think, a really hard question because it’s like, am I stealing because I’m reading all these books, you know? Am I stealing the ideas?

The Canvas: Some artists just reproduce the same painting by a different artist and call it theirs. It’s called appropriation. That’s the concept.

Great Art Explained: It depends on who you ask, okay? If you ask Picasso, then it’s not stealing, but if you ask Cindy Sherman, then it’s probably stealing, you know. So it depends on the artist. But I don’t think there’s such a thing as stealing in art. There are great artists like Richard Prince—he’s one of my favorite artists—and he never does anything original. He copies other people’s photographs or drawings or anything, but just by doing that, he’s making something new.

The Canvas: How much of an artist is at the origin of an artwork, right?

Great Art Explained: Is it already made, or is it stealing? That’s a really difficult question.

The Canvas: Sometimes we think that inspiration comes from, like, someone out of nowhere, like if artists had this—have this innate, uh, creative play? No. It comes with interactions with others. It comes with different cultures.

Gawx Art: And I agree. I like to say I’m a collage of all the things I love and admire, but in reality, I’m a collage of all the things I consider. My brain is like a sponge. It absorbs everything it consumes, and when I need it to, I squeeze it, mixing all of my influences together and transforming them into new things. But it is easy to get stuck and run out of ideas, and it is important to take care of what you consume, because whether you like it or not, it will eventually all influence you.

I agree. Football is an art and a massive game of telephone, with each player and manager taking something from players and managers from the past. We are influenced by what we watch.

What are our goals?

If our goal is to remain the same, maintaining the status quo of who is driving the meta now, we should only watch the top teams. We should pay attention to what works now.

If we want to find new ideas that will surprise those top teams, we should spend our time elsewhere. Find a new inspiration, a team no one is paying attention to, because the teams with less pressure or resources are experimenting more than the ones that have all the eyes on them.

Rasmus Højlund speaking with MUTV after scoring two goals in their 2-1 win against Viktoria Plzen in the Europa League on Thursday:

“I think it’s about getting those connections with each other, especially when you’re playing this sort of system and there are people close to each other.

“It’s very important to understand movements.

“The manager is also trying to sort of play with players who complement each other very well, so yeah, it’s good.”

I noticed this with Bruno Fernandes in their 4-0 win against Everton. There was a ton of counter movements between the three central midfielders, Fernandes, Kobbie Mainoo, and Casemiro, and then individually between Fernandes and left-back Diego Dalot. 

I would consider Bruno Fernandes to be a player with a high level of intelligence in relation to knowing where each player is most useful and someone who knows how to maximize the use of that intelligence due to him having a lot of experience. I consider him more of a great organizer, like a general. The team would operate better if he could control each player’s movements.

Between the midfielders, there was a push and pull, a lot of hand gestures, and communication verbally, being thrown back and forth to coordinate this constant movement. And it was small changes in position, nothing drastic. Fernandes was the main midfielder directing both the center-backs and midfielders, telling them how, when, and where he would want them to move to push and pull at Everton’s defense. One player drops, one player moves forward, Everton follows, and then there’s room to pass into the center of the pitch on the ground. It was a constant set of movements to open passing lanes into the midfield and then out to the wings.

I just find it interesting that Højlund’s first comment was that it is very important to “understand movements.” It alludes to the fact that there wasn’t as much of an emphasis on movement or connection under previous manager Erik Ten Hag.

It does translate to their play because there does seem to be a better understanding between the players to know when to move, when to hold their run, and to better time the arrival into those open spaces. A change most noticeable in the midfield, and then the timing of the runs from their forwards once they transition to the final third, the near posts runs, are much more pointed, sharper, more well timed. That’s probably why Amorim has success improving the output of strikers.

If you can count on one hand the amount of times Haaland receives a through ball in a match, with all the pace and power he brings in space behind a defensive line, then something is seriously wrong. And he hasn’t been receiving enough through balls.

Haaland is useful in helping open space for the midfielders by dragging them out of position. They follow him because of that threat of a run in-behind, and it is up to the defenders and midfielders to play him through. Haaland can touch the ball all he wants, wherever he wants, he isn’t going to dribble past four players. All strikers need to be played through, in on goal.

At a certain point, as Haaland loses energy, he will stop making those runs. That certain point was several matches ago. He is slowly winding down. Why make the run if the rest of the players aren’t looking up? Here is why he is not making the run.

As we know from the past, the outside center-backs are the first ones to look to play Haaland through, normally the defenders on the left-hand side of the defense. Nathan Ake is the most active creative passer of the defenders in the wider areas of the pitch, as seen in this example. He is currently injured.

The second group of players that will look to play that pass through are the midfielders, in the pockets. Recently that has been Kevin De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva, Phil Foden, and Jack Grealish.

The outside center-backs play the ball over the top, in the air, and the midfielders in the pockets look to play the ball through, on the ground.

Without someone that thinks like Rodri in that holding midfield position, the outside center-backs and midfielders in the pockets become preoccupied with looking for ways to help control the game. With Rodri, he takes care of focusing on maintaining control and tempo, which allows the other defenders and midfielders to always look forward.

Without Rodri, that responsibility of maintaining control and tempo is being shared between the outside center-backs, holding midfielders, and the midfielders in the pockets because the holding midfielders, İlkay Gündoğan and frequently Rico Lewis, aren’t accustomed to taking on this much responsibility in a match, and they are making a lot of unforced errors due to being unfamiliar with this specific role and fatigue.

Manchester City have always been passive when they defend in transition. The difference is the frequency of the transitions, due to the mistakes, and they are losing the ball in the wrong areas of the pitch.

Most of the Manchester City players don’t know how to lose the ball. That is another secret of Rodri, someone like him is key to their strategy of defending with the ball. Knowing when and how to lose the ball to mitigate the chance of a successful transition for the opposition is a skill that requires a different mindset. Losing the ball in certain areas gives City’s midfielders and forwards a chance to get back to help. Losing the ball in an area of the pitch where those midfielders and forwards can’t get back leaves them vulnerable. That is one of the main reasons why they are getting punished more frequently this season.

Every team will lose the ball, but this set of players don’t know how to lose the ball yet. They are capable with time. İlkay Gündoğan is capable mentally, maybe not physically, but definitely mentally. It is a mentality shift from what they are used to. John Stones and Manuel Akanji are more than capable. That will likely be the answer. They will need to wait for both Stones and Akanji to come back fit to replicate what Rodri provided in that holding midfield position because they have the experience playing alongside him.

İlkay Gündoğan said something similar when he spoke with TNT Sports after their 2-0 loss to Juventus in the Champions League:

We had chances to score a few goals but at the moment it feels like every attack we concede is so dangerous. Sometimes we are a bit careless in the duels and instead of playing simple we overcomplicate things.

We miss the right timing to release the ball and lose balls in transition every time and give them counter-attacks and have to chase every time 50 or 60 metres backwards. That’s not what we’re built for, we’re built for possession to keep the ball, be strong and even if you cannot do anything with the ball don’t lose it. At the moment, it’s just not working out for us.

That’s a mental issue as well. You can see that we are sometimes one action we miss the ball or lose a duel and you see that we drop immediately and lose the rhythm.

They don’t even need to do much but it has such a big effect on us right now. Even more you have to do the simple things as good as possible and create and fluidly and then it’s going to work hard again.

This is how you get confidence back even in a game. Do the small and simple things to get your confidence back. In crucial moments at the moment we are always doing the wrong things.

The midfielders and defenders are preoccupied with maintaining control and not looking in Haaland’s direction, Haaland is making fewer runs, they are getting more tired, and they are conceding more, which means they are now losing games.

Manchester City are an incredibly tired, overworked, injury ridden, slow team, that lack physicality, who are not looking to take on more risk, like the risk of playing Haaland through, because they are too focused on maintaining control and tempo. They are looking side to side and back, not forward. They are making a ton of unforced errors in risky parts of the pitch due to fatigue, and they aren’t effectively moving the ball up the pitch as a group.

If I were Erling Haaland, I would keep making those runs, even if the pass doesn’t come. It eventually will. They can’t afford to lose that threat through the middle of the pitch because sooner or later, teams will begin to squeeze those midfielders in the pockets, out. Defenses don’t have to worry about Haaland if no one is looking up and forward to play him through, and they definitely don’t need to worry if he stops making the run.

Manchester City’s best chance against Juventus came from a through ball to Erling Haaland. After that chance, for the most part, crickets for the rest of the match. At minimum, look to play him through more often.

Kylian would take a touch to enter the box and then fire on the next touch. One touch, next step to plant, and then shoot with the opposite foot. He preferred to surprise the goalkeeper with a first-time volley from a cross. He had an eye only for the goal. Deflection high up in the air, most would take a touch to control, but he instinctually heads the ball into the net from the top of the box, 15 yards from goal. 

With every action, he exuded complete confidence. The only reason he would take an extra step would be to draw the goalkeeper in. His eyes were not trained on the defenders; he only had eyes for the goal. He would be thinking about the goal while others around him thought about the next pass or defensive clearance. He has the ability to surprise his teammates.

Wolverhampton Wanderers stick out like a sore thumb when you sort the Premier League table by goals for. They have no problem scoring; their issues are in defense. 

Without looking, if I were to tell you that Ipswich Town and Southampton are stuck in the relegation battle with Wolves, where do you think they would rank for goals scored?

Ipswich Town is ranked 19th for goals scored and 16th for goals conceded. Wolves, despite ranking tied 11th for goals scored with Fulham, are at the very bottom of the league for goals conceded. Meanwhile, Southampton sits 20th for goals scored and 19th for goals conceded. Yes, you read that correctly—Wolves are tied 11th in the league for goals scored, scoring twice the amount of goals (22) as Southampton (11), and ranking higher than Newcastle United (19), Manchester United (19), and Nottingham Forest (19).

We associate losing with an inability to score because teams at the bottom of the league normally rank low in goals scored. That is an incorrect assumption.

The next assumption we make, without watching, is that it must be structural issues in the defense, but in Wolves’ case, I don’t fully agree. I think the cause is inadequate technique and awareness from their center-backs that leads to a breakdown in structure.

Of note, five of the last ten goals they conceded have been from penalties or own-goals.

They sold their best defender, Max Kilman, in the summer and never replaced him. Craig Dawson, their second-best defender, has been off and on again injured. Mario Lemina is a midfielder playing as a center-back because they lack depth at center-back with the season-ending injury of their third-best defender, Yerson Mosquera. And the rest of their center-back options are not of the level required to start in the Premier League. Toti Gomes is an okay backup center-back, and I’m not a massive fan of Santiago Bueno, but their attack is supremely talented.

If you are manager Gary O’Neil, what do you do? No matter how they defend, just based on the defensive qualities of their center-backs, they are going to likely concede at least one or two goals every match, which means they need at least two goals to have a chance to win or draw.

Do you scale back the attack to limit the damage to one goal or continue to try to outscore the opponent? I would continue to try to outscore the opponent because you have to win, and I don’t think they can win without taking on risk until they sign a center-back.

With an inswinging corner, the ball moves out to in, and an outswinging corner moves in to out. Inswinging corners are curled in towards the goal, and outswinging corners are curled away from the goal.

The first objective from a corner should be to make the goalkeeper’s life a living hell. To make the goalkeeper’s life hell, ideally, we would want to eliminate them from the equation. If we can’t foul the goalkeeper, we have to avoid them.

If the ball is curled in to out by an outswinger, the ball is moving away from goal; you will need to generate height because the ball will swing over or close to the goalkeeper. The goalkeeper will want to get involved, step out from their goal, and punch or claim the ball.

It is harder for a corner taker to be accurate in terms of distance and pace if they have to factor in height to give the attacker a chance while also avoiding giving the goalkeeper a chance. The margin for error is larger once you factor in height, because it is harder for the attacker to generate the pace on the header the higher it is looped into the air.

If the ball is curled out to in, towards goal, by an inswinger, and the corner taker puts enough pace on the cross, the goalkeeper becomes a passenger. There is not enough time for them to come out and attempt to punch or claim the cross.

With an inswinging corner towards the near post, the attacker heading the ball has the option to flick the ball on towards the far post with the back or side of their head or head it near post with the front of their head. Both options allow the attacker to head the ball at speed. If the cross is accurate and hit with enough power, all the attacker has to do is make contact and direct the ball towards goal. The pace of the cross is immediately transferred to the header, redirected into the goal.

With an outswinging corner towards the near post, you can’t normally generate as much power on the cross; therefore, the player heading the ball will have to generate the power. And to generate that power, they’ll normally only have the option of heading the ball on with the side or back of the head, not the front of their head usually. That makes it much more difficult to head it near post; therefore, the goalkeeper will always be expecting the header to be placed towards the far post.

With an inswinging corner, the ball is already moving towards the goal; therefore, the header is simply helping it on. If the ball is moving away from goal, as it does with an outswinging corner, it takes more effort and skill to direct the ball back towards goal.

Outswinging corners towards the center of the box are usually slower moving because of the height needed to get the ball up and away from the goalkeeper; therefore, the power at which the header can generate is lower.

Inswinging corners towards the center of the box give the goalkeeper a greater chance to punch or claim, but like on the near post, the header simply has to direct it anywhere on target. The pace the ball is redirected is normally too great for the goalkeeper to save, even if it is redirected directly at them.

Inswinging and outswinging corners to the far post are both disorienting for the defenders and goalkeeper. They are awkward. For the goalkeeper, outswinging corners to the far post are normally easier to punch or claim, while inswinging corners are normally easier to claim but harder to punch out of the box due to the pace and direction the ball is angling in on goal.

The only area in which I think this differs is for corners directed towards the top of the box. It is easier to volley the ball when the ball is curled towards you from an outswinger compared to a cross that is moving away from you from an inswinger. Inswingers have to drive the ball as straight as they can towards the attacker at the top of the box to give them a chance to head or volley it in on goal. If they don’t, then defenders will have time to come out and clear the ball.

Heading the ball down, like Virgil Van Dijk is my preferred method because it makes life harder for the goalkeeper.

My favorite type of corner is the one Arsenal perfected. 90.53% of their corners are taken by an inswinger, stat courtesy of Opta/FBref from Billy Carpenter, and most of their crosses are hit towards the near post, inside the six-yard box. It is the most reproducible type of corner kick because the goalkeeper can’t get involved; it is hard for the defenders to influence the header, easier for the attackers to block the defenders, and the attacker(s) attempting to head the ball simply have to redirect the ball anywhere in on goal. They can aim for the near post, the middle of the goal, the far post, anywhere. As long as it is directed towards the net, it will likely be a goal.

There are several hard parts, but the hardest part is finding someone with the cross accuracy and consistency of Declan Rice or Bukayo Saka to cross the ball into the same exact spot every time, and if the attacker redirects it towards the net, it is as close to a guaranteed goal as you can get.

It is like an alley-oop in basketball. Lob it up at pace and dunk it in.

I am going to show you both Manchester City and Manchester United’s formations, with and without the names of the players, in and out of possession. I would say this is their average position.

The Manchester City example is their most used formation in the past two years. The Manchester United example is from new manager Ruben Amorim’s first Premier League match against Everton.

Try to guess which player is Bernardo Silva and Josko Gvardiol for Manchester City, then Amad Diallo and Diego Dalot for Manchester United.

Now ask yourself the question, what formation are both teams using?

Is Manchester City using a back three with two wingers, or are Josko Gvardiol and Bernardo Silva wing-backs, or is Josko Gvardiol a left-back that becomes a winger in possession while Bernardo Silva stays playing as a right winger?

This is the problem I have with the discourse around formations.

We immediately apply labels to the team of an offensive-minded coach, Pep Guardiola, that we wouldn’t apply to the team with inferior players, Manchester United. The masses would say, of course Ruben Amorim is using a back five with wing-backs; he doesn’t have the players to be offensive like City.

In reality, those two specific sets of players operate nearly in the same way, but Manchester City is talked about with offensive terms. The masses would say Josko Gvardiol is a left-back who becomes a left winger, and Bernardo Silva is playing right wing. While Diogo Dalot and Amad Diallo are both seen as wing-backs.

If Manchester United maintains, say, 80% possession, and Amad Diallo stays higher up the pitch, is he now considered a right-winger? If they maintain 20% possession, is he playing as a right midfielder?

We talk more about the labels because it is convenient to label things, but sometimes the labels are misleading, which then confuses those who want to know what the formation is.

The formations are the same; every team is sort of copying each other, and there is not a ton of experimentation, but this is what I am familiar with.

It is like tuning into the same reality TV show. I am invested in the characters. The drama.

I know what winning and losing sounds like. Each Premier League stadium has its own sounds when a goal is scored or when their team wins or loses.

I could sing along with each team’s chants, even when they are muffled or at a lower volume on the broadcast.

I know what the pitch is supposed to look like at each ground. I know when it is worn or too watered.

I could tell you if Kaoru Mitoma combed his hair differently today, if Moises Caicedo was uncharacteristically wearing long sleeves instead of short sleeves, or if Bukayo Saka added an extra rip to his socks.

I can name most benches, and I know all of their preferred positions, even the ones that rarely get any game time.

I can spot when a player has been playing through an injury before it is reported by the way they are running or the little differences in the mannerisms in their movement.

I could spot a player based off their hair and height in a low-quality image or video.

I know each referee and linesman by name, without seeing their face. I know how often they stop play, how likely they are to issue a yellow or red card, and how good they are at spotting an offside.

I can hear the commentator’s voice calling a game in my head when I read their name on the TV schedule.

And then all of the in-game-related things that you become familiar with. What each manager likes, where players are supposed to be when the ball is here, and what formation the team is supposed to be in when the ball is there.

Football is about emotion. If everything is unfamiliar, it is much harder to spot things, changes. I could give you an overview of that game, but I wouldn’t know what the team is supposed to look like.

If I tuned into a random match from another league, I wouldn’t know how tall the players are, their names, their hair, or the numbers on their backs. I wouldn’t know who they are. I might recognize a few players, the stadium, or a manager, but I have no emotional attachment to the game as a neutral.

It takes time, a few games, to build that connection. To become familiar with the people.

This is why I named it the Tactics Journal and not the Premier League Tactics Journal. I am interested in showcasing the most tactically interesting teams in world football. I could focus on the Serie A tomorrow if I wanted.

High Performance podcast:

And then they’ve said, “Would you have a conversation with Ange Postecoglou?” I said, “Of course I would.” I’m always open to conversations, completely open. Why not? I didn’t know Ange; I didn’t know his pedigree. I knew that he’d just become Celtic manager. Spoke to him, and it was a very, very, very honest conversation, especially from my point of view.

I said, “Look, please don’t let me come across as defeatist, but I’m in a spot here where I don’t know if I want to be a part of the professional world of football anymore.” I said, “I’m not sad; I’m not down. I just don’t feel I fit, and for me to fit,” I said, “I need to be given a chance. I need to be understood, and I want the opportunity to play.” I said, “Just please, listen to me when I say I’m not telling you to do that. I’m saying that’s what I need to get the best out of me.”

Ange, an incredible, incredible man manager, he said, “You know what, I’ve done my research on you, so I’m not going to try and feel you out as a person.” He said, “I’ve spoke to enough people about you for me to not have to even make a decision.” He said, “Football-wise, I can’t promise you anything, but I can promise you an opportunity. So if you do come up here, and you do want it, I feel like it could work.”

And I said, “Family-wise, football’s not number one in our house anymore. So if I do come, I’m coming on my own.” I said, “But you don’t have to trust me. You don’t know me, but just trust me that I’m all in. I’m completely all in, but I will be working between the two on days, two off, and things like that. So I don’t want that to upset you, and if that’s going to upset you and upset the balance in the dressing room, then I’m putting all my cards on the table.”

And he said, “Look, look. I can’t tell you how it’s all going to work, but that’s not a big no-no for me. I feel like we can start a relationship, and we can go from there.”

Which I said, “That’s enough; that’s enough for me.” That’s enough. The fact that you’re even willing to listen to my so-called demands—they’re not demands, but like, what would really make me tick and potentially get the best out of me. I’d do anything for you. Let’s do this.

And then he signed for Celtic from Tottenham.

You hear a lot from managers, at the highest levels of football, that as you go along it becomes more about managing people rather than the football or the tactics. A conversation like this one puts it into perspective.

Joe Hart was probably expecting him to say no, the moment he mentioned all that. But when you deal with human beings, there’s more to factor in than just the football. You have to factor in the person. Factor in the person and, in his words, “I’d do anything for you. Let’s do this.”

We watch football for the people. Their stories. We could watch any other game and not be emotionally tied. We watch because of the emotion. They play or coach because of those same emotions.

       

The right-hand side with Jurrien Timber rotating inside as William Saliba rotates outside; that’s strange, but it can work. Saliba makes it work because of how good he is with the ball, but you probably wouldn’t want him out wide for long. It would surprise the opposition if he was the most advanced defender down the right wing, but it’s strange.

If I learned anything from watching Ricardo Calafiori at Bologna, tall and agile defenders rotating further forward looks strange and sometimes exciting, but if it works, it can open things up when the other team doesn’t expect it because no one will be looking to mark them.

The left-hand side with Declan Rice, Jakub Kiwior, and Oleksander Zinchenko is balanced. It feels right to see Declan Rice on the back line, Kiwior out wide left, and Zinchenko in the midfield. If they came out like that at the start, I think it would work better than their preferred setup of Rice in midfield, Kiwior at left center-back, and Zinchenko at left-back. 

This is the benefit of not starting Gabriel. Gabriel needs to face play while Saliba finds ways to maneuver his big body like a tall midfielder would. If Gabriel starts, he is more likely to stay put at the back. If he doesn’t start, they are more likely to rotate.

When Arsenal signed Declan Rice I thought that was the end for Gabriel, but thankfully for Gabriel, he is too good at heading the ball in from corners. He is a specialist and a world-class defender. They built set pieces specifically for him. When you don’t start Gabriel, you gain a little bit more versatility, but I don’t think they need that versatility to win a match or the league.

This specific sequence of movement against Manchester United felt forced, though. It feels like a coach has told them, “In the eleventh minute, execute this play.” And then they run the play like a set piece. Defenders all move into position; there’s some delay between each rotation on either side. There is a sense of watching of, “Okay, great, you are moving around in a circle out wide; when is it going to end? Okay, cool, it ended; now move forward.” The Manchester United forwards barely flinch because they just kind of watch, waiting for the Arsenal defenders to stop rotating.

There is a lack of movement from the forwards to accompany the movement from the defenders. That is the main issue. The defenders are setting the table for dinner, assembling the plates, and putting the cloth on the table, and the forwards are watching. and waiting to sit to eat. The defenders set the table, and then they all eat. They are watching with us, and the United defenders. If the defenders threw some variance in and maybe tossed a chicken leg to Kai Havertz halfway through setting the table, it wouldn’t feel as rehearsed.

Bologna under Thiago Motta last season rehearsed the movements because that is how they trained, but it felt natural. It felt like they were exploiting a team’s weakness with their movement rather than moving just to try to confuse the opposition’s defense.

I love that Arsenal is trying this because it is an edge that they have this versatility. They are great at executing set plays, set pieces, “Set Piece FC”, but movement for the sake of movement looks unnatural. And “Set Piece FC” is a massive compliment to their ability to score from corners.

Match: Arsenal 2-0 Manchester United, 4 December 2024

I had this same negative feeling after Manuel Neuer was sent off for Bayern Munich in their DFB Pokal Round of 16 match against Bayer Leverkusen on Tuesday. They lost 1-0 and are out. This was the first red card in Neuer’s illustrious career for club and country. 867 appearances, and today was the day. At least we got to say we witnessed history. What we did not witness was an exciting match.

Every interesting battle between different sets of players gets shifted. Attacking players retreat to the back ranks. The center-forward is left on an island, deserted in a sea of fearless midfielders and defenders. Fearless because they know they won’t need to worry about making a mistake, they have the numbers to quickly surround the center-forward.

You would get the same feeling if you were watching a high-level chess match, and the number one ranked grandmaster blundered their queen. The game then feels like an inevitability.

I went into the game looking forward to learning something about either team, but all I learned was how they attack or defend when Bayern Munich is down to ten men. And how often will we see either team play a game of this caliber down to ten men or up a man? Maybe once or twice a season, a handful of times at most.

At this level, it would take a massive mistake. And all the while we have to wait 50 minutes for Bayer Leverkusen to score. And then that moment of triumph almost happens for Bayern Munich in the final minutes when Michael Olise curls in one of his trademark shots as he steps confidently into the upper right-hand corner of the box.

This is not a petition to get rid of red cards because Neuer deserved to be sent off, but I would have preferred it was a yellow instead, for my sake.

His strength and instincts to quickly work the ball through the center of the pitch and out through the wings will be key to their success because of how much more effective they are when they switch play.

I talked about this in the preseason after watching Bayern Munich constantly open play by moving the ball horizontally back and forth across the pitch until they got off a clear attempt on goal. It is an exciting way of playing.

It opens compact defenses. They can’t withstand the constant movement and will be forced to spread out. For teams, like Tottenham when they played Bayern Munich in the summer, who do not defend as compactly, it kills them. They can’t withstand it.

The key is having someone in the center of things to help facilitate that movement of the ball back and forth. It is a must to connect both wings. Amorim likes using a back three, with wing-backs down the side. The center has to be solid to withstand the pressure of the opposition’s midfield collapsing.

It is great because that movement means you don’t necessarily need pace down the wings. The movement back and forth will open up ample space for the wingers, and then that opens up the channels in on goal.

Manchester United didn’t look that great in the first half against Everton; I would say partly due to their lack of fitness. They were doing well for the first 20 minutes, but Everton dominated play thereafter until the half.

But Joshua Zirkee should give any United fan hope because he has something extra that many center-forwards don’t have. His movements are sharp when he receives the ball in the pockets. There’s no wasted touches on the turn. He has special qualities with his back to the defender, with his ability to ward off challenges. The pass out to the wide areas of the pitch is crisp, fast, and accurate. We knew this before, but it is no wonder why Bologna performed so well. Thiago Motta built the attack around him; for him, it seems.

Read Ahmed Walid’s piece for The Athletic to view some examples of how Joshua Zirkzee found and created space for others.

Watch. You will rarely, if ever, see him take a third or fourth touch if Liverpool is on the go. If Liverpool is taking their time, he might, but Liverpool rarely takes their time.

It catches you off-guard because it is only the goalkeeper and Trent looking to pass on their first touch. Almost all of the other Liverpool players like to dribble, especially the attacking players. Ball falls to Trent, and he immediately hits you.

You can almost see the opposition defenders flinch in anticipation because the moment you see him wind up to pass, you know it will be going into a dangerous area, and it will be accurate. That “Oh, no” moment hits because of how consistently accurate he is.

It is terrifying. The only problem is timing it. 

The Liverpool forwards have to always have a run ready, or the pass is wasted, and that seems difficult to do because he isn’t always passing from the same part of the pitch. One moment he is on the overlap, the other moment he is sitting back like a holding midfielder, and the other moment he is inverting into the half-space.

This way of playing becomes an issue when he plays for England. The Liverpool forwards are used to timing their run to meet his pass; the England forwards are not. 

When the timing is right, he looks selfless. When the timing is off, and no one makes the run, he looks selfish or out of touch with the team.

Ait-Nouri is a 23-year-old Algerian fullback with a heavy French accent, born in Montreuil, France, who can operate both on the left and right sides of defense, but predominantly on the left-hand side. He is not a traditional fullback; he is mobile and could function as a midfielder.

He is at his best when he is allowed to roam, especially when he is allowed to roam in the midfield from left to right. Notice how I said “in the midfield.” I wouldn’t say he is at his best when he starts in as a fullback and rotates into the midfield, from left to right. He is at his best when he starts in the midfield and then attacks space, wherever that may be, because he is very good at finding the correct angles. He can pop up anywhere and dribble past anyone, but he doesn’t have a lot of speed in a straight line.

By finding the correct angles, I mean that he can find the correct tight spaces to create space for others because he is better at dribbling in and through those tight spaces than most of his teammates. He knows how to attract defenders towards him and distribute, or lurk inside the box for a goal.

Just off the halfway line drifting into the left half-space, in the opponent’s half, he collects, dribbles past a player, plays it wide, and continues his run. Then he gets played into the box from the winger, cuts it across goal for the tap-in assist or he drifts off his marker on the far post, cross gets put in and he heads in a goal. That is where he is best used. With the freedom to drift to the right hand side of attack ahead of the holding midfielders.

He is like Rico Lewis for Manchester City, but three years older, faster, quicker, a better finisher, a better creator, and has a more well-rounded dribbling skillset in open space. Rico is a better defender, better on the turn, and better off the right. Rayan is better off the left. Sounds like an opportunity for Manchester City to pair them together.

So I tuned into the Wolves’ match three weeks ago, and then two weeks ago, and this week. I choose to watch Wolves’ matches over the many others that are on because, as a group, as a team, each of their players is supremely talented and entertaining dribblers. Unfortunately for me and for Wolves fans, they are compensating because their defense is not that strong. I don’t feel it is for tactical reasons; I think it is their personnel at center-back. But because they are compensating, Ait Nouri is having to stay back in a more passive, traditional, defensive left-back role, not venturing forward or inverting into the midfield as often as he would last season.

If you had a player like Ait Nouri on your team. A player that is a game changer when he is allowed to roam, would you sacrifice there forcing him to stay back or sacrifice someplace else to allow him to roam? I would try to find a way to maximize Ait Nouri’s impact, like Wolves did in the second half against Bournemouth, and allow him to roam from left to right.

Brick by brick, you build a wall of important information. Something that you can apply to the team or, in the case of those that create content online, educate the reader.

That is why you see a lot of quote-on-quote “micro-analysis” from me. A term, I agree, applies, but the word “micro” almost implies that it is insignificant information. It may seem insignificant on its own, but I like building that case. Some bricks are smaller than others, but when you follow along and put it all together, you eventually see my point.

I don’t withhold information because I’m not under a deadline, and I’m impatient. I want to share that information as quickly as I can. Withholding that information would produce a longer read, thousands of words long, but I don’t see the value in delaying the sharing of ideas. I’m not rushing the process; I just don’t see myself changing my mind if I took more time on each idea.

We associate more words with a piece being better studied or researched. You can put in the same amount of work and have it be concise and short. I am more impressed when someone can say something simply.

Sometimes it takes one brick, sometimes it takes a dozen. As long as the point is made, why waste more of your time?

Here are the definitions provided by both Opta and Wyscout for aerial duels won or lost. Opta provides statistical data for FBref, FotMob, Sofascore, and most betting services. 

Opta:

This is where two players challenge in the air against each other. The player that wins the ball is deemed to have won the duel. When more than two players are involved the player closest to the duel winner is given an Aerial Duel lost.

By “wins the ball,” does that mean “wins possession?” Because if you don’t win possession, generally, who cares?

Wyscout:

An aerial duel is considered won in favor of the player who touches the ball first, no matter what happens next. An aerial duel that results in a foul is considered won in favor of the player who suffered a foul.

This definition is still not what I am looking for, but at least it is more clear. Why should I care if the player “touches the ball first, no matter what happens?”

For example, say I put Peter Crouch on a team filled with small children and he had to face play with his back to goal to attempt to head the ball down to his teammates, but the defense on the other team was made up of full-grown adults. Crouch is going to touch the ball first every time, but his team of small children will never be able to maintain possession.

Touching the ball first is only half the battle. Maybe I’m misunderstanding something, but how can one bring up an aerial duel stat total over a given period and then say that it can represent the quality of Peter Crouch’s ability to win aerial duels without factoring in other data like if or for how long possession was maintained after that touch?

       

       

       

       

This is an example from a match last season between Arsenal and Liverpool.

This would be counted as an aerial duel won for Kai Havertz because he controlled the ball with his knee first, but because Alexis Mac Allister bodied Martin Ødegaard, Arsenal lost possession immediately, and Liverpool are on the attack. Havertz did well to bring it down, but he hypothetically could have controlled it differently to give Ødegaard a better chance at maintaining possession. But when someone goes and looks at the stats for the game, they’ll see he won one of one aerial duel; they’ll believe he had a good game.

Maybe Kai Havertz tries to head it high if Martin Ødegaard was taller, or he would head it clear into space if he was faster. Peter Crouch is going to work extra hard to head the ball down into an area where a smaller child could maintain possession. The technique will be different based on who you are playing with; therefore, the amount of aerial duels won will be influenced heavily by who that player is playing with.

We should take the aerial duel won stat for what it is and, in my opinion, put more weight into the team aspect of maintaining possession. And not only that, but then measure for how long the team maintains possession after the duel. Player A controls the ball for Player B to receive the ball. The way in which Player A controls the ball, the technique, would be different if Martin Ødegaard is taller, quicker, or stronger. 

That is the nuance I’m talking about. 

This isn’t tennis. The decision the player makes is based on their teammates, and that stat in particular always needs some form of context.

It felt like Real Madrid was on the verge of conceding before the half against Liverpool. The game was opening up, and Anfield was becoming restless with each counterattack, each loss of possession, each run by Kylian Mbappe, or burst of speed past Madrid’s defense from Darwin Nunez. Then Real Madrid wins a corner, and Modric slowly, almost comically, jogs over. He set the tempo for the rest of the half. The atmosphere turned to one resigned to the fact that the game would go into the half 0-0. The play became slow and awkward, like the way Modric ran to take the corner.

Players like Manuel Locatelli, Alexis Mac Allister, Florentino Luis, Tijjani Reijnders, Dani Olmo, Granit Xhaka, Nicolo Barella, and Martin Ødegaard all have that special quality to know when the team needs a break and how to break up play like Modric did. 

You saw that quality from Alexis Mac Allister when he came on for Liverpool in the 2nd half against Southampton on the weekend; he completely changed the game because he knows what buttons to push.

Manchester City probably wouldn’t blow a 3-0 lead against Feyenoord at home if Rodri was playing, not because of his defensive or passing abilities, but because he has the experience to know how to control the tempo of a game. The moment Manchester City concedes that first goal, City would be walking up the pitch. And this is the time you walk, not when you need a goal. Walk and kill the game. Maybe they concede one goal more but not three.

Every winning team needs a player like that because they have the experience. They know what gear to enter, and they have more than one gear, unlike the attackers and defenders who mostly just go. Some defenders, like Virgil Van Dijk, Alessandro Bastoni, William Saliba, or Pau Torres, have that quality, but it is more rare.

So when people say Manchester City is struggling due to age or a lack of physicality in midfield, I say no. It is a lack of tempo setting. Knowing when to play a direct pass forward, knowing what parts of the pitch to play the ball to alleviate pressure, and knowing when you can take a break to draw in the opposition defense or lure that defense into defending in their own end.

       

This is a great example from a match back in October against Real Zaragoza. I assigned each player a number because, for this example, it will help you track their movement. The idea behind each movement is more important today.

And yes, the elephant in the room. Why am I watching a random La Liga 2 match? Racing Santander is one of the relational teams to watch.

First, the center-back waits. Most would immediately pass to Player 1, but they want to organize in a way in which they can go from back to front quickly. In a flash. They don’t wait around in the midfield; they go.

       

The important player to watch is Player 4. They wait for Player 4 to get into position behind Player 1 before starting their move, because he is then open in that pocket of space to receive the ball from Player 2 or Player 3. 

All four players, advanced ahead of the ball, are aligned and open to receive on the first or second touch, but players will use that touch to draw in defenders to provide more space to the next player(s).

       

       

Once the pass forward is open and played, then your attention can turn to the triangle that forms ahead of the ball between Players 3, 4, and 5.

With four quick passes, Racing Santander has worked the ball from the back to the front and in on goal past Real Zaragoza’s somewhat compact defense. As compact as most organized defenses are.

These quick combinations can only happen because these players are thinking three steps ahead. This is a way of playing that promotes communication.

There are dozens of other examples in each of their matches.

Andrew Beaton and Joshua Robinson reporting for the Wall Street Journal in a piece titled “The Greatest Chess Player of All Time Is Bored With Chess”:

So while the classical championship pits the world No. 5 Gukesh Dommaraju against the defending champion and world No. 23 Ding Liren, Carlsen and Caruana will be playing a version of the game called Fischer Random chess, where the pieces on the back rank of the board are lined up in random order.

Their match is more than a gimmick. It’s a loud statement about why the game is booming in popularity—and it’s not because of painstaking matches that take hours and leave audiences cold. Top players and casual hobbyists alike want games that are spontaneous tests of chess skill rather than endless duels of memorized sequences.

[…] “It shouldn’t be this hard to actually create winning chances,” Carlsen says. “Or to get a game at all—it should be more free-flowing than that.”

We always say that football is becoming more and more like chess, and it appears that actual chess is ahead of the curve.

We shouldn’t want to replicate chess, where we are running a series of memorized sequences and endless anticipated duels. We should want to replicate what Magnus is craving: a spontaneous game that makes it easier to create winning chances (goals) or a game that is more free-flowing.

I understand why teams would want to create a strategy that allows them to rest with the ball. The top teams have to play a game every other day, two to three days rest. The teams that aren’t playing a game every other day don’t have that excuse.

You score one or two goals, and then you eat away at the opposing team’s patience by progressing play slowly. The issue is that it is beginning to eat away at my patience as the viewer. Even when the team wins, the win simply feels efficent.

It feels like someone could watch the highlights or look at the scoreline and say, “that must have been a great game,” but for those who watched the full ninty minutes they would know it was a boring slog with maybe a total of five to ten total minutes of actual action.

Has football become too efficent, too optomized?

Is this on the defense to push the attacking team or is this on the attack to speed up play?

Should the teams care about the viewer?

Is this more of a problem for the federations to not make them play this many games in a season so that they wouldn’t have to make these sacrafices?

Is it a sacrafice to play this way?

I would say first, it is a sacrafice, but if I was in their position, I would take that sacrafice to save the legs of my players. I’m not mad at the team, I’m mad at the situation. To last a full season, I don’t think they have a choice.

I’ll keep watching but I am fed up.

Ruben Amorim when asked if Manchester United is “bigger and better than he would have imagined”:

“Uh, yeah, it’s bigger. There’s a lot of departments. It’s so much different than Sporting, and Sporting is a big club, but it’s in Portugal. You feel that it is a global club, so you have so much to do. It’s not just coaching the team. But I have a lot of help, a lot of meetings, so I’m improving in that area. But I feel very happy, very comfortable, so I feel at home.”

Ruben Amorim’s shock to how different the change is doesn’t translate well to text. You have to watch the video.

This is something that Erik Ten Hag mentioned in several interviews in the past year or more. This dilemma at the club, where the manager is tasked with not just coaching but more.

I know we care about results and tactics, but why don’t we factor this more into our analysis, especially when judging how well past managers have done? How much harder must it be to focus on football when half your mind is off the pitch? How much time do those other roles take away?

Someone needs to dig more into that question about what a day in the week of a Manchester United manager is like and how it compares to other clubs in the Premier League and throughout Europe.

The team with a collection of all three different use cases in this dilemma is Chelsea. 

Reece James is now being used more as an outside center-back on the left. He was tried in midfield, but due to his career-long bout with endless amounts of injuries, he has lost almost all of his explosiveness and mobility in his hips. He is slow on the turn and not all that helpful in midfield right now. But he is still a good passer; he is intelligent, a leader, and can defend well enough to remain helpful as an outside center-back who isn’t afraid to venture into the midfield or make a run up the wing. He is too good to simply banish or sell.

Left-back Ben Chilwell has all but been removed from the squad due to the fact that he can neither play in the midfield nor as an outside center-back. He represents the traditional fullback. A dying breed of player that is serviceable on the wing to put in a cross and fall back to defend but would never look comfortable as a winger taking players on one-on-one in midfield or operating on the last line of defense as a center-back. There is a team out there for him, but it is not Chelsea right now. 

Malo Gusto and Marc Cucurella both represent the mobile fullback. Gusto shouldn’t be played as an outside center-back but can play in a double pivot, can play in more advanced roles in attacking midfield, can rotate wide with a winger to put crosses into the box, and can play more as a traditional fullback when the tactic requires the team to play with a back four. Cucurella can play as an outside center-back plus all of the things Gusto can do. They are what teams like Chelsea are searching for.

With Gusto and Cucurella, there are a lot of “can’s.” They can do this; they can do that. This is the power of their versatility. But the recent trend is that fullbacks are being asked to play further forward as attacking midfielders, like Rico Lewis has at Manchester City. My question is, should they be used as attacking midfielders?

Enzo Maresca on Malo Gusto: 

We think with Malo (Gusto) there, playing as a 10, we can cause problems for the opponent. He is doing fantastic. Malo is helping us a lot in terms of process because he is playing as a holding midfielder, he is playing in the pocket, and he is playing at some moments as a central midfielder. For sure, Malo is doing well, and he is going to continue in that way.

Over time, fullbacks can learn to play as attacking midfielders, but I don’t think these fullbacks should because most lack that ability to find that final shot or pass. They can do everything else, but when faced with an important shot or pass to score, they don’t have the same qualities that a more natural attacking player possesses.

It is a problem born from fear. 

Enzo Maresca on why he can’t start Christopher Nkunku in place of one of the fullbacks:

I’ll be honest with Chris (Nkunku) and all of them. […] I’ve told them since day one that we cannot play with seven to eight attacking players; otherwise, there is no defensive balance. Nkunku and (Nicolas) Jackson can compete, and they’re ready.

The fear is the defensive balance. The pragmatic mind wins, unfortunately. They think they need someone to track all the way back from a far-advanced attacking position to operate in that fullback position out of possession.

The role of the fullback now, if these trends continue, is to be a Swiss army knife. The best Swiss army knife wins the starting spot and the attention of the coach, and the rest are getting shifted to teams that use tactics from the past or who haven’t followed this crowd of thinking. That change is happening in every position, but especially in the fullback position. Versatility wins again and again.

I saw this stat in a piece by The Standard:

Analysis by The Athletic has revealed that Arsenal kick the ball long (at least 40 meters) at goal kicks 70% of the time, which is the most of any Premier League side this season. Everton is second with 63%, and Nottingham Forest is third with 57%.

By contrast, City kicks the ball long 25% of the time, Liverpool do it 16% and Tottenham has never done it this season.

I will repeat that again: Tottenham have never done it this season. That is a remarkable stat, and I don’t think it is a knock on their forwards, although none of their forwards are good in the air. It is a decision from the team that comes from the top.

Getting the ball from point C, skipping point B, the shorter pass, and choosing to go Route 1 rather than passing out from the back is unique. It is an edge.

An edge is something that you can do that no one else can. Arsenal can score from almost any corner kick. That is an edge. Arsenal should be able to win every kick long. That is an edge.

Why would anyone discourage them from taking advantage of their edge?

Dimitar Berbatov speaking with Nieve Petruzziello on her Youtube channel StuntPegg, about how world-class strikers find space: 

It’s about how you see the game. Sometimes the defender will drop from his position to defend, to guard someone. Now the space is here (behind that defender), right? If you’re clever enough and you know to attack the space, and someone could give you the ball, that can be a threat.

Sometimes you don’t see the space. Some players don’t see the space; it is what it is. Some players don’t see, while some players see the space but are afraid to go into it.

Nieve: Why? Why would you be afraid?

Because this is the moment where you know you’re not playing well, and now you are hiding from the ball. This is the worst thing you can do.

I’ve done it. You don’t feel in shape; you know the game is not going well for you. You know that you’re in a bad run of games, of form. You know that maybe it’s going to be you as well, and now you’re like, “Nah, better not go there. Maybe I won’t get the ball; someone else will get the ball.”

This is what Arsene Wenger and Mohamed Salah were speaking about in “Always finding the moment”, that even if you don’t have the momentum, you still look for ways to finish.

The really, really good players don’t get afraid of entering that vacant space. They won’t wait for a teammate. They want to be the one that lifts the team because they have to be. If not them, then who else is going to do it?

Dimitar then speaks about how he dealt with having a bad game:

Back in the day, it was a bit different than it is now because I was keeping it to myself. I had a bad game; I missed a chance, I don’t score a goal, I didn’t play, or I was left out from the squad. So I would go home and just ignore everybody. My head would go like this big at times, thinking, constantly thinking, constantly thinking. I have someone to talk to, but I didn’t want to. “I am a man; I can do it by myself, so I need to deal with myself.”

Of course, you need to deal with yourself, but you can find good people around you that you can share that—what is the problem—and then maybe they can help you. And when time goes by, you learn stuff like this. You get good advice sometimes, or even if you don’t get advice, you still have something back, and then your brain will start moving.

Nieve: People know then as well; people know the reason why you might not be in a good mood. You might be short-tempered; you’ve got something on your mind.

Especially your family, because my family was suffering because of this. I would go home, and I’d be like in my dark mood. Everything is black, and I’m like, “Don’t talk to me; don’t even look at me. I’m in my zone, in my dark zone, and I need to work it out.” But maybe I missed out on good advice.

That is how a competitor operates, for better or worse. If you don’t get upset with the loss, then the passion isn’t there. If you are passionate about it and you care, it should make you nervous. But now we have better ways, nowadays, of dealing with loss.

Mohamed Salah, when asked if there have been many times in his career where he has had to switch himself back on, responding on Liverpool’s YouTube channel:

I think I got advice from Arsene Wenger before. He was at Melwood at that time, and I told him what’s the difference between—I think it was my first season in Liverpool—I asked him, “What’s the difference between a good player and a really, really good player?”

He said, “I think the very, very good player is always focused on the game. Even if he doesn’t have the momentum, he stays in the game until the last minute or until the whistle.”

That’s, I think, for me, I know there’s some games I don’t have the momentum; I don’t have the game, but I’m always focused on the game to finish stuff. I don’t mind that.

Even Johnny, Johnny [Heitinga] when he came here this year, was like, “Oh, Mo, you’re not playing good today.” I said, “Yeah, but I always find the moment.”

I’m not always very good in the game. It’s normal; we’re still human. But I’m always trying to find a way to change the game. I think some players don’t accept the feeling and just keep fighting it. But if you accept it and impress it, it’s nothing. It’s more your imagination going in your head, but I think if you accept it and just impress it, it’s OK. It’s OK to feel that way, and it’s OK to have a bad game, but the most important thing is to stay in the game and try to make a difference.

It is nice that he remembers that specific conversation from 2017, now, later in his career. 

That battle that happens in their mind where they have to accept that they are having a bad game or bad run of form is interesting to me. Maybe it happens on or off the field. That ability to forget the mistakes and focus on their goal is something anyone can apply to any profession. 

Can you be considered one of the best without having the ability to “always find the moment?” I don’t think you can be in the conversation if you can’t. The players at the top, that would be considered in those top five or top ten lists, they are all clutch.

René Meulensteen tells the story on The Overlap Breakdown:

The manager was very clear to me, and it may be interesting to explain that. When he moved me up to be his assistant manager, he brought me into the first team. He brought me into his office; he had a flip chart there. On the flip chart, he said, “Basically, I’ve written down here that when I close my eyes, this is the best Man United that I see.”

He said to me, “Listen, if Manchester United defend, right, I want us to be able to defend really press high, really aggressively. Don’t let them out. In other games, I like us to drop off. We press an area, or we press certain players to be able to create spaces in transition, you know, to go forward and hurt them. There will be times that we have to drop deep; no problem at all. We nullify the chances, but then it’s all about counterattack. So, we then spring from box to box. Great examples are the games against Arsenal. You know, it was like we were the red arrows, you know what I mean? Unbelievable. 

But we did this. I manufactured a lot of sessions with that box-to-box running, with, let’s say, eight mannequins in the middle representing, like, four, let’s say, two bands of four. Then people have to run too, so there were little combinations, third-man runs, and all that. So, that was the defensive side. Obviously, we need to look after the defensive set pieces as well.

In possession, he said, “Possession is key because that will give us the initiative, but it always has to have a purpose. The purpose is for us to go forward, create chances, and score goals.” The most important thing in possession is rhythm. The best teams in the world create the rhythm, maintain their rhythm, or change it.

In other words, if we play out from the back, we might be a little bit cautious, but when we break lines and it gets congested, the rhythm has to change to one-touch football and movement.

I love this way of thinking, this way of playing. Attacking first, forward first. 

To me, facing a potent attack is more frustrating than facing an “impenetrable” defense, especially an attack that can counterattack effectively, because it is so hard to commit to your own attack fully when you know the opponent will hurt you. I put “impenetrable” in quotes because there are only a handful of teams in history that are truly impenetrable. Defensive football delays the inevitable.

Rhythm is something that is not talked about enough in modern football. Anyone can go forward, but that version of Manchester United had a certain rhythm and understanding that is hard to describe. It was unique to their squad, and it was usually completely overwhelming for the opposition.

Within that possession, there were a few golden rules.

One was: think forward, look forward, play forward. The manager hated it when the ball was played back; that was the last option. You go square to go forward, or you go back to then go forward. But the key is every player had to think, look forward, think forward, look forward, and play forward. 

The other thing was when players had time on the ball, center backs and center midfielders—movement, forward runs, or players coming into the pockets. We wanted both, you know what I mean, depending on how deep the opposition was set up. So, that was from a possession point of view. 

A lot of times, when you do win the ball back, it was always, ‘Was it regain and attack, or was it regain and retain?’ That’s what the players had to understand. Depending on the opposition, where you are in the game, and the score on the board.

Then the last bit was those things that we spoke about before—the attacking things. He said when he flipped it, “This is the most important thing; this is what United is, in my opinion.” He says, “When we attack, we attack with pace, power, penetration, unpredictability, and all those things that you see on those flip charts. Basically, I want you to instill in that team every single day.”

So, on three flip charts, there was my whole navigation system for all my sessions. That was coming back in everything that we did, whether it was a finishing drill, a conditioned game, or small-sided games. Those elements were always coming back. I reminded the players constantly about that. And then you come back to the quality of the players to execute it.

This clear and simple approach is what made Sir Alex one of the greatest managers to ever grace the beautiful game of football. In one meeting he could, in simple terms, lay the groundwork perfectly. Imagine how much knowledge you could take from working with him for a week let alone multiple seasons.

When someone asks me why I like a team, my first thought is never, ‘How well does that team defend?’ It is, ‘How well do they attack?’ Defensive quality is an afterthought. I don’t even think about it until someone mentions it. I would never watch a game for entertainment purposes because that team defends well unless it is characters like Maldini and Gattuso sliding into tackles and getting in people’s faces.

The thing that distinguishes coaches for me is those that focus on defense and those that build around their defense.

Some people, like Atletico Madrid manager Diego Simeone, find a lot of beauty in defense. He builds his team around the defense:

I’ve always liked playing well. At Estudiantes de La Plata, where we won the championship, we played with Sosa, Pavone, Calderón, and Verón. At River we played with Ortega, Abreu, Falcao, Buonanotte, and Alexis Sánchez, all together. If you ask me, what I like most is defending well. If you have players who play well and defend well, you are better than the rest.

You watch English football today, and the games end 4-4, 5-3, 6-2, or 5-1. It’s great for the fans. You watch the games; they come and go, but nobody defends. So I say: Stop, there’s something that someone isn’t doing. If we can improve it and get in line with the attackers, we’ll have something better.

I liked watching his teams this season and last, but I avoided him before because of the sacrifices he made in attack to accommodate a defense that is always solid. It can produce football that is unattractive due to how risk-averse the players become.

Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti recently spoke after Real Madrid’s struggles. He focuses on defense as a means to create more opportunities for the offense.

We had many chances. We lacked accuracy; we could score more. But this is not the problem. We don’t defend well. We need to be more compact. We lack solidity.

From June, in my post “Carlo with an RPG”, he said:

I spend a lot of time defensively, working with my team, working together. Offensively, I give some information, but not too much. What can I tell them?

I wasn’t fond of Ancelotti for many years because of how “hands off” he comes off when he talks about the game, but I’ve grown to appreciate his teams more because he does not make the same sacrifices Simeone makes. If anything, he will make the sacrifice in defense to allow his forwards to try things on their own. 

Then you go all the way to the other end of the spectrum with Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola. He defends with the ball, a practice I don’t like. It produces matches that are efficient, which means if they maintain possession, they win more than they lose, but the matches can become quite boring because of how pragmatic, slow, and risk-averse the majority of the passing becomes.

As long as all three managers get results, the owners are happy, the board is content, and fans are satisfied. The inevitable remains, though: the opponent will likely score, and then you will have to score twice to win. I disagree with Simeone; I’d rather have a game that is open and free-flowing that ends 4-3 rather than a close 1-0 win with eighty percent of the match back defending in your own end.

If you have the advantage, attack.

That is where perfectionism comes from. The urge to want to be your best only happens by seeing others succeed around you.

There are thousands of people that know better than I do. That is why I ask them questions. I read their detailed work with animated examples, annotated pictures, and well-thought-out theories. It is intimidating.

If there is no one to push you off the ledge and attempt to be better than the rest, then what is the point of trying?

That is why we remain engaged online, because you need to stay involved to get that inspiration.

The world of football is intimidating, but everyone passed the level you are at right now somewhere in their long journey.

At least once a year since 2007, sometimes twice or three times, I watch this TEDTalk on “How to get your ideas to spread” by Seth Godin. You will learn something new every time you watch it. It is a timeless piece of marketing gold.

The thing I learned this year from watching was that most of my writing has been “very good.” Being “very good,” in the words of Seth, is considered to be just as bad as being “average.”

I want my writing to be “remarkable,” or worth making a remark about. Worth sharing with a friend.

There has been a mass migration from X, formerly Twitter, to another social media website called Bluesky. You can follow the Tactics Journal at @tacticsjournal.com. I’m sure there is a lot of worry amongst people that create content online about this change. They want people to see what they are making.

Everyone wants clicks. Everyone wants attention. Everyone wants followers. But the one thing I do is that I never beg.

If I am not remarkable, my ideas won’t spread. The problem isn’t ‘how can I be more effective at bothering people,’ the problem lies in what I am making. Once I gain permission from one person, then two, then ten, they’ll share it with their friends, and their friends will share it with their friends.

I’d consider certain posts to be worth sharing, and I don’t believe that waiting to publish is the answer. I am a firm believer in writing like you talk because it is the cure for writer’s block, but is it remarkable?

The neck surgery went more than well, and my recovery is ongoing. That is what I have been thinking about. This is a post to announce I will be going back to posting starting today.

The surgery couldn’t fix Man City’s ability to defend a counter unfortunately. How does Rico Lewis not have the back post covered.

I have been posting once a day (with a couple missed days) since April 2023. I do that because I like the consistency. The post goes out at 11:00 UTC every day; you don’t even need a notification; you know it will be there.

I am proud of the long streak I have been on. It is annoying that I have to break that streak, but I plan to go right back to it once I’m back.

If you try to contact me and I don’t respond, don’t worry. I won’t be online for a bit.

England manager Lee Carsley after their 2-1 defeat to Greece:

I think with the players that we’ve got, I think we’ve got to be courageous at times with our systems and be creative.

I could have quite easily gone; we have recognized nines; we had two on the bench, but I thought it was important to try something different. I think at this stage, coming off the last two games, I never at any point thought that I’ve got it cracked. It was a case of let’s try something different, and I’m happy to take the blame for that. It was totally my idea. I thought about it long and hard in terms of how it might look, how we might build, and how it might feel.

[…]

My position and understanding of coaching, I want to attack. I want to attack. You’ve seen my teams play; it’s something that’s really important to me, and with that, you do lose games. You do lose some games. It’s not ideal, of course it’s not, but with that mentality, I’ve found that I definitely win more games.

If picking this lineup was an “experiment”:

Definitely not an experiment. I thought it was a creative way of trying to play, similar to what we just spoke about there getting some of our attacking players on the pitch to see what that would look like.

Obviously, with this job, you have to do that a lot of the time in competitive games, which we obviously done tonight. It’s important that you know we have that chance to be a little bit creative with the selections.

In my opinion, watching back that game for a second time, there really wasn’t that much experimentation. I agree with Lee Carsley.

They played Cole Palmer, Phil Foden, and Jude Bellingham at the same time in the middle. That is the clickbait headline. Ignoring any commentary from others, how they operated in the actual game wasn’t controversial.

They looked more like Gareth Southgate’s version of England, just with Jude Bellingham in for Harry Kane. They had two wingers, two midfielders, and a central forward drifting back. There was some rotations back and forth towards the ball, but I didn’t think the players were wild with “freedom” of position as advertised by others. They stuck to their zones for the most part.

The only two major differences were the fact Bellingham is quicker and drops deeper, and the fullbacks, Rico Lewis and Trent Alexander-Arnold, both are free to invert in and out of the midfield, able to choose to stay wide or drift inside. That left them vulnerable at times in defense, but that plays into Carsley’s philosophy to attack first. You score two goals; we’ll score three. A huge culture shift from the pragmatic past.

If Palmer, Bellingham, and Foden are going to play together, they need more passes and touches within that black box. It is the job of Declan Rice, Trent Alexander-Arnold, John Stones, Levi Colwill, and Rico Lewis to find them. They didn’t when the pass was open. And by open, I mean, the window is tight, but that is what those three need. They operate in the tight spaces and play out of them. That is their edge.

This is the main issue that remains consistent from Southgate to Carsley: the nonexistent service into the center of the pitch. That is why they are stale and lifeless in the attack.

The five defenders and a holding midfielder pass and pass, then everything is into the wings and then into the half-spaces, or half-spaces into the wings. To me, it’s riskier to only pass to the wings because it boxes them in.

This isn’t something a different structure will fix; the defenders and midfielders need to be more willing to play the ball into tight spaces central. Their best moments come when they play and combine in tight, pass and move.

My biggest criticism of Carsley comes from the fact that Cole Palmer dropped deep next to Declan Rice the most. If I had the choice, Phil Foden should be instructed to drop deep instead. If you’re not going to pass to Foden in the tight spaces, he has to be the one to drop deep because Foden isn’t going to dribble in the same way Palmer will. Foden is better defensively and a more clinical passer-facing play. Palmer is more creative.

Match: England 1-2 Greece, 10 October 2024

Pep Guardiola after Manchester City’s 3-2 close win to Fulham:

We are a team more used to playing [with the ball] than focussing on these kind of things [defending/conceding less]. But you’re right; score goals and you have to try to be better [defensively]. We have margin to improve. You are right.

If there’s one player all the time making mistakes, next game they’re not going to play. It’s simple. You have to perform well. […] Maybe I have to reflect on the goals, how it goes in, normally transition or set-pieces, because without Rodri we lose this power.

Pep is not talking about losing Rodri’s defensive qualities; he is talking about his ability to maintain tempo and help them keep possession. Rodri knows where and when he can lose the ball, take risks, or stay safe.

When Rodri is on the pitch, they make fewer mistakes. When they make no mistakes, the opposition has very little chance of beating them.

They take risks in certain areas of the pitch because they know if the opponent regains possession, the counter won’t be as threatening if they lose it someplace else. They don’t take risks in risky positions. Everything is controlled. Guardiola seems to get the most angry on the sidelines when a risk is taken in a risky position. When that player knows they shouldn’t have played that pass or attempted that dribble.

Manchester City lost the ball against Fulham in positions where their midfielders had no ability to help in transition.

The advantage of this way of thinking is that they don’t care if the profile of the holding midfielders is suitable in transition. They can afford to have slower, shorter, or less physical midfielders. They can afford to not care about letting the opposition get a shot off in transition. If anything, they encourage it because the sooner the opposition shoots, the sooner they get the ball back.

The disadvantage is twofold. One, if they make mistakes, they will be giving up a ton of high-quality chances. Simple fix: make no mistakes with the ball. Two, we sometimes will see really boring or slow pragmatic play with the ball. Possession without any progression. Less risks.

I don’t agree with this way of playing, but when you are suggesting solutions, have this in mind.

Match: Manchester City 3-2 Fulham, 5 October 2024

I’m not sure why more teams don’t coordinate this specific movement more often against high defensive lines. One run initially, the second run from deeper to stay onside for the pass, and then the finish two-on-one.

The risk with making a run this far offside is that for several seconds, if the ball is not played behind Aston Villa’s defense, Manchester United are essentially down to ten men because Bruno Fernandes is very far out of the play.

Marcus Rashford has to commit to sending the ball the moment Bruno Fernandes commits this hard to that run, in the same way Rasmus Hojlund has to be ready to win the foot race to the ball.

In this example in-game, Marcus Rashford hesitated with the pass, and the timing was thrown off. United gave up possession soon thereafter.

Many center-forwards purposefully stray offside against a high line, and it is effective, but not to this degree. This seems like it would be more effective if you have even a moderately quick center forward.

The positive is that if Rasmus Hojlund has the speed advantage up against center-back Diego Carlos, which I argue he would if Rashford times the pass correctly, then this ends in a goal seven times out of ten.

The hard part, in my opinion, falls on Rashford to put the correct amount of weight on the pass to not allow goalkeeper Emi Martinez to come out and sweep the ball away from danger. The easy part is making those two runs.

Match: Aston Villa 0-0 Manchester United, 6 October 2024

In all three games, they lined up like this to kick off, with two on either side, two on the edge of the center circle, and three defenders at the back.

Nathan Pinnock kicks the ball long to the forwards, aiming for the first player on the right side of the forward line. The ball has to be aimed for this specific player so that the ball can be knocked back to Nathan Collins.

Nathan Collins’ positioning is interesting because he is a center-back; he is not a fullback, and he is further forward than Sepp van den Berg, who is a fullback. He is there to win the second balls and possibly charge into the box to attack the right post, the near post.

They did work the ball down the left-hand side against Tottenham to score, but the main goal it seems based on Manchester City, West Ham, and Wolves seems to be to work the ball down the right wing. That is why I think Kristoffer Ajer pushes over to the right-hand side.

Collins passes back, and then they want to quickly work it to the right wing, this time through Kevin Schade.

The first goal scoring opportunity arises here. If the pass is on, Schade can cross to the near post to Bryan Mbeumo, but that pass is not on, and Schade crosses to the far post.

If the near post cross isn’t on, they go to the far post, and the aim isn’t necessarily to score from the far post cross.

The ball goes to the left side, and then Ajer can ping a cross first time to the right side.

So we have gone back, forward to the front line, back to the second line, up the right wing, cross to the left side, and now we’re crossing to the right side. Constantly switching from side to side, West Ham can’t settle and press the ball; they are chasing the ball.

And then the player that receives Ajer’s cross crosses to the opposite side, the left side of the box.

The ball eventually bounces back to Fabio Carvalho and he heads it down to Byran Mbeumo, then Mbeumo scores on the half volley.

Always watch Bryan Mbeumo’s positioning. He is key. He will look to sit on the penalty spot. Once a cross comes in, the players in the box will head it towards the penalty spot. If Mbeumo is open, like in the Tottenham and West Ham match, they’ll try to get it to him.

Brentford manager Thomas Frank, after scoring from the three consecutive kick offs, after mentioning it was a world record:

We train on it. It’s a set piece. We train on it for a long time. Then sometimes, you know, when you train on things, sometimes you go quick, and then you score on four corners in a row, or then you score on three kick offs in a row. Of course, the likelihood of scoring a corner is bigger than a kick off, and of course we trained on it today as well.

Against Manchester City, they quickly worked the ball down the right wing in a similar fashion, crossed to the far left post, and the ball was headed back across goal to the right post for the goal.

Against Tottenham, they worked the ball down the left wing, seemingly because it was very open, and then they immediately crossed to Byran Mbeumo, who was standing on the penalty spot for the half-volley goal, eerily similar to the one he scored against West Ham.

Brentford didn’t score within the first minute against Wolves because they didn’t win the coin toss to kick off. Thomas Frank:

We’ve been practicing winning the coin toss all week, and we lost it. That’s why it took us so long [to score].

Nathan Collins scored from a header attacking the near post in the 2nd minute from a cross from the right wing.

It is almost as if they practiced this hundreds of times.

Matches: Manchester City 2-1 Brentford on 14 September 2024, Tottenham 3-1 Brentford on 21 September 2024, Brentford 1-1 West Ham on 28 September 2024, Brentford 5-3 Wolves on 5 October 2024

Speaking on Clank! (Translation by Juani Jimena):

For example, I don’t like midfielders receiving the ball with their backs to the opponent’s goal. It’s something I talk about a lot with the goalkeepers and central midfielders.

In the build-up, I don’t like that pass to the midfielder who has his back to the opponent’s goal. […] If the midfielder is free, he can pass the ball to him and use a center-back as a third man. They do that, in fact. But if the midfielder, in addition to having his back to the opponent’s goal, has an opponent pressing him, I don’t like that. That I forbid. I think it’s an unnecessary risk.

In fact, we put pressure on opponents who do it, and we steal balls that way. It’s just a centimeter ahead, and that’s it; it’s a chance to score. They already know that I don’t like that; maybe some new players don’t know that.

The goalkeeper knows that if he gives the ball to the midfielder with his back to the opponent’s goal, it’s because he’s completely alone, without pressure from behind. Emi Martinez tells us that in his club (Aston Villa), they give the ball to the midfielder if he’s under pressure and with his back to the rival goal because they use a third man. But I don’t like that, because if the defender who presses you steals it from you or he’s already prepared for that.

These are things that each coach has his way of understanding the game, and I want the players to know mine.

Aston Villa has since changed the way they orient their bodies to not have their back to the opponent’s goal.

Aston Villa use a double pivot when they build up from the back, and last season the two midfielders in that pivot would face the goal when the goalkeeper or center-backs had the ball. Their hips would face their own goal.

This season their double pivot try, whenever possible, to position their hips to face either sideline. They don’t want to have their back to the opponent.

Notice the difference between Figure 1.1 and Figure 2.1. The field feels more open in Figure 2.1 and more closed off in Figure 1.1.

The opponent can apply pressure, but if the ball is played to either player in the pivot in Figure 2.1, say Tielemans, he can get off a pass on his first touch to a winger, one of the forwards, or directly into Onana.

As the ball moves up the pitch, every player will orient their bodies to the side, facing the ball, and the sideline to open up that pass forward on their first touch. With each action, they only look forward because the timing of the runs off the ball depends on that pass forward.

If the ball doesn’t move forward either through a pass or a carry, they kick it long and start over.

If the timing gets thrown off even once, they will look to reset.

They orient facing the sideline, and then once they break past the opponent’s second line, every player will run facing towards the opponent’s goal, running at and quickly overwhelming the opponent’s last line of defense.

The diagonals naturally form because of how they are now orienting their bodies. When that pivot faces their own goal, closing off the pitch, these diagonals won’t form.

Everything is open, but most importantly, every attack will end in an attempt. Maybe not an attempt on the goal but an attempt to enter the box through the air or on the ground.

Match: Aston Villa 1-0 Bayern Munich, 2 October 2024

The stock market moves up and down every day. Traders use technical analysis to try to predict the direction of prices. There are hundreds of different methods or strategies that traders use to analyze price action. Some simply read candles, some draw trend lines, some use different indicators like an RSI, MACD, or Bollinger Bands, some use moving averages, and others shake a magic eight ball.

The one thing that remains the same for everyone is the underlying price. No matter if you are losing money or making money, wrong or right, if your strategy works or it doesn’t, the price remains the same for everyone.

To me, positionism and relationism change the way we look at football. That can be either for us, the fan or viewer, or the team on the field or manager. They are two different strategies.

You see different things, based off past experience, once you are made aware of either strategy, in the same way price action moves based off your technical analysis. The football and players are moving, whether or not you spot positional or relational principles.

We are trying to make sense of what we are seeing by finding patterns within an unpredictable game. We are humans after all; we want to be able to predict things to avoid being surprised.

If I do this, this will happen, so I’ll do this instead. If I move here, this will happen, so I’ll do that. Players look for patterns. The team creates a structure to create more of those patterns that work.

You will grow exhausted trying to assign a label to a team or manager because I think that you will find both principles of positionism and relationism in every game. Whether that be for smaller or longer periods of play.

Normally a team like Nottingham Forest would want the attacking team to play through the wide areas. This is assuming that Jack Hinshelwood and Georginio Rutter for Brighton stay near Carlos Baleba.

When Hinshelwood and Rutter move wide, Nottingham Forest don’t overreact, but it creates those two separate overloads on the wings.

Baleba is open for the pass, but the idea is to wait for the first opportunity to play through the wings. It is Brighton showing their hand to Nottingham Forest, daring them to follow them out wide to open up space in the middle, but they don’t follow them wide.

Because Nottingham Forest are marking Brighton zonally rather than man-to-man, they leave those overloads open on the wings. This creates situations like in Figure 1.2—moments where Brighton can quickly transition into the final third. Moments that Nottingham Forest can only react to; they don’t proactively try to stop it from happening.

This is another example showing the effectiveness of how teams can spread their midfield out to bypass a compact defense that is looking to clog the middle.

If a team is stubborn, this is a good way to get the ball past that compact center.

Match: Brighton 2-2 Nottingham Forest, 22 September 2024

Newcastle likes having those four forwards, compact, central. They will allow you to pass to the two players in the pivot, Manuel Akanji and Mateo Kovacic, but to get the ball into Newcastle’s half, you have to go through the wide areas.

In the second half, Manchester City made an adjustment and started moving Akanji and Kovacic out of the way so that İlkay Gündoğan could drop into that space.

When Gündoğan drops, the player that marks him is far away. He has tons of time and space once he drops, enough time to turn and play a ball forward or get off a cleaner pass out wide. It could also force one of Newcastle’s four forwards to come to demark from someone else to mark him, freeing another pass central.

Bayern Munich did this from the offset against Bayern Leverkusen. Same thing, Leverkusen wanted the central to be compact, but they tried to get in front of the two pivot players, Joshua Kimmich and Aleksandar Pavlovic.

When Kimmich and Pavlovic move wide and higher into the half-spaces, that opens the pass into Musiala, who is dropping into that space. His marker is tight, but they can’t block off the pass into Musiala’s feet.

This movement is an effective method to manipulate the man-marking scheme of a compact defense when in your own half, if you are using a double pivot.

Match: Newcastle 1-1 Manchester City and Bayern Munich 1-1 Bayern Leverkusen, 28 September 2024

In the few minutes he has played, Darwin Nunez has always positioned himself further back, dropping to occupy space ahead of Liverpool’s double pivot when Dominic Szoboszlai dropped to help progress the ball out of their own penalty area.

I do not see the benefit of having him drop back because it takes away from what he is good at, attacking in transition.

He will drag a defender back with him, but when Mohamed Salah receives, he only has Luis Diaz all the way on the far side as an immediate target in behind the opposition’s defense.

He is not particularly good at progressing play forward with his back to goal and a defender at his back. His decision-making and pass accuracy haven’t always been his strong suit if he were to beat his man on the turn.

If the run is timed well, he is a lethal weapon in transition to attack because he can beat the majority of defenders in a foot race. More lethal than any other center forward.

I would much rather see him always position himself in line with Salah to immediately turn in on goal. He doesn’t even need a run-up like most forwards would to beat the opposition’s defenders to the ball.

If you are playing against Liverpool and see Nunez drop, you know you can more tightly mark Salah because he likely won’t beat his man one-on-one anymore, but you have to be wary of the immediate pass back to play Salah through.

There are two extremes.

On one side, you have the teams conforming to the meta tactic. The team that is winning now, or a set of teams dominating the league, determines what the meta is. The quality of their players will determine how high the teams that are conforming will finish in the table, and for most, the quality will not be high enough to beat the teams that are determining what the meta is.

On the other side, you have a minority of teams experimenting. The black sheep. They think oppositely to the rest. That is, in my opinion, the only way to surprise people and to actually compete for titles as a team with lower-quality players. In the words of Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou, “I always win in my second season.” How does he win? He doesn’t follow the crowd.

Those experiments either fail spectacularly or they become unstoppable because the rest are only going to face that black sheep twice a season. The teams conforming to the meta have a plan to face other meta teams, but they need to create a specific tactic for the black sheep. They become harder to beat.

An elite manager, for me, is one who can play to both sides. Conform to the meta and reinvent their team’s play to be a black sheep. Surprise people; they must win matches, then win titles, and repeat.

We should want those that aren’t afraid to be different.

Because they are aligned on the diagonal, the opposition’s defense has to be wary of both the pass to Musiala and Kane. They can’t put their full focus on one or the other.

Then, when Michael Olise continues his run into the path of the diagonal, Jamal Musiala again has the option to play to either Olise on the run or Kane stationary, knowing Olise will be continuing his run beyond the opposition’s defense.

The beauty of Olise letting the ball run through his legs, dummying the ball, is that it locks those two defenders closest to him in place. They are stuck in confusion following the ball. They expected him to take that first touch, but he didn’t; he let it run through. Now they are stuck ball-watching while Olise continues his run.

Kane’s pass was played behind Olise’s run, so he had to cut back rather than shoot. When the opposition defenders closest to Olise recover, they overcommit to blocking the shot, and then it is as simple as rolling it back to Kane at the top of the box.

A lot of this is spontaneous from all three forwards, but these are natural actions for highly creative players. The key is aligning on that diagonal to allow for this to occur.

Match: Werder Bremen 0-5 Bayern Munich, 21 September 2024

Adam Bate for Sky Sports from an interview with Unai Emery:

[…] “When you are managing people, you have to try to get their heart, get their emotions, try to be close to them, supporting, helping, being demanding,” he explains.

In the past, that has even extended to buying books for his players to read. At Valencia, he went so far as to purchase two for everyone in the squad, each specific to them. He did not force it on his players. They were invited to visit his office if they were interested.

Some were not keen. Others were. Juan Mata would even return seeking fresh material. Speaking to Emery about the reasons for this, he explains that it was driven by his own experiences. “I wanted to do it because I improved a lot by reading books,” he says.

“When I was a player, I did not read. It was only when I finished as a player and I started to coach that I started reading books and I found it helped me a lot. I wanted to take advantage of that experience that I had by trying to help my players a little earlier.”

What sort of books? “Everything. Reading about football or about life can help them as a person and as a professional.” He has read biographies of Pep Guardiola and Marcelo Bielsa but also works by the late essayist Manuel Vazquez Montalban.

“I do it to balance myself, to get that balance in difficult moments. When you are playing competitively, you are winning, losing, winning, losing. How can you manage yourself through that, find the balance emotionally, with the supporters, with the media?”

Juan Mata wrote frequently on his personal blog so the fact that he was one of the players seeking out more reading material doesn’t surprise me.

Emotional balance is something that is not highlighted enough in football. The highs can’t be too high, and the lows can’t be too low.

If reading helps balance those emotions, then read, read, read, and read some more. I can understand why it helps because learning is a good distraction.

Manchester City put all of their forwards on the front line, with the defenders on the back line with Mateo Kovacic. Gvardiol was seen forward inside the box at times.

Wouldn’t you rather have the forwards who can score outside the box and cross, like Savinho, Gündoğan, Silva, and Doku, at the top of the box instead of the defenders?

Kyle Walker has not scored from outside the box since the 2020/21 season, Ruben Dias since 2021/22, and Manuel Akanji has never scored from outside the box. All three aren’t particularly good at creating either.

It is a recipe for side-to-side action, with the occasional wayward shot or hopeful cross to Erling Haaland, who was double-teamed in the box. Which is what we got.

Instead, I don’t think it’s that risky to sub off one defender for a forward or midfielder.

Move two defenders into the box with one defender, Gvardiol, staying back to help defend the counter. Keep the fast wingers like Grealish, Savinho, and Bernardo Silva back to act almost as fullbacks if there is a counterattack. Ruben Dias and Manuel Akanji wouldn’t be that far away to recover to defend against a sustained attack.

I think it would be a net positive having Jack Grealish, Ilkay Gündoğan, Phil Foden, Bernardo Silva, and Savinho at the top of the box being a threat rather than waiting and watching on the front line in a straight line, with three defenders either side of each player.

You could even have Erling Haaland drop back periodically to offer up a shot at the top and drag defenders out to create more space within the box.

John Stones scored the goal to tie the game in the 97th minute after all. That was from a set piece but it should work from open play too because Arsenal weren’t really trying to counter.

Match: Manchester City 2-2 Arsenal, 22 September 2024

Could you concede a goal? Everyone could concede a goal at any point in the game, whether you defend compact in your own half or in the opposition’s half.

This was my issue with Arsenal last season. This is what frustrated me when I watched them play. They had imposter syndrome. They are not inferior.

When it is April, with only a few games left in the season, when there is two to three days of rest and the team is tired, and you look at each draw or loss in a season, you will look back at this game and say, “We didn’t sacrifice anything.” They only played their way in moments last season in March, at the Etihad.

Leandro Trossard got a second yellow, red card. They had to defend deep in the second half to preserve the lead, but they were there to win the entire game.

As Pep Guardiola said before the match:

Is 0-0 ever a good result? Yeah, when you play shit.

Some will argue that defending deep, with eleven men in the box, helps you conserve energy. Players don’t chase the ball, they just wait for the opponent to gift the ball back. You can build a team to counterattack with fast wingers. That helps you last longer through a season. I respect this way of playing, but when you have the quality they have to suffocate opponents in their own half, I think it is a waste of talent.

That is the difference between a team that is invincible and a team that could be a title contender.

It wasn’t perfect or to the level they are cable of playing, but this game at the Etihad was the next phase of Arsenal’s project. They have the quality to beat anyone, in the same way they play at home. Whether it’s Wolves at home, Atalanta in the Champions League, or Manchester City at the Eithad; they have the quality to control every game, but it is up to them if they do.

Match: Manchester City 2-2 Arsenal, 22 September 2024

When you look at Manchester City’s structure in that last meeting, you’ll see a horseshoe shape on the perimeter of Arsenal’s defense. They surround them, but they don’t have avenues into the box. The middle is impenetrable.

They can maintain possession, but they will have to work the ball through the wings in the corners to get the ball into the box or be forced to take shots from outside the box. When they work the ball through corners, it becomes an aerial battle, and Arsenal will always win the aerial battles against Manchester City.

Rarely did you see three players align diagonally in that last match. Each set of two players in close proximity were isolated from the rest. They need that third or fourth player to break out of the smaller spaces.

If City were to focus more on aligning on the diagonal in the middle of the pitch, that would give them more options to deceive defenders. Those one-twos and dummied passes open up when three or more players align diagonally. You can see great examples of this concept in their match against Chelsea last season.

First, manipulate Arsenal’s structure by varying the positioning of City’s outside center-backs Manuel Akanji and Josko Gvardiol to help facilitate the organization of those diagonals.

I think both outside center-backs should remain ahead of Rodri if they can to put pressure on Arsenal’s fullbacks, allowing the wingers to move more freely towards the middle. If the wingers are responsible for pinning the fullbacks, they would have to remain out wide.

One center-back (Gvardiol) should invert slightly to pin an Arsenal outside midfielder inside, and the other center-back (Akanji) should move wider to pin the opposite side’s outside midfielder wide. That will open up space in the right half-space. If both center-backs remain wide simultaneously, that will open up space ahead of Arsenal’s second line, but space will close between their back line and second line.

They should vary who is inverted and who is wide randomly, not have it be based on where the ball is. If they were to, for example, have the far side outside center-back invert and the ball side center-back stay wide, then that would promote that side-to-side passing movement. We don’t want side-to-side; we want to move through the half-spaces.

Second, have Erling Haaland drop to allow someone to occupy the space at the top of City’s attack. Arsenal will double-team him the entire match, with one of either center-backs Gabriel or William Saliba coming out to man-mark him tightly. Haaland doesn’t get a lot of touches, but he has been used previously as a decoy to move either of those defenders, creating space for others.

If they can align diagonally in the center of the pitch, maintaining more adequate numbers to work the ball through Arsenal’s first line of defense, and if Haaland can drop back to the second line to drag a defender with him, that could create opportunities for them to attack that last line from the smaller pockets with Haaland running into the box, well off the ball, at speed.

The diagnoals are important when they break out also. If City gets an opportunity like this again, they need to take it. Haaland drags the defenders deep into Arsenal’s box by making a run into the box. Bernardo Silva plays that pass to Phil Foden; it drags a defender out, and then they have space to combine and work the ball into the box.

It shouldn’t be predictable, but when three players align, they should attempt to play through the diagonal. They should be looking for it first.

Work the ball quickly and if needed, horizontally like Bayern Munich, to open space in the middle.

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola in his pre-match press conference:

I am concerned how we can do better and create more chances when teams defend so, so deep. This is my dream. Teams that defend eight or nine players in the box, like Real Madrid and Inter Milan, and against Arsenal it’s going to happen.

This is every team’s dream when the opponent believes they have to defend deep. Arsenal don’t have to defend deep, they choose to. How to consistently break a low block down is one of modern football’s unsolved puzzles.

The two players in Figure 1.1 close in on the player dummying the ball. They think that player is going to take a touch, but they let it run through their legs to the center-forward. This creates confusion.

Then, in Figure 1.2, that player that dummies the ball can immediately peel off to look for the through ball into the box. The center-forward is ready to play that pass because this is practiced.

Aligning on that diagonal is a conscious choice. All three players will know where each other are, and that’s why they can execute this.

Even in a straight horizontal line, a dummy can be a powerful way to break into the box through a deep block.

The players marking the forward dummying the ball are ready for that first touch in that tight space. The defenders behind him, marking the forward receiving the ball, are not ready to engage the ball.

That deception buys the forward receiving a few seconds more time to play the ball through on their first touch, and the defenders marking the forward dummying the ball are frozen, stuck engaging the first touch as that forward surges into the box.

This also works to get the ball to the passer. The passer plays the ball, and then immediately moves. Pass and move.

Everyone tracks the forward dummying the ball; they are frozen. The defenders naturally gravitate towards the forward receiving the ball, and then the ball can be played through to the passer as they move into the box.

Then all three forwards can attack the box, with the passer either taking the shot or squaring the ball across the face of the box for the shot.

This is the power of aligning on the diagonal. It can open up angles for flicks and dummies out and through while in attack.

Dummying the ball is a powerful tool that is underutilized in today’s game due to the fact that these diagonals are not being consciously organized.

After Bayern Munich’s 9-3 win in the Champions League against Dinamo Zagreb:

I’d love to elaborate on the question. But it’s a simple job. I love working with the players; I try to improve them; I try to improve the team; I try to improve myself. It’s not really something I should answer. I could give you a deep answer, but it doesn’t really deserve it.

I’ll tell you something in a quick way just to prove a point. I was born in Brussels, my dad was a refugee who came from Congo. What are my chances of even playing in the Premier League, winning something as a player, and playing for the national team? The odds were 0.000 something. Now I’m a coach. Do you just stop believing in yourself and what you can achieve because of what other people say?

The mentality is to keep going, and in the end, if you fail, you fail; if you succeed, you succeed, but you can always become better. Online, you can always find stuff, so I really don’t take it personal. What am I supposed to do—stop because of what other people think? Let’s encourage people to succeed and break barriers.

That is nearly word for word what I said before the season started: “I’m confident that with experience, he should succeed, but if he doesn’t, that is football.” That is how someone with Kompany’s mentality operates. Don’t worry about the outcome; focus on the process.

I was never one of those skeptics, but you couldn’t go in blindly confident that it would work this well because football is an unpredictable game. As I said, Vincent Kompany “is a manager who should perform better with a higher quality squad. He has a special ability to extract the maximum from his players, with his team punching above their weight with the ball.” With the vast amount of talent Bayern Munich has, I think it is harder to lose than to win, but the manner in which they are playing is remarkable.

It is a small sample size, but after watching Bayern this season, you begin to question the effectiveness of the list of managers before him. They were never able to extract the full potential of the players.

My only worry was how inventive they would be and what solutions they’d come up with. Kompanh and his team have far exceeded my expectations in that department. If you go back and watch Burnley under Kompany, the season prior to this, they didn’t conform to the opponent; they always set out to try and play their way, to their detriment at times. When Bayern Munich play their way, they look unstoppable.

Running into an offside position is a powerful tactic for a forward. If the ball is played through, you have to remain behind the ball to be deemed onside. When the forwards run into an offside position, behind the Real Madrid defense, they are getting a jump start if the ball is played through.

When Deniz Undav and Chris Führich make that initial run offside behind Real Madrid’s defense, they move into the defender’s blind spot. The defender can’t track them visually. It can become confusing for Real Madrid’s defense to try to track each dummy run.

Then, the runner checks back to the ball, timing their run to arrive in an onside position just as the ball is played.

Pair that with a simple pass and move run from deep, and VfB Stuttgart could walk their way through the center of Real Madrid’s defense into their penalty box.

Because they are good at timing their checkback runs to get onside, it is hard to know which run to ignore.

Aurélien Tchouameni runs back to help Real Madrid’s defense when Deniz Undav is far offside. He was afraid of that ball in behind, but that creates space for VfB Stuttgart’s midfielders in the zone that Tchouameni vacated.

There were dozens and dozens of moments like this throughout the match, and it is the reason why VfB Stuttgart posed a threat in the first half.

Match: Real Madrid 3-1 VfB Stuttgart, 17 September 2024

When the opponent has the ball, Juventus will fall into this 4-1-4-1 defensive structure. Every time they lose the ball, if it is not immediately possible for them to regain possession, they’ll slowly reset into this formation. And then the front five will press the ball together, following their man.

Defensive midfielder Manuel Locatelli is seen more as a general, perusing behind. He will look for the weak points in their defense and fill the gaps, while one of either defenders, Gleison Bremer or Federcio Gatti, is free to follow players as they drop back towards the ball carrier.

When PSV played out from their own penalty area, Juventus would look to pressure the ball carrier to force them to play long. Locatelli would position himself to replace the midfielder’s marking assignment, and then Gatti would replace Locatelli.

The order in which Locatelli, Bremer, and Gatti stepped out or fell back was not predetermined. Each player naturally filled space. For example, if Bremer jumped forward to track a PSV forward back, Locatelli would position himself closer to the back line, and Gatti would shift over to the left to fill the space Bremer vacated.

I’m sure there was vocal communication between the three defenders, but all three seemed to be reading each other’s minds. If you were a PSV forward or midfielder, I would have to imagine it would be very hard to know who was going to follow you back when you dropped.

Juventus’ forwards would press in the wide areas, but that pass to the next line was always marked off.

There was this illusion that you could walk into Juventus’ penalty box. They allowed the PSV wingers to walk into the final third and then would apply just enough pressure to not allow them to advance into the box. But once you got into their half, the attackers had little to no options other than to attempt a cross into the box.

Often times there was no safe pass forward for the defenders. The goal was to make the opposition kick it long, and then all Juventus has to do is win the aerial duel.

This is where the patience comes into play because they know that if they maintain their shape and track runners dropping back in the center, they’ll win the ball in the air once it is kicked long.

This is an example of Juventus overcommitting to the ball, leaving a man free on the far side. They rarely did this, and if they did, it was by accident, usually only happening after a turnover in their own half.

If you see Juventus overcommit, you know you have them on the ropes or you have caught them off guard. Situations like this normally result in a shot at the top of the box, but forcing them into situations where they overcommit to one side of the pitch is the best way to get chances inside the box against them.

Match: Juventus 3-1 PSV, 17 September 2024

Alisson Becker when asked, “What do you think is the appropriate amount of football for a top player to be playing in a season?”:

Nobody asked the players what they think about adding more games, so maybe our opinion doesn’t matter. But everybody knows what we think about that, having more games. Everybody is tired of that (question).

I think this is not only a question that I should answer here. Okay, the number is thirty, or the number is forty, but it is a matter to sit down all together and listen to all the parts because we understand we have the side of the media, from TVs, we have the side from the UEFA, from the FIFA, from the Premier League, from the domestic competitions. We are not stupid; we understand that. We understand that people want games; people want more games, but the reasonable thing would be all the sides that I mentioned, all the people who are responsible for making the calendar, organizing the calendar, to sit together and listen to all the parts, including the players.

Manuel Akanji:

It’s getting more complicated. It’s just got bigger—more games. It was six Champions League group games; it can go to ten (in the league phase). If you’re going to do this, you need to take some games away; you can’t just keep adding game after game and assume everything will be like it was.

You have to think about players. When games get tougher, you want to put out your best team. At some point you’ll be too tired to play any more games. Then come injuries, definitely. We train as hard as possible, and we’re fit—but there has to be a limit.

We have the Club World Cup at the end of this season—it’s just game after game, and I don’t know how it will work out over the next couple of years.

Let’s say we win the Premier League or FA Cup, then go to the final of the Club World Cup; the Community Shield is three weeks after. So when do we have holidays?

There are no breaks in winter. If we’re lucky, we’ll get two weeks, and then we need to be back and into next season.

Then the next summer it’s the World Cup, and then there’s another Club World Cup the following summer. Maybe I’ll retire at 30!

Many managers and players have spoken out recently, but more need to speak out together, including us fans.

I can’t sit here and talk about matches without highlighting this. This affects the game more than any tactic.

It is hard to enjoy the matches knowing how tired the players are. You can see it on their faces and in their body language. The human body reaches a limit.

We want to see players on a level playing field performing at their best. There needs to be a better balance met by those creating the schedule.

Tottenham’s midfielders normally crowd in the center of the pitch or around the ball on either wing. This post shows examples of their normal positioning. For that reason, it was jarring to see this approach against Arsenal, with either midfielder spread apart.

Jorginho was tasked with marking Dejan Kulusevski, and Thomas Partey marked James Maddison. If Partey moved to the center of the pitch between Arsenal’s center backs, Arsenal’s right wing, made up of Bukayo Saka or Ben White, then shared the responsibility to mark Maddison.

Tottenham knew they would manmark both midfielders tightly; they purposely spread them apart to create space centrally.

Tottenham midfielder Rodrigo Bentancur could sit in that space, but the space wasn’t really meant for the midfielders. It was a space for left-winger Hueng-Min Son, left-back Destiny Udogie, or right-back Pedro Porro to drift into or attack. The fullbacks normally like to invert and then attack inside of the midfielders through into the channels forward, all the way up to the front line. This added space created a cleaner pocket for them to receive the ball, one-on-two with the wingers running towards Arsenal’s fullbacks, rather than one-on-three with Jorginho or Partey helping.

The second reason behind why creating that space was smart was that it further pushed Arsenal back into their own end. When Arsenal play away from home, they have a tendency to defend deep, sit back, to counter. It’s an effective strategy.

To counter that, Tottenham spread the midfielders apart; that somewhat weakened that potential counter from Arsenal. They didn’t stop it; Arsenal had plenty of chances in transition, but they weakened their ability to maintain possession after transitioning to attack.

Havertz, Trossard, Martinelli, and Saka were all ready for the counter, but that space meant that it would take time for Jorginho and Partey to get into position to help circulate the ball if the initial attack into Tottenham’s half failed. It rarely failed (didn’t end in a shot), but if it did, Arsenal would be more likely to surrender possession.

It is a monumentally difficult task to beat this current version of Arsenal, but Tottenham’s problem overall was that technically they were well below par. Their passing wasn’t sharp, nor was their touch. If you can look past their deficiencies on the day, you’ll see a strategy that a more technically proficient team could execute that tactic against Arsenal, and they might see a different, more positive result.

Match: Tottenham 0-1 Arsenal, 15 September 2024

When goalkeeper Robert Sanchez or left center-back Levi Colwill had the ball, Justin Kluivert would cover shadow Moises Caicedo. The obvious goal would be to force the ball to the right side of the pitch. The left side was fairly congested.

When the ball was played forward down the right wing, Bournemouth would immediately push into the back of Cole Palmer and Noni Madueke to not allow them to turn out into the other half with the ball.

Justin Kluivert would follow the ball out wide, and someone else would then shift to cover shadowing Moises Caicedo to not allow the ball to be played centrally from Palmer or Madueke to Caicedo.

Bournemouth would hand off their marking assignments to one another, depending on where the ball was, to maintain a curved structure ahead of the ball, forcing the ball backwards even if Cole Palmer was given time and space on the ball to turn and find the pass out to Noni Madueke.

Like Moises Caicedo, the goal was also to block off the pass centrally into Nicolas Jackson’s feet. For example, in Figure 2.1, Justin Kluivert presses wide and then switches marking assignments with Marcus Tavernier to cover shadow Moises Caicedo. That then allowed Kluivert to move to mark the space Nicolas Jackson would attack.

This was one of the smart ways they escaped this pressure. Cole Palmer positioned himself to the outside of Noni Madueke. That would force Lewis Cook, who was marking Palmer, and left-back Milos Kerkez, who was marking Madueke, to switch marking assignments. When they switched marking assignments, that would create enough space for Noni Madueke to turn infield, to the inside of Cook.

This pressure was applied to both sides of the pitch, and it did not let up until midfielders Ryan Christie (18th minute) and Lewis Cook (35th minute) received a yellow card. Once they received their yellows, they could not go into challenges in the way that was needed to stop Chelsea from turning when they received the ball facing their own goal. They had to let off because of that, plus Bournemouth grew tired. They didn’t maintain that same high level of pressure for the full 90 minutes.

Chelsea’s forwards, especially Nicolas Jackson and Cole Palmer, seemed uncomfortable when they had to deal with the physicality Bournemouth applied to them when they received the ball facing their own goal. Part of this is due to the speed at which Bournemouth’s defenders were moving. They perfectly timed their movement to be tight and, more importantly, in motion when their opponent took their first touch. They never sat still, flatfooted. It was always first touch, immediate pressure in motion, react, and then possibly draw a foul.

Match: Bournemouth 0-1 Chelsea, 14 September 2024

His full answer when asked by Gary Lineker on The Rest Is Football podcast, “What kind of coach are you? Are you more Wenger, or more Guardiola, or even Mourinho?”:

I will try to be a bit of both. I always talk about timing, about spaces, about the right moments when to appear and when to go. It depends if, let’s say, the fullback goes a little bit more inside, the winger goes a little bit more outside, to give width. At least one player to give the width on the pitch, etc. etc.

But I like structure at the same time because I think that if the team is well structured and set on the pitch, then everyone will better understand what to do at each time of the game.

I try to be as flexible as possible because nowadays football is changing, and I feel that […] before, players didn’t need to be told that much what to do. I feel that now, every single player needs to be told what to do, or either way, they are lost on the pitch. That’s my feeling.

I think that’s an issue worth solving at the youth level. It comes from the culture they grow up in. It should be fixed for future generations because the margins, for a team or individual to differentiate themselves from the rest are getting smaller and smaller.

Players will always need some instructions or help in certain phases of play, but I don’t think players should need to be told what to do.

Cesc Fàbregas himself probably wouldn’t have reached his full potential as a player if he was told what to do as he was developing. The next Cesc Fàbregas is getting limited right now.

When asked, “How do you think that era is different to what we see now?”:

I think football develops usually in the ways of the minutia and the detail. The sport science, the prep, the game prep, the organization, the tactical side of things. It just keeps edging forward. It’s not radical shifts all the time. It just shifts slightly.

Stats slightly change. Distance covered doesn’t change as much as people think, but high intensity changes, and high speed running changes, and skin folds of players, the way they look, the way they take care of themselves.

Off the pitch has obviously radically changed, certainly from 2001 with social media and what they have to deal with. The stresses, the strains, the anxieties that come with all of that, so that’s changed off the pitch.

On the pitch, it doesn’t change as much as you think. It’s not radical shifts; it’s usually details and technical details, tactical details. That kind of thing and the physicality just change and shift slightly.

I think the level of the quality of the players is so much higher now than it once was because of the gradual changes in the details that Sean Dyche mentioned. The floor has risen.

It feels like there is less separating the top players on the highest of wages from the middle tier. That may be why we feel like there are fewer stars. The quality of the middle-table teams is higher. It is way harder to differentiate yourself because everything is optimized and the game is played at a higher intensity.

It has become more of a battle to see who is the most athletic and clinical player that can execute actions.

Michael Cox on “Has the impact of analytics on modern football been overstated?” for The Athletic:

In stark contrast, the story of the analytics movement in cricket — more or less Britain’s version of baseball — is genuinely revelatory. Hitting Against The Spin, by Nathan Leamon and Ben Jones, challenges long-held assumptions and actually prescribes playing in an unorthodox fashion. In keeping with its title, but going against what most cricketers were taught, they show that hitting ‘against’ the spin is more effective than hitting ‘with’ the spin, and they show that while the ‘good-length, good-line ball from a leg-spinner’ is the rarest type of delivery in Test cricket, it is statistically the most effective.

Cricketers will read it and genuinely change how they play. That sport, like baseball, is simpler and easier to quantify than football. But it’s nevertheless a little underwhelming to read groundbreaking statistical analysis of other sports, return to football and find that the main conclusion is that more shots go in from 10 yards than from 20 yards.

So far, it seems fair to say that data has ‘changed football’ in the same way Google reviews have ‘changed restaurants’, considering almost everyone, when planning a meal out in an unfamiliar location, will check online reviews before making their decision. If there is relevant data out there, with a decent sample size, you’ll use it — and you probably won’t go for a 3.1-rated pizza restaurant over a 4.5.

I would have to imagine that for most fans, the reason they watch is to see people perform actions that they could not perform themselves. The unexpected.

Long-range shots, at the speed of a train, are one of the main things that even an above-average player could not do. We miss them, but they are not optimal.

The goal was always to score and win, but how we scored changed. There has never been more talent in football but the way in which they are trained, think, and play is different.

Before, players didn’t fully know what to expect; they had to find the solution. The players that could find the solutions stood out more because, without them, you simply wouldn’t score.

Teams before created an environment for their thinkers to find the solution. An individual shined in moments.

Now that we know how to use data, we know what to expect and we know what works. We can assign a value to each action; therefore, we know the likely outcome.

Teams now create an environment for the players to execute a plan. The entire group of players shines together.

You don’t come to a game to watch a specific player anymore; you come to a game to watch the entire team because the team executes the plan. You don’t judge a player off how they look, you judge their stats. Can you execute or not? If you wanted to stand out before, you had to perform the spectacular. If you want to stand out now, you have to make a mistake.

The unfortunate truth is that teams were never there to entertain; they were there to win. Those that say they want to entertain don’t see football as a business, which is a good thing because we want to be surprised.

The problem is not that we use data more and more; it is how we use it. If we use it to empower players to find their own solutions then everyone wins, because they learn how to produce the unexpected. But we need those long shots back.

When the opposition doesn’t press the defenders, the game becomes a bit stale and predictable. Teams will then look to create movement within the half-spaces or middle of the pitch; they’ll rotate central or have wingers invert to open up space central.

There are two areas where the opposition allows there to be space: on the wings and at the back.

The natural move is to work the ball through the wings, where the space forward is, where the opponent wants you to move the ball.

The way in which the opposition presses Rico Lewis will be different from how they would press Trent Alexander-Arnold. Rico Lewis operates more like a pocket-playing midfielder, playing one-touch passes. Lewis’ marker would want to stay close to him. Trent normally likes to take at least one touch before playing the next pass. His marker wouldn’t need to mark him as close; they can mark Declan Rice closer because they’re anticipating that Trent won’t play a pass on his first touch.

The first potential option is to have both fullbacks switch to the opposite side of the pitch. They can either move into the midfield (Rico Lewis), coordinating movement with the midfielders (Declan Rice moves back to cover out wide right), or do a straight swap of positions out wide (Trent Alexander-Arnold), with the midfielder ahead holding their position central (Jack Grealish).

When the fullbacks switch sides, the opposition midfielders on either side have to adjust their marking assignments, and how tightly they mark Rico Lewis and Trent Alexander-Arnold.

That could disrupt the pressing triggers for the opposition, opening space central.

The second potential option is to have one fullback hold position and have the other fullback switch to the opposite side of the pitch.

There’s space between Angel Gomes and the two center-backs for Trent Alexander-Arnold or Rico Lewis to switch sides at speed. One stays on their side while the other switches positions to the opposite side.

Declan Rice rotates back wide right to cover for Trent Alexander-Arnold as he switches to the left side of the pitch.

Now England can overload the left wing and work the ball through three diagonals while maintaining appropriate cover at the back.

Those are two options not often seen because most fullbacks from before were not capable of playing in midfield or on the opposite wing, but things are changing.

England interim manager Lee Carsley recently said:

Most fullbacks now were wingers; most center-backs can play central midfield.

And I would argue most fullbacks now can play in the midfield. I think their versatility might be underutilized because you rarely see them switch to the opposite wing, unlike the striker, wingers, or midfielders. Modern defenders are more versatile.

Switching sides might cause the attacking team to be more defensively vulnerable when they transition to defense because the fullbacks might not be used to defending on the opposite side of the pitch, but in games where the opposition is inferior, the risk to reward seems favorable for the attacking team.

I think this can create space in ways not normally seen.

Martin Rafelt speaking on The Byline (minute 3:15):

[…] He was really open, very interested. ‘Tell me about this, tell me about that. Okay, really really nice.’ And he wanted to get some ideas from us. He was like, ‘Guys, send me a page with just ideas that you have—what to do in professional football, what’s not being done. Just be creative, be crazy,’ like he specifically said the words ‘be crazy; it can be crazy, and send it to me.’

That made me think about how we discuss football online and how we watch football.

We aren’t employees at the club we are discussing. The suggestions we make won’t have an effect on how that team performs the next week. We won’t lose our job if we have a bad idea or a series of bad ideas. That is the risk for a member of their staff when they think far outside the box.

We have no pressure on us.

For those of us on the outside, why do we put down those that suggest new ideas that may seem “crazy”?

Why are we watching games and not looking for the more creative solutions to problems?

Every new tactical evolution stems from a “crazy” idea, but we have to wait till someone is crazy enough to try it in a match. We could be sitting here, rapid fire, creating those ideas today. Why aren’t we?

Bernardo Silva:

When players complain, people say that players shouldn’t complain about the lives they have. And they’re right because we are living a dream and doing what we do.

On the other hand, the schedule is completely crazy. We’ve just received the news that we only have one day off for the League Cup game.

We’ll probably play every three days for months. It’s been absolutely absurd.

In the Champions League, if you don’t qualify for the round of 16 you still have to play two more games.

It’s true that the squads are bigger, but I’m not going to say that it’s easy. It hasn’t been easy. I spend very little time with my family and friends. The amount of games we’re subjected to is absolutely absurd.

I think the players may and possibly should go on strike this season. It is the only way that we will see change, and Rodri has hinted that is an option players have discussed in the shadows.

Tactics is not just about the X’s and O’s on the pitch, movements, and structures. That is a part of the puzzle. In my opinion, fitness and mentality both have massive impacts on the tactic used from game to game.

Every team has to find their rhythm to maintain the confidence needed to win, and players don’t train.

The organizers are cannibalizing the game for short-term gains.

There were much more rotations at the back. Some would say too much, but we are used to England sitting still.

During Euro 2024, Phil Foden and Jude Bellingham would move, drop, and switch sides, but the base of the midfield, Declan Rice and Kobbie Mainoo, didn’t move without the team. Mainoo, or Connor Gallagher, would sometimes push further forward up the right half-space, but you’d rarely see him and Rice switching sides.

Southgate gave them some freedom; it wasn’t a super rigid system, but everyone stuck to their individual zones. He built a structure to beat most opponents and then plopped players into each position. That way he could change one player for the other with little changes to individual instructions.

Against Ireland, Lee Carsley’s plan seemed more geared towards maximizing each individual by giving them the freedom to make their own decisions on what position they felt most comfortable playing, with no restrictions on which zones they could or could not enter. They were given a role not a position.

Lee Carsley in an interview with TalkSport:

We try and not be too restrictive on playing in a certain position, it’s more the role and the responsibility in the area of the pitch they’re in. As opposed to seeing them in positions, have they got the profile and attributes (we want)?

[…] We might label players as ‘right back’, ‘central midfielder’, ‘defensive midfielder’, but there are actually lots of different types of these positions.

In Carsley’s post-match press conference, he mentioned that he studied tape of Ireland, and then translated his ideas for what structures:

I make a note before the game, shapes that the opposition might do. Obviously, with this job, we have a lot of thinking time. I’m constantly looking at if they change to a four, this is how we can build, if they change to a three, this is how we can build. […]

When we go into halftime, I try not to give the players too much information but to try and give them two three bullet points that are really going to affect the second half.

He can go; here is what the opponent is going to do; you all are the best players in England, some being the best in the world; here is my suggestion on the starting structures, but find your own solutions.

He isn’t restricted to specific profiles because there won’t be one or two formations. They’re constantly rotating, moving into their favored position for that moment.

And then you did see players, like Bukayo Saka, coming all the way over from the other side of the pitch to help overload the opposite wing. I wish Jack Grealish did that more often when the ball was on the right wing to help Trent Alexander-Arnold, Declan Rice, Kobbie Mainoo, and Bukayo Saka.

You could see the players adjusting the structure on their own depending on what Ireland were doing. They’d combine on a wing, Ireland would become compact, and then England would spread out on the wings.

Trent Alexander-Arnold and Declan Rice were taking turns playing in the midfield, and at right-back, Rice was making runs to the front line in the right half-space. It was completely unpredictable, but it all looked natural. Nothing was forced.

Jack Grealish does a good job floating in behind Ireland’s defensive line to the top of the box for the shot. He is a different player when he plays in the left half-space, more similar to that of the player we knew from his time at Aston Villa.

That free-flowing nature of their attack then naturally creates these wonderful one-twos, give and goes.

When players aren’t tethered to one zone, their instinct will be to get forward. And these players are experienced enough to know how to cover for each other. Allow Declan Rice to attack space, and he performs that one-two, gets played into the box, cut back, and Jack Grealish scores. This goal would never happen if you forced Rice to sit behind the rest of the midfield to the left of Mainoo.

The thing I liked the most is that when England went two nil up, they didn’t then gift the ball to the opposition and defend their lead for 75 minutes. They continued to attack.

I hope Lee Carsley stays on as the manager full time. He knows almost all of the players through his work managing the U20 and U21 teams since 2020, and I think his way of thinking better suits the talent at their disposal. He won’t limit their creativity. I feel like this team, with this system, would have performed better in the Euro’s.

Match: Ireland 0-2 England, 7 September 2024

Rodri writing in The Players’ Tribune:

When I had the chance to move to City the next summer, it was a dream for me. I had spoken to Sergio Busquets before I agreed to the move, and he told me, “Pep? He is going to make you a better player. But he is never, never, never going to stop pushing you. You will never be finished.”

Sergio had the same role with Pep, and he achieved so many great things, so I put a lot of trust in his words. And he was completely right. To me, the unique thing about Pep is that he is always one step ahead. He is always evolving before the game around him can evolve. He is never satisfied with keeping things exactly as we played last season, because your competition is always going to be analyzing last season. You don’t win four Premier League titles in a row by standing still. You either reinvent yourself or you die.

That is what gives Manchester City an edge over everyone else. By the time you fully analyze one strategy, he has already created a new one. Pep Guardiola is a tactical Whac-A-Mole.

In order to be the top team, you have to think the opposite of what everyone else is thinking.

Why think like those that are losing, especially those that are copying you? By the time they’ve copied you, you’ve already created a new system that beats that old system.

The key point though is that you can see it coming. This is where microanalysis comes in. They try one thing one game, and then another the next, and then they’ll go on a series of consecutive matches with one specific change.

The most obvious one: Josko Gvardiol was played as a high-advanced fullback on the left last season, operating almost as a left-winger in possession. Turns up for preseason this summer, now he’s a defensive fullback operating as a left center-back in a back-three in possession. He gets forward now, but not in the same way.

That experiment—a successful experiment—is now stored. It worked; Gvardiol is fully confident. Pair that with several other experiments, and you have a completely new system. They can flip between different trialed tactics whenever they want.

They’re constantly running those little experiments all season. You have to pay super close attention because the experiment could run for fifteen minutes, a full half, a full game, several games, or half a season. They try it, it works or fails, they continue using it, or then they move on, and they usually revisit it in a week, a month, a year, or several years.

An excerpt from the book “Best Loser Wins” by high-stakes stock trader Tom Hougaard, writing about his conversation with pro golfer Luke Donald:

Back in 2007 I was invited to the Wimbledon tennis final. My friend was a big name in the media industry, and none other than Ralph Lauren had invited her to the tennis final – with a guest. So, there I was in the VIP tent, and I got to sit next to Luke Donald, who at the time was one of the best golfers in the world.

He is a softly spoken man, and very polite. We got talking about Tiger Woods, and I asked him a pretty to-the-point question about competing with Tiger.

“Is Tiger Woods a better golfer than you?”

I found his answer so incredibly insightful that I never forgot it. He said:

“I don’t think Tiger is a better golfer than me, if you measure it in how well we putt, or how far we hit the ball, but Tiger Woods does have an amazing ability to forget his mistakes and move on.

For example, we can be on the 15th and both make a bad putt. By the time we get to tee up on the 16th, it is as if Tiger has wiped his mind of whatever happened on the 15th, and he is totally in the moment.”

I, on the other hand, will still deal with the mistake I made on the 15th, and it will affect my performance on the 16th.”

The fear of making a mistake is the worst. No one wants to fail.

When I write, I can’t care if anyone will read it because that will discourage me from writing about specific topics that “don’t do well.” That is me not fearing failure, not fearing the fact that no one will read this. You are reading this; thank you. Obviously you want people to read what you write, but if no one reads it, I’ll just go write the next post.

Mesut Özil is the first player that comes to mind when I think of fear of failure, but only for one specific part of his game. He was one of the best passers you’ll ever see, tons of risk, but he would never shoot. If there was a ten percent chance of a pass being available, even though the goal was wide open, he’d pass. It was infuriating to watch.

I think he was more of a failure when he didn’t take the chance to shoot, not when he missed. When he shot, at least he took the risk, and if he missed, that is fine. Go again for the next shot.

We should applaud those that take risks.

Excerpt from the book “The Pep Revolution” by Martí Perarnau:

I chat to Pep by phone on the morning Juanma starts (for obvious reasons dinner isn’t possible). ‘I felt it was really important to bring Juanma in. I need intellectual challenge and Juanma will provide that. I thought about it over the last few months and I think it’s definitely the right decision although not necessarily the easiest option from my point of view. A more conventional assistant would make my life easier but I think I need someone who’s going to challenge me more. I think I can improve, do much more as a coach but, in order to do that, I need someone who’s going to pressure me, who knows more than I do and who’s willing to challenge me. Do you see what I mean?’

Obviously I completely understand what he means but he seems keen to explain it again: ‘Juanma has so much expertise. He sees things in football that nobody else does. He has a lot of experience and will know exactly how to challenge me. “It’s very possible that we’ll disagree regularly and even end up fighting. But he’ll insist that I check everything I do every day and will question if it’s the right thing to do. It’s the intellectual challenge I need. I don’t want people agreeing with me all the time. I want people around me who’ll tell me that I should be doing things differently. And Juanma is perfect for that. I’ve thought about it long and hard at home. If I’d wanted to make things easy for myself I’d have picked someone else but I’m not here to take things easy. I’m here to work hard and keep getting better.

‘I’m completely serious about needing intellectual challenge. I want to do everything better, be a better coach, take one more step on the ladder. And I really think that Juanma’s the man to help me do that. It won’t be easy but it’s exactly what I need.”

You will remember Juanma Lillo from this post “Football is finished”, where he argues against managers like Pep who have a lot of control and influence over where each player moves, how they move, who they pass to, and where they can’t move. Juanma Lillo seems to clearly disagree with this approach.

Therefore, when you bring him in, it is no surprise why last season we saw more positional rotations, more emphasis on the diagonals, and then this season we’re seeing players being given more and more freedom.

But think about it. Arguably the best coach and the best manager in the world wants to continue to improve. He is not content with simply winning; he never stops learning. He is the best right now, but he has that mindset that someone is hungrier.

Why are we content if he is not?

Speaking in February 2024, as current manager of Bologna, at the University of Bologna for the ‘All About Soccer’ conference (translation from Italian courtesy of Juani Jimena):

Yes, I find it difficult to define myself as one thing or another, positional or relational. I think that our current game is a mixture of positional and relational football because, in the end, it changes.

For example, we played games against Lazio, which is a team that defends a lot in zone. But also because of the characteristics of our team, of our players, and of the guys we have at our disposal today, we think that we have to respect and have an organization in terms of roles and positioning on the pitch.

What we can take advantage of by observing the opposing teams is to look for spaces where it is very difficult for the opposing teams to defend.

The next game, in Bergamo, we will face a team that individually is a very strong team that does not let the opponent play, and in that case it is not enough just to have positions. We will need the relationship between our players and also to have this intuition on the pitch. Respect between them to be able to relate, play together, and respect our organization because it is very important, especially when we defend, also when we attack, when we have consolidated possession, or when we are a compact team and we have to defend.

Then there are the transitions that are a little more difficult to control. Luckily, today we are doing very well. Also, taking into account the last game, we are doing very well in the transitions. But in the possession and non-possession phase, against a team like Atalanta, for example, we have to be good at moving, respecting each other, looking at each other, communicating.

Malmö manager Henrik Rydström said something similar recently.

Even though this is an older interview, I’d have to imagine Thiago Motta applies the same thinking when he manages Juventus game in and game out. Not every game is the same; he adapts to the opponent to take advantage of their weaknesses. He doesn’t blindly follow a game model if it will hinder the objective, to win.

Winning is the most powerful tool for those that want to move away from copy and paste positional football. No one cares unless you win.

Teams that are candidates to apply relational principles to their play are ones that have versatile players who can play two or more different positions. Those teams are chameleons; they can adapt to any formation, any movement. Maximum unpredictability.

Speaking on Clank! (Translation by Juani Jimena):

For example, I don’t like midfielders receiving the ball with their backs to the opponent’s goal. It’s something I talk about a lot with the goalkeepers and central midfielders.

In the build-up, I don’t like that pass to the midfielder who has his back to the opponent’s goal. […] If the midfielder is free, he can pass the ball to him and use a center-back as a third man. They do that, in fact. But if the midfielder, in addition to having his back to the opponent’s goal, has an opponent pressing him, I don’t like that. That I forbid. I think it’s an unnecessary risk.

In fact, we put pressure on opponents who do it, and we steal balls that way. It’s just a centimeter ahead, and that’s it; it’s a chance to score. They already know that I don’t like that; maybe some new players don’t know that.

The goalkeeper knows that if he gives the ball to the midfielder with his back to the opponent’s goal, it’s because he’s completely alone, without pressure from behind. Emi Martinez tells us that in his club (Aston Villa), they give the ball to the midfielder if he’s under pressure and with his back to the rival goal because they use a third man. But I don’t like that, because if the defender who presses you steals it from you or he’s already prepared for that.

These are things that each coach has his way of understanding the game, and I want the players to know mine.

Aston Villa has since changed the way they orient their bodies to not have their back to the opponent’s goal.

Against Real Valladolid, Raphinha played as an inside forward from the left, pushing closer to Robert Lewandowski, and Dani Olmo was drifting back and forth behind Raphinha and Lewandowski, but he would often end up on the far side, attacking the back post.

Teams normally instruct their players to curve their runs to arrive into certain spaces when the ball is played into the box, but these three Barcelona players were making a conscious effort to not only arrive into certain spaces but also maintain a specific distance between each other.

That gray line in Figure 1.1 is the run a player would normally make if they were in Dani Olmo’s position. Robert Lewandowski attacks the near post, and then Olmo comes in behind him to the penalty spot for the pass once Raphinha receives the ball.

But Dani Olmo curves his run to the outside, even though he is unmarked. It’s deliberate movement to remain equidistant to Lewandowski, with Raphinha holding his run to remain equidistant. All three work in tandem. Dani Olmo attacks the far post at an angle in towards the goal.

As Real Valladolid collapse on the ball, if they are outnumbered, it is impossible for them to mark all three players at once. You have to pay close attention to the run on the far post because it is wider than normal.

Match: Barcelona 7-0 Real Valladolid, 31 August 2024

Arne Slot when asked if Liverpool had a game plan on how to press Manchester United, when United were building up from the back in an interview post-match with Sky Sports:

There’s not a specific game plan (when defending against Manchester United’s) buildup from the back. We always want to press the opponent high; that’s what Jurgen (Klopp) did (last season; that’s what we tried to continue. The game plan was more when we had the ball, where normally in the last two games, Dominic (Szoboszlai) played more from the right; today we played him from the left. But without the ball, we always tried to press as high as we can, and we scored, I think, a few goals from the high press.

Every thought they have relates back to their attack. Classic school of Johan Cruyff mentality, aggressive in all phases of play on and off the pitch.

Having Dominic Szoboszlai on the left accomplishes several things.

Ryan Gravenberch normally plays on the right behind Szoboszlai. Having Szoboszlai on the left means that Gravenberch had a natural avenue forward to help press their right. Gravenberch didn’t have to fully commit to press either.

That means Szoboszlai can target Kobbie Mainoo more aggressively, as he is United’s best midfielder; he could even make a case to say he is their best player on the day. Casemiro was the weak link in Manchester United’s buildup. Casemiro normally plays on the right, but he drifted ahead of Mainoo in the buildup.

When Casemiro moved forward, Gravenberch could attack him from behind. Or when Joshua Zirkzee dropped from center-forward, Gravenberch could follow him. Gravenberch had the out ball covered and was applying pressure to Mainoo when he moved to United’s left.

All the pressure is on United’s left side to work the ball out from the back because Szoboszlai, Diogo Jota, and Luis Diaz overload their right. Diogo Dalot can’t bomb forward to overload right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold or invert into the midfield as often because he has to move wide to help Lisandro Martinez on United’s left.

Their fullbacks, nine out of ten times they are really high, and then Casemiro comes in between, so if you pick the ball, if you can keep (Luis Diaz) and (Mohamed Salah) high, then you’re constantly in a one-v-one situation. And then you need midfielders that can run, and we had three of them today that kept on running, and if they arrive in a duel, that they are aggressive enough to win it. That was, I think, one of the main reasons why we could win today.

Having Szoboszlai on the left means that their main attacking target, Mohamed Salah, was always more free on the far side, the right side of the attack. I’d take Lisandro Martinez one-v-one versus Mohamed Salah nine times out of ten, any day of the week.

Diogo Jota was dropping off from a center-forward position, moving behind Dominic Szoboszlai, allowing Szoboszlai to run through between Salah and Diaz to pressure the man with the ball, whether that be a center-back or midfielder.

If the ball was passed forward, they wanted someone in the back of that player to win a duel and then spring an attack. If the man receiving was facing United’s goal Dominic Szoboszlai, Ryan Gravenberch, Alexis Mac Alister, or a defender moved full speed towards the ball carrier as the ball was passed forward. If they were facing upfield one of the forwards could come from behind with the team collapsing on the ball from all sides.

All four of Liverpool’s goals (including the one that was disallowed for offsided) resulted from a turnover; three from duels won and one from a passing error by Casemiro in Manchester United’s half of the field.

Because of how aggressively United position themselves, Kobbie Mainoo is more likely to try to get forward. When Szoboszlai wins the ball, he can turn and then play towards Salah’s side to play him through.

Arne Slot on Manchester United’s change to a 4-4-2 this season:

I see them, in my opinion, working harder if the ball is being played through them. So they run more.

We all remember the massive space Liverpool created last season at Old Trafford. Making them run, tiring them, is key to dominating them.

If you get past their first and second line, they’re running and running and running the entire match. Like a Basketball game, a constant game of many transitions with massive amounts of space. Liverpool can stretch the pitch wider than they normally would with the fullbacks spread wider, to take advantage of United’s two front lines pushed high up the pitch and their defensive line far back in their own end.

All of that defensive organization from Liverpool comes together because of the plan they laid out in attack. Defend to attack. It’s as simple as marking the closet man and pressing when the ball is played forward to United’s midfield. The emphasis on the press is more on applying pressure to United’s midfield than the backline.

Match: Manchester United 0-3 Liverpool, 1 September 2024

Kai Havertz, Bukayo Saka, and Martin Ødegaard don’t offer enough pace to threaten a run in-behind Brighton’s high defensive line.

They can attempt a run, but the timing of the runs isn’t in sync with each pass. Say for example Kai Havertz; he is pealing off into space as Declan Rice receives the ball. By the time Rice takes his first touch, Havertz is still holding his run to stay onside.

Bukayo Saka is ready for a pass in-behind, but if the pass were to be played over the top, it would be him versus three or more other defenders because neither Kai Havertz nor Martin Ødegaard are ready to help.

Based on the way those ahead of the ball are making their runs forward and the timing at which they make the runs, it seems that the goal is to pin the opposition back into their own box so that Arsenal can pick away at them.

Those runs create space for the man receiving the ball. Make the run before the ball is played; push a defender back, creating space behind the run.

But every time Arsenal would work the ball close to Brighton’s box, they’d work the ball back, and then Brighton would step out, back into that higher line, and Arsenal would have to reset again.

The game was stuck, and the only way they could break the tension was to wait for Brighton to make a mistake, because they only need one. Lewis Dunk finally made that one mistake in the 38th minute, Kai Havertz is played through, and there is the opening goal.

I’m not sure what the solution is right now, but Aston Villa defends in a similar manner, and they encounter the same challenges when attempting to attack against them.

Match: Arsenal 1-1 Brighton, 31 August 2024

Graham Potter speaking with Thomas Frank pitch-side in 2022:

We don’t really see the formation as the end goal. We see that actually how the team’s playing. The team needs to look consistent regardless of the formation. And then it’s about the personnel, about how you want to attack the opponent, how you want to defend against the opponent. Those are some of the other things we consider. Hopefully there’s things that look the same even though the shape changes.

Thomas Frank mentioned later in the conversation that in the “modern game”, at the top level, there is a lot of formation shifts.

The position of each player changes depending on where the ball is. To assign a telephone number like 4-3-3, 3-4-3, 5-2-3, 4-4-2, 3-1-6, and so on to a play oversimplifies things to the point that it almost becomes misleading or confusing.

I can take a snapshot of a play and then assign a series of numbers, but that doesn’t offer enough value. That is one single frame of a ninety minute match. One small change in position makes a massive difference.

I had to draw what Arne Slot was saying yesterday to understand what he meant when he mentioned an eight, a nine, and an eleven, and where each player was in relation to the other.

One second a player is a left-back, then a left midfielder, and then maybe a center midfielder, and then a left-winger, and then back to a left-back. Do you call that player a left-back, a left wing-back, or a left-midfielder? Does it matter?

Sure, there is a common theme like a sub-structure if the team is consistent, as Graham Potter mentions when he says “Hopefully there’s things that look the same even though the shape changes,” but the players are constantly moving elsewhere, dropping, pushing up, compressing, expanding.

It is like trying to assign a set of values to the water in a water balloon as it explodes. Sure, the location of this droplet is X in the first frame, but in the tenth frame the droplet is now Y. In the end it is a bit pointless because the movements are more fluid.

Out of possession structure is more predictable and consistent than in possession structure. Most teams defend in a 4-4-2, but that number 4-4-2 doesn’t describe how narrow the four midfield are, who is marking who, who triggers the press, and so on. There’s more details there to delve in to.

Mark Lievisse Adriaanse writing about Henrik Rydström and Malmö for NRC (translated to English from Dutch):

Rydström, says Moisander, “is not a dictator.” During the week, Malmö trains according to Rydström’s ideas, and mutual relationships are formed. “But before the match, he doesn’t give clear instructions that you shouldn’t do certain things or that you should do certain things.” During the match against Halmstads, it is noticeable that Rydström does not stand on the sidelines shouting for instructions. Sometimes he calls a player over to him to ask questions about the match and then to join in the conversation.

Many trainers have the “illusion of control,” says Rydström himself. They want to dictate exactly where players should stand. For Rydström, the principles of the game are “non-negotiable.” For example, to look for diagonal passes through the opponent’s lines. And by luring the opponent out of their normal positions with an ‘overload’ on one flank and then playing them over.

By keeping a single outfield player on the other flank, the game can also be shifted to an area where there is a lot of space. If the ball is lost in the crowd, he says, it is easier to win it back. But in the execution of these principles, players have a lot of freedom. The point, says Rydström, is to create a framework within which players have the space for their own creativity, expression, and initiative.

The first manager I think of when I read this is Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti. His way of approaching managing a game sounds similar. This is a style of play built for those that excel at man management. Putting players in an environment where they will excel on their own. Allowing them to find their own solutions.

There has to be a lot of trust that has to be built between the manager and the players because the onus is on those on the pitch. The players have to be confident in themselves to not be afraid to make mistakes when they take a risk without instructions.

It sounds great to me because it is unpredictable. Why wouldn’t you want your team to play like this if they could do it and win?

Some people prefer predictability. Eleven players perfectly choreographing movements on a pitch is beautiful.

Teams are afraid to lose because they need the money. They need to finish in the top four. They need to win silverware. Fanbases want easy wins; they want titles. Managers have to fulfill expectations.

The style only matters if you win, and Malmö win matches.

When things get tough during a match, players fall back into old positional patterns, Rydström says after the match against the stubborn, defensive Halmstads. Sometimes they even started playing the long ball. “Why?” he says in frustration. At the same time, he acknowledges, those larger spaces also made it harder for Halmstads to defend.

Fight or flight. The team reverts back to positional play because you don’t want to be surprised when you are under attack. You want everything to be predictable. You want to close your eyes and know where everyone else is on the pitch.

If everyone is in fight or flight, why wouldn’t you want to take advantage and go on the offensive by playing more unpredictably?

Arne Slot speaking with Sky Sports:

The idea of the fullbacks not being that wide, and it depends also what the press, what the other teams will give us. But if the fullbacks are all down the line and you play the fullback, then he is very far away from some other players. And it takes really long to get the ball over there, so if you are playing closer to each other, then the ball goes faster from one foot to another, and that gives less to the opponent to defend.

I think Trent (Alexander-Arnold) has been used in the past, and we will use him also during this season, a lot on the inside, but the way they (Ipswich Town) pressed was with nine, ten, and their (left-winger) went all the way to Ryan Gravenberch. And when we play to Trent, then the left midfielder, the number eight, stepped out towards him. Then it’s not a smart idea to play on the inside because then the distance is really short between the midfielder and Trent, so then it’s smarter to stay wider because then the distance for him to run is longer, create more time for Trent.

We did speak at halftime that he should be wider to make distance between the one who wanted to press him longer, which creates more time for him.

Another thing they changed was to have Dominic Szoboszlai rotate out wide more often to allow Trent Alexander-Arnold to move inside into the right half-space. Szoboszlai is an underrated defender in wide areas.

The narrowness of Liverpool is the greatest feature currently because of how quickly it allows them to move the ball from back to front on the ground. It is the most direct way to play without playing through the air. It squeezes the ball forward.

In this position defenders Nathan Ake, Manuel Akanji, or Josko Gvardiol would be receiving the ball on the left, not Kevin De Bruyne.

• With Nathan Ake, he would see the run, but the timing of the pass was usually off. Haaland would make the run, and the pass wouldn’t be played.
• Josko Gvardiol rarely attempted that pass due to his heavier touch, but he was the one most likely to receive it in that specific position on the pitch higher up, almost acting as a left-winger.
• Manuel Akanji never looked for that pass because he is right-footed; the angle a player would receive the ball on the left doesn’t suit a right-footed player to play a pass on their second touch.

Of all three, Nathan Ake was the most likely to find that key pass. Why sign Erling Haaland if you can’t play him in behind the opposition’s defense at full speed?

Not only can Kevin De Bruyne put the perfect amount of weight on that pass over the top to Erling Haaland, his timing is also perfect, making him a more reliable passer for Haaland. Every time Haaland makes a run, he’s almost guaranteed to be rewarded with the perfect pass in stride. Haaland can be more efficient with his energy use and can attack the run rather than tepidly signaling to Ake that he needs the pass.

Rotating wide left into this position on the pitch isn’t new for De Bruyne; he has done it before on dozens of occasions last season, but the higher frequency at which he rotates is new.

Pep Guardiola speaking about making tactical changes every season to ESPN Brazil:

It’s to avoid getting bored. If I did the same thing for eight years, I’d get bored, first of all. And second, when you do something that works, opponents watch and find an antidote.

If we go through the middle, they close it off. Too wide, they go wider. Anything and they react, we have to counter-react. And the players you have. What specific characteristics and how they adapt best to the way you play.

This system is more geared towards going wider, and it is a credit to the versatility of the team that they can shift like a chameleon. I see this as their secondary system. Their main system is geared more to their best players, who are specialists in smaller spaces, but the problem is that they haven’t been available. Without Rodri, it is hard to play through the middle, so this is a new solution.

Once you add Rodri, John Stones, and Phil Foden in with İlkay Gündoğan, Bernardo Silva, Jack Grealish, Jérémy Doku, and Mateo Kovacic, you’ll be playing through the middle.

And then what happens when Kyle Walker splits minutes with Rico Lewis? Walker won’t invert, that then probably means Josko Gvardiol plays that left-back to left-wing role he played last season. Alternatively, that could mean Rico Lewis inverts from the left.

There is always at least one experiment happening in this team. There are so many different options due to the versatility; your head could spin; you’ll never get bored.

That pass to Enzo Fernandez from Moises Caicedo is possible because he is closer to the passer, the goalkeeper, Robert Sanchez, than Caicedo is. They are staggered.

That allows Chelsea to play a positive pass forward within three passes. Two Wolves players are drawn towards Enzo and Caicedo central as they attempt to collapse on the ball. That opens space wide.

When Enzo and Caicedo aren’t staggered, they can’t pass between each other from the goalkeeper. One or the other would have to pass back to a center-back to play out to the wing.

That also allows the central Wolves players to anticipate the pass to the fullback and winger on the right, creating less space out wide while still remaining compact central.

It is predictable, and there is less space.

As the ball is played up the wing, the Wolves defender closest to Caicedo has to plant their feet and pivot their hips to engage the fullback out wide. That gives the fullback more time on the ball before they are forced to make their next pass.

Once the pass is played to the right-winger, Caicedo is then left unmarked behind Chelsea’s front line.

Compare that to when they pass up the right wing from a flat pivot that isn’t staggered; the space is much smaller. The Wolves defenders don’t have to work very hard to stay compact, closing off space centrally. Neither Caicedo nor Enzo can break free into space to offer themselves up for a pass.

That is the effect of two players staggering; now imagine the entire team moving unpredictably, staggering, and shifting positions to open space. Attacking midfielders switching sides. That is what Chelsea did against Wolves. They were less rigid, and I did not expect them to adapt their play to this so quickly.

Match: Wolves 2-6 Chelsea, 25 August 2024

When the opposition defense steps out to press or if they choose to defend in a midblock in settled play, Salah tends to position himself closer to the right half-space, with the center-forward pushing more towards the left wing.

The left winger and the center forward aren’t the target in transition, Salah is. More so than last season.

It almost feels like a track meet at times, with Salah waiting to spring forward beyond the opposition’s defense. It is telegraphed; they don’t hide it.

Liverpool can go straight over the top to Salah, but they also love those straight up and down, give-and-go passes, to play the ball through. The fullbacks Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andrew Robertson sit more narrow, meaning the ball almost gets squeezed through to the front line.

The two forwards on the left need to make up a lot of ground once that ball is played through because their starting position is closer to the left wing than the right wing. The main problem is that Salah doesn’t have the same pace as he once had; he can’t do it alone. Without pace on the left, they can’t take advantage of those easy-through balls. That is why Arne Slot’s teams must have fast forwards.

I think Darwin Nunez is going to thrive because having that amount of pace on the end of the second pass, after the through pass to Salah, will be a cheat code once they dial it in. He will be undroppable. Luis Diaz, Cody Gakpo, and Diogo Jota don’t bring that same level of explosiveness. They are more controlled.

Against a team that defends deep, Salah will play a more auxiliary role, with the two forwards on the left now pushed into the center, in the box. Once Salah receives the ball, Trent Alexander-Arnold automatically makes that underlapping run, and then they can cross.

In these types of games, they won’t need pace, and they will benefit from having forwards that offer more control, but they’ll still want pace because they are at their most dangerous in transition.

To get Salah into scoring position, he will need to go on a long one-touch pass-and-go journey across the top of the box. Or he can drift inside, pushing one of the midfielders outside.

Read the article on Between The Posts.

There were always at least two players out to mark Bukayo Saka every time he received the ball, but they marked him in an unorthodox way.

One defender would go out to challenge him from a distance, and then another would pull up behind the first defender. That second defender would move in line with the first defender. Those two defenders do three things.

Saka likes to receive and then drive forward at an angle. That second defender is key to stopping that run forward because, by positioning himself in line with the first defender, he stands directly in the path of Saka if he were to attempt to dribble forward immediately after receiving the ball, after passing and moving, or during a one-two.

It is like an invisible wall has been put up. It looks like he can attack that space because they are giving him space, but once he does, they collapse, and he has nowhere to go.

The second thing it does is that it somewhat neutralizes the overlapping and underlapping runs into that zone on the edge or inside the box, where White, Saka, and Ødegaard like to cross from.

A third defender joins, and then those three defenders divide the wing into three parts. If one of White, Saka, Ødegaard, or someone else attempts to make a run behind into that zone, one of those defenders can track their run. But they don’t have to immediately move to track them. They let them make the run and tried to draw them offside with the rest of the defense.

The third thing this does is that it cuts off the pass to center-forward Kai Havertz when he comes over to help.

If any of those players breaks past those three defenders and they don’t trigger an offside, all three defenders and the left center-back can collapse on the ball, Their position further away from Saka, divided into those two or three separate sections, allows them to quickly collapse and constrict the play until they win back the ball, force Arsenal into a rushed cross that may go out for a corner, or force them back.

It wasn’t until the second half, when that second defender wasn’t as disciplined in positioning in line with the first defender, allowing Havertz to sneak in or Saka to make a run into that zone from his favored angle, that Arsenal began to create their usual meaningful chances, which ultimately led to goals.

Match: Aston Villa 0-2 Arsenal, 24 August 2024

Guillaume Van de Wege writing for UtdDistrict:

As intensity ramps up throughout the preparation phase, volume starts to decrease in anticipation of the first competitive games. Around the start of the competition phase, a complete cross-over occurs, where intensity is the primary factor between the two. Until the winter break (or end of the season, for some leagues), teams now enter a phase where they maintain the fitness built up throughout the preparation phase.

That crossover point is, however, not insignificant.

It was during that crossover window in August and September of 2023 that Manchester United sustained their first significant muscular injuries.

I would recommend reading the full post because Guillaume goes into great detail, and that same analysis translates to the other teams that are attempting to train under similar circumstances.

Anyone who has played some form of organized football can have an appreciation for how professional footballers have to prepare, but it is another thing to see the details of the planning.

Speaking on The Obi One Podcast:

Modern football speaks about build up from the back. You build up from the back if you have a space to build up. If you have the quality of the defenders and all the goalkeeper. But when I see that a defender or goalkeeper are the players that touch much the ball than the other, I think that there is something wrong.

At Everton, we had a fantastic goalkeeper to (kick) the ball. (Jordan) Pickford was, long ball. Fantastic striker to catch the ball, (Dominic) Calvert-Lewin. Why, the defender, we are not so comfortable playing from the back. Why I have to play from the back? I have to give the ball to Pickford to put long ball for Calvert-Lewin, and to fight for the second ball. You have to adapt the style of play to the characteristics of the players.

Defending with the ball is one of the methods clubs use to kill a game, and I agree, it is unattractive. Ancelotti wants to attack immediately, which I appreciate because so do I, and he wins, which is the most important thing.

If you don’t win, no one cares. Hipsters care, but the laggards don’t.

All these clubs favor something that is safe, and usually boring, to win, but if you can find a method to win and be attractive, then you’ll be loved, and who doesn’t want to be universally loved?

Managers that are under tremendous pressure from the board and the fans don’t care if they are loved; I’m sure they want to win. If they win, they’ll be loved until they lose again.

The issue is that in football, the boring, predictable method where, if you close your eyes, you can perfectly predict what will happen is loved. Those managers are loved because they are consistent.

‘Forget being attractive; I don’t want heart palpitations every time I watch a match.’ That’s not how I feel, but everyone wants easy wins. ‘We spent all this money; I spent money on these tickets or the streaming package; score and then kill the game; stop entertaining me.’

If the ball was on the right, Sebastian Nanasi would run over to the right from the left wing. And vice versa on the left, with Hugo Bolin moving over from the right wing.

It is teams like Malmö that have an edge in the chaos because their game model is made to create unpredictability. That is what makes them unique and notable.

When you watch Malmö, you will not be able to close your eyes and predict where each player will be. That is why it is important to know each player, because if you don’t know the players, you won’t know they are moving out of their starting position.

They weren’t as sharp as they normally are on the day, and they didn’t deserve to concede that own goal, but they didn’t abandon using the principles of relational play. The freedom to roam, to create those overloads and diagonals, is key.

But it is interesting that regardless of what a team’s philosophy is, when they are under duress, as they were to start the game, they revert to staying in their positions or zones. It makes sense. Everyone wants something predictable, something stale, when they are being attacked. No one wants to be surprised.

When you are not feeling well, you want saltines, you don’t want a steak. You want something stale.

But when Malmö is stale, they perform below par, below the team they are facing, unlike positional teams that are used to being stale and predictable all game.

Match: Malmö 0-2 Sparta Prague, 21 August 2024

The distance between Brentford’s back line and front line is large. This stretched Crystal Palace out further than they normally would be positioned defensively.

That space tempts Crystal Palace’s defenders to move forward. Once they move forward, Brentford can spring in behind them, into Crystal Palace’s end.

The thing that makes Brentford unique is that the defenders, sometimes the fullbacks, and one midfielder will jog up the pitch as their forwards sprint forward and attempt to attack Crystal Palace’s penalty area quickly. This gap between the two groups of players widens as they get closer to the opposition’s goal.

Those four defenders and one midfielder, in their rest defense, have around ten to twenty yards of separation between them and the nearest Crystal Palace player once Palace win back the ball. Unless those Brentford defenders step forward, you can’t get behind them.

If Crystal Palace tries to match the separation Brentford creates by having their forwards and maybe a midfielder stay higher up the pitch, not sprinting back to defend, not only is their defense vulnerable, but the game can become quite stretched because of the large amount of space that is created in the midfield.

This large spacing from Brentford helps ward off counters against them, but it is the reason they can’t sustain an attack, nor do they want to.

They want to create that transitional moment, and then either get a shot off or lose the ball. They want to lose the ball to then create another transitional moment because you can’t counter if you have the ball.

This is why they perform better in games where the matchup is even or the opposition is considerably better than them. If they have qualitative superiority, they can’t counter because they have most of the possession, and they don’t have many solutions to defeat lesser opponents.

Match: Brentford 1-1 Crystal Palace, 18 August 2024

Read the article

Marco Lai, a match analyst for Cagaliari U20 and a writer, on his definition of the difference between synthesis and analysis:

The content we find on social media is often extremely rapid and accessible to all. It was created to capture attention in the shortest time possible and to be quickly consumed. This type of communication is, by definition, superficial. Football analysis videos on Instagram and TikTok rarely exceed one minute, and in that brief time span, it is impossible to provide a true analysis. What is offered is a synthesis—a reduced and simplified version of reality.

I like short-form content. I think there is a market for overviews. I also like simple explanations. I don’t think that because it is reduced or simplified, it is a worse explanation of what happened, but I agree that that short-form style can produce superficial content.

You could flip that, though, and say there is a market of people who can’t pick up on the obvious. Therefore, you would have to simplify it to help them understand, while still going into detail.

What is obvious? It is not made for people who know what to look for; those people are bored because they know most of the answers. The problem is, how do you know if everyone else knows?

Shorter-form content can also produce content that is harder to understand than it needs to be. My favorite descriptor for a player that I saw is “dynamic stretcher.” You can guess what that means. I don’t know specifically what that means, but you can guess.

If the majority has to ask the person what it means, and the audience is everyone, it is probably not a good description.

To appeal to both audiences, those with larger attention spans and those with shorter ones, I would rather go for micro-analysis. Dig deep and diagnose one concept, problem, or play. Try to get the maximum amount of detail out of one issue, and then move on to the next at a later date.

Stitch all those plays together, and you get the full picture.

Withholding all of those pieces and then stitching them together into one longer-form piece isn’t more impressive to me; it’s just longer. More words.

What is impressive is when someone can describe something in the easiest way possible so that anyone can understand.

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Waves of nostalgia roll over you as you browse their large collection of shirts. They match worn, issued and signed shirts plus other various memorabilia and boots.

This is something they did last season. Pep Guardiola mentioned that Phil Foden would be getting “some minutes” against Chelsea. He’s off the pace; he didn’t participate in preseason because the English players who played in the Euro’s were given rest.

To get up to speed, you don’t want to introduce him into the midfield to chase the ball, moving up and down the channels and switching to the other side of the pitch. That is a lot of running. You place him on the right wing and allow him to dictate when he ups the tempo. He’s better inside, in the middle of the pitch, but it is tiring in there.

Bernardo Silva and Phil Foden work as a tag team. One plays inside, does all the running, and when one gets tired, the other tags in.

This is one of the benefits of the pace at which Manchester City plays. They play slowly. If they played fast, they would need all ten outfield players to be active at all times. Because they play slowly, they can afford to have one player hold the width on the wing, not moving that much.

The next time Foden plays on the right wing, think of it as him taking a rest. It could be for a tactical reason, but maybe he is carrying an injury or is tired. It’s like having an extra sub.

Match: Chelsea 0-2 Manchester City, 18 August 2024

Arne Slot when asked what it was that they changed in the second half:

First thing I said was, ‘We don’t have to speak about tactics if you lose so many duels,’ and that’s what we did. That’s not (to say) Jarell (Quansah) lost every duel; many of us lost too many duels. I think we needed (Ibrahima) Konate to win these long balls through the air from the number nine. That gave us control.

That sounds like something Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta would say but it is true in almost any team.

Jarell Quansah did win duels, but oftentimes his positioning before contact was too lax. He has picked up the defensive traits of Virgil Van Dijk. Van Dijk positions himself passively away from the attacker, and then he uses his strength and speed to challenge the ball after the pass. Ibrahima Konate is much more physical and more aggressively positions himself with his man to make sure his body is on the back of his marker before the ball comes into play.

In that way, Van Dijk and Konate balance each other out. Van Dijk can sit back and sweep a large section of the defense, while Konate can be more aggressive to help eliminate the number of passing options forward. When Quansah matches Van Dijk’s passiveness, there’s more space for the opposition in front of the defense.

The moment Konate came on after the half, he started marking Ipswich Town’s central forwards aggressively, and it made a massive difference because they no longer had safe ways of getting the ball into Liverpool’s end.

That made it easier to win back the ball and control the game, as Slot said.

Match: Ipswich Town 0-2 Liverpool, 17 August 2024

Fulham were aggressive in the tackle because they had to be once they committed all those numbers to the ball. Not to say this can never work, but to make it work, you can’t drop the intensity of the press.

This was a risk, being that it was the first match of the season, and teams weren’t going to be fully ready to run for 90 minutes.

This season’s Bayern Munich would love to play against a team that plays like Fulham. Not the quality of the players, the positioning, because they would be stretched if the attacking team worked the ball horizontally up the pitch.

If Fulham can keep that intensity up, constantly look to switch play on the ground or through the air. Seven men can’t all chase the ball back and forth across the pitch.

Play one pass, and then those seven men have to file back into their own end and wait for the ball to come to them.

I didn’t like how slowly United were moving the ball across the pitch, when they trapped Fulham on the one side. It wasn’t until the second half that they realized how significant switching the play was to help stretch Fulham.

As the game wore on, that intensity dropped off. Bruno Fernandes breaks down the wing, switches to Joshua Zirkzee, and then he turns to play the ball to the right wing.

Fulham are vulnerable on the far side, and then United can attack the goal centrally with Zirkzee and Scott McTominay crashing the box. Goal, game won. United should have scored on at least two to three other occasions, but a win is a win.

Fulham aren’t the same yet without Joao Palhinha. When they become stretched, the gap to play through is between the center-backs.

Match: Manchester United 1-0 Fulham, 16 August 2024

The Times:

The offence of holding (ie blocking or obstructing) will be penalised more stringently in set pieces, when an attacker is trying to stop the movement of an opponent.

I agree with the change because corner kicks have become a bit ridiculous. It was free for all in the box, border-lining on wrestling. Depending on how stringent they are, this is a massive change.

If you can score from every corner, how do other teams compete? Teams work hard to score in open play, and you can just waltz up and bang one in from nothing. A set play run from the training ground with the player unimpeded kicking the ball. That is gamebreaking.

A major part of why those that are successful from set pieces are the holding, the screens. It looks more like basketball setting a pick and roll or a rugby line-out. Shielding the ball from the goalkeeper in the air was becoming more common.

This is the benefit of giving the player the freedom to find their own solution. Either through instruction or through experience playing together, Valverde instinctively knows that if Vinicius Jr. receives the ball here, he will drive to the byline.

There is an overload on the ball side; naturally, that means the far side will be unoccupied. The opponent will be drawn to the ball, and Valverde can arrive on their blind side.

A midfielder on another team would not make a near-35-yard run into the box. And it was perfectly timed.

Valverde showed a high level of intelligence to know where his teammates and the defenders would move, and it showed the strong relationship between Vinicius Jr. and Valverde to immediately find that pass.

Match: Real Madrid 2-0 Atalanta, 14 August 2024

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Fixture Analyzer*

Different players will perform better or worse, depending on how easy or difficult the fixture is. If the opposition defends deep, Manchester City will need someone like Rodri pulling the strings, or Liverpool will have Mohamed Salah stuck to the touchline.

If the game is more even, Tottenham might benefit because they need space to attack the box. Brentford is the most counterintuitive. They benefit the most against tougher teams because they generate a lot of chances on the counter.

Shout-out to FPL Blackbox who go into far more detail regarding this topic of who performs best against different strength opposition.

Arsenal and Liverpool are the clear targets out of the gate. I don’t buy into Manchester City’s numbers. They usually start seasons slowly, and they are without half their squad. The season starts for them against Arsenal at home, and Arsenal will have most of their main players up to speed by that point. Every game before that is a make-shift preseason game to get players like Phil Foden and Rodri, but both should get the majority of the minutes this season as they did last season.

Of note, Chelsea will be playing Conference League Qualification matches on Thursday between GW1 and GW2, then GW2 and GW3. It is hard to predict who will play, and if they rotate the lineup, then it should take them several weeks to get into a rhythm. The European competitions will start after GW4.

Crystal Palace is now without Michael Olise because he was sold and Jean-Philippe Mateta because he is coming back from the Olympics. Eberechi Eze didn’t have a full preseason. I am unsure how they will perform, but Jeffrey Schlupp, Odsonne Edouard, and Tyrick Mitchell have looked great in preseason.

Aston Villa and Manchester United are the biggest wildcards.

Aston Villa’s fixtures are tough, they will be playing in the Champions League, and Ollie Watkins hasn’t featured in any preseason matches. We’ll soon find out how important Douglas Luiz was to their chance creation and if Amadou Onana can replicate it.

Erik Ten Hag has his full focus on coaching and less on recruitment, how much will that benefit Manchester United? Their training intensity is higher than others, and I expect their players to be sharper in the in the short term.

Brighton are a fun team to watch, and I want them to succeed. I am unsure who will benefit within the team the most from their more fluid approach as compared to last season.

It is hard to bet against Arsenal when it comes to defending. They are a class above everyone else.

I do think Arne Slot will make Liverpool more defensively secure initially, but with the way they build up short, it’s new. They may be prone to errors in the short term if they are passing out of their own penalty area.

The clean sheet odds seem to indicate that Manchester City might need to score two goals in each of their games to win, so they’ll be pushing for a lead. Who will benefit from that?

Brighton are a sneaky team to watch. They shouldn’t be as defensively aloof under new management.

Opta Stats*

I want to target players that get the most shots on target, and with Fantasy Football Hub, I can do that using their data provided by Opta.

Fantasy Premier League made a big change to bonus points. Now, for each shot on target, two points will be awarded towards bonus. To me, that is a bit overpowered.

For every cross, you get one point. Think about how we target players specifically for crossing. Now imagine Manchester City have Brentford pinned back, and they are taking endless pot shots at goal. One shot on target equals two crosses.

I like the change because it will now disproportionately reward attackers, and they’ll have at least a chance to win the bonus points battle against the defenders in a goalless draw.

Whether you like that £15m price point or not, Erling Haaland should lead the league in shots on target totals. Darwin Nunez is someone I am very interested in, especially since Arne Slot is known to help improve his attacker’s output. Mr. Reliable Mohamad Salah is inevitable and has looked sharper.

My advice, and I might be wrong, is to go down the list and try to fill your team with the players that you think will have the most shots on target. Favoring those who put in a lot of crosses seems like a smart play.

Other sites have similar features, but I specifically like the opposition strength per start filter.

The opposition strength filter is incredibly important and influential in decisions for the reasons I stated above about the fixtures. Certain players perform better against better teams or worse teams.

When picking my team, I’ll be going down the list of players who take a ton of shots on target either per start or per 90 minutes.

Free AI Team Rating*

Of course, the main attraction for most is the artificial intelligence (AI) features. You can get your team rated for free.

What I highlighted in this post is a fraction of the features they offer.

If you want full access to help prepare and make those key decisions before the Premier League starts this weekend, you should consider signing up. Memberships are 50% off until the gameweek 1 deadline. Sign up here*.

I have not included the names of the players because it would distract from the point that this is a larger issue. This isn’t a problem with one player; this is an entire team’s problem.

Everyone is familiar with this in-and-out of possession setup. Manchester City have used it; Arsenal, Liverpool, Newcastle, Chelsea, England—almost every top English team has tried this at some point. Back-three, left-back pushes forward, double pivot, left-winger inverts, attacking midfielder, and center-forward central.

When the left-back moves wide, the entire defense has to shift over. Naturally, the left-back will be wide and higher because, in possession, they are almost acting as a left-winger.

When everyone shifts over, the right-back will leave someone free behind them, in their blind spot.

Bukayo Saka showed and continues to show how important that role is for a right-winger to cover the far post. The coordination between the right-back and the right-winger has to be spot-on.

If the coordination is off, the opponent can target the left wing from the right side of the pitch. You would want to have the ball on the right side of the pitch because that means Leicester City’s right-back will have a man on his blind side behind him.

The way teams behave when transitioning to defense and when in settled play, defending, is what separates the top teams from the bottom tier.

Manchester City and Liverpool purposely slow down the opposition, electing not to engage with them when they lose the ball. This allows the forwards to get back to help defend. Like herding a pack of wolves. That is an effective way to transition to defense.

Leicester City engage and then follow the closest opposition player when transitioning to defense, disregarding the potential free players on the wings. This is where the communication breaks down.

The right-back is used to having his blind side covered by the right-winger, but when the right-winger is far up the pitch, there’s no one to cover that man on the far post.

First, the right-back should be made aware the right-winger isn’t back, but as a team, they should notice this and then maybe not have the left center-back jump out to engage with the ball carrier. Stay back and compensate for the lack of numbers.

Until they figure this out, attack Leicester City’s left wing from the right side of the pitch. Switch and then shoot. Create chaos.

Match: Lens 3-0 Leicester City, 10 August 2024

An email Apple co-founder Steve Jobs sent to himself thirteen months before he passed:

From: Steve Jobs, sjobs@apple.comTo: Steve Jobs, sjobs@apple.comDate: Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 11:08PM

I grow little of the food I eat, and of the little I do grow I did not breed or perfect the seeds.

I do not make any of my own clothing.

I speak a language I did not invent or refine.

I did not discover the mathematics I use.

I am protected by freedoms and laws I did not conceive of or legislate, and do not enforce or adjudicate.

I am moved by music I did not create myself.

When I needed medical attention, I was helpless to help myself survive.

I did not invent the transistor, the microprocessor, object oriented programming, or most of the technology I work with.

I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am totally dependent on them for my life and well being.

The managers emulate what they’ve learned from others, but who is innovating?

Issue one: there is a race to see who can defend set-pieces and who can score from set-pieces. The people trying to score will have an edge because stopping them is harder. For me, that is the biggest issue to solve.

Issue two, winning with a less positional and less rigid system.

The wide area is split up into two sections. The winger controls the wider section, while the fullback controls the section inside. First pass forward, then back, then through to the man running from deep. That man running from deep would be the fullback if the ball is played forward from the middle third.

Trent Alexander-Arnold was normally positioned deeper and wider on the right than left-back Konstantinos Tsimikas on the left against Sevilla, but he liked to drift inside.

How inverted the left-back becomes seems to depend on how wide the right-back positions themselves. They move as if they are attached at the hip by a string, pulling each-other back and forth across the pitch.

This was more noticeable in Liverpool’s second game of the day against Las Palmas, when Andrew Robertson was at times positioned inside, directly ahead of left center-back Nathanial Phillips. Conor Bradley likes to move wider to the right compared to Trent Alexander-Arnold.

This leaves a lot more room on the left, but it also means that the ball carrier always has three players within 10 yards to play off of. Then, when the ball is played wide, that overlapping run is made by the fullback automatically. The fact that the run is made nine times out of ten seems notable.

The left-back is going to cross more often from the edge of the penalty box, in the corner, while the right-back will cross from deep and cut in to shoot from the top of the penalty box. The left-back will get onto more crosses at the top left hand side of the box when the left-winger makes the run to the near post. The right-back will get more use against teams that defend deep in their own end.

And although it seems super positional on paper or in writing, it is not in person. There’s a structure to execute the passes but it is a very fluid structure that the player’s determine on the fly.

Match: Liverpool 4-1 Sevilla and Liverpool 0-0 Las Palmas, 11 August 2024

It is common for Manchester City’s right-winger to lead the counter-press. Bernardo Silva is the master of this role; here is an example. Oscar Bobb would usually be the one to want to put pressure on the center-backs from right to left.

It was smart of Manchester United to invert Martinez from the left because Oscar Bobb is not as experienced as Bernardo Silva. Bernardo Silva would have likely told one of the midfielders to mark Martinez to his left so he could dis-mark from Martinez to put pressure on the center-backs.

They never adjusted; therefore, it locked Manchester City into waiting for the next pass forward, forcing the left side to lead the press instead.

This is one of the reasons Manchester City might have been more vulnerable to transitions from settled play because when the left side leads the press, that leaves space behind for United’s right-wing, and with Bobb inside, there’s space wide on the left-wing. Play passes centrally, forcing City to collapse on the ball, and then this space gets larger. Then the opponent can take advantage of the space between the lines when City spreads out after contracting.

Match: Manchester City 1-1 (7-6) Manchester United, 10 August 2024

Former set-piece coach Andreas Georgson details a “softening” in Mikel Arteta’s demeanor and way of thinking speaking to The Athletic:

I feel like he touches on more parts of the game. Of course, he’s still very deep into the tactical side, but he’s now also much more into the human, the emotional, the motivational side.

We speak a lot about him being a winner in terms of being firm and tough and a fighter. But for me, being a winner is also being able to be self-reflective, take help from others to develop yourself.

I think that’s a really undervalued strength of Mikel’s: that he’s constantly willing to question himself, listen to others, hear what he needs to improve, to become better. I’ve almost never heard anyone say that about him, but that is one of the traits that I think is very important for a world-class manager.

We forget the players are humans. They have lives outside of football, personalities, and emotions. A lot of top managers over time tend to comment about this shift to managing the people more than the tactics.

We “don’t care” in the sense that we are fans who want to see our team win, but we forget they get nervous. Being around someone who is calmer should help calm the nerves of the people, the players.

The mentor I’ve never met and only emailed once (he answered), Seth Godin, coined that saying, “Write like you talk.” He, and subsequently, I, am of the belief that writer’s block is a myth because no one gets talker’s block.

That way of thinking changed the way I write. I do not have to overthink because this is how I talk.

If you are in front of a group explaining something, you only get one chance. You can rehearse what you want to say in your mind, but you can’t go back and edit what you said, even though I do edit my writing, of course.

It is like going on a long walk with someone you know and then explaining to them what you saw or what you want to say. That is the reader. It is natural.

It is not perfect, and I don’t want it to be because it will never be perfect. I want to ship my idea.

The best posts are the ones, like this one, where the words come flowing out. No effort is needed.

I sit down at 8:00 p.m. One 600-word post normally takes me less than 30 minutes to write. The longest part of the process is me procrastinating, looking up each player’s name so I can spell it correctly, and making the graphics. The writing takes minutes.

That is why I am able to put out a post every day. I write when I want, and the quality never dips because this is how I talk. That makes it easier to write, and then I can stockpile them. Yesterday’s post might have been written two weeks ago.

Teams are having to shop for unicorns. The pool of skilled goalkeepers was already tiny, but goalkeepers who excel at both playing the ball with their feet and saving shots are ultra-rare. And then the majority of that pool of ultra-rare goalkeepers are normally average shot-stoppers. Manuel Neuer is the only goalkeeper I can think of who is above average in both categories. He is one of a kind; he is a unicorn; you must sign him and never let him go.

Before, the goalkeeper did not need to find passes between the lines, pass under pressure, or have a good first touch. They kicked it long the second they received the ball. Every attribute point was put into saving shots.

If you are a young player and you are good with your feet, why would you want to sit in goal watching the game? Unless you have the mindset of Guglielmo Viacrio, you would want to be an outfield player.

Will we wait years for every goalkeeper to be trained to become better at passing, or will we create a tactic that will enable us to not rely on having a ball-playing goalkeeper that would allow us to keep the same dynamic we currently have, where the ball is played through the center of the pitch on the ground?

We ran out of large target men and replaced them, and now they are making a comeback. Will we replace the ball-playing goalkeepers?

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What is in my cart: There is this Juventus Polo Training shirt that caught my eye. This Mẽs Que Un Club Barcelona T-Shirt looks nice. I’m a Manchester City fan, I have to get their 2023/24 Third Kit. The third kit is the standout this year.

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Once the buildup is fixed and the foundation is laid, work on all the other parts.

As Pep Guardiola said, “my job is to take you to the final third, and your job is to finish.” He can give instructions to beat a certain press, but what happens in the final third is up to the players. It is an unpredictable phase because the players have to be spontaneous and react.

My focus changes with the times, depending on how each team plays. If a team is more positional, possession-based, and playing to feet, as most teams are, passing out from the back is a necessity. When teams kick the ball long, as most teams did before, or if they are more relational, the focus shifts to technique and how those advanced players around the ball react.

You could defend perfectly, but if you play to feet out from the back, and it is not working properly, it does not matter; you won’t be able to score. If you can’t score, you can’t win. You have no other recourse but to fix it.

European football has drawn more and more inspiration from the NFL in recent years, with teams using more rigid positional systems with set plays run from a playbook drawn up by a coach.

The play starts, the ball is here, we’ll run this play, the ball is there, and my body is positioned this way, and everyone knows to run the next play. Players run routes like wide receivers and blockers, with greater emphasis on the quarterback (holding midfielders and center-backs) to find the pass forward. There has always been emphasis on finding that pass, but there is more emphasis in that rigid system because, without that pass, play can never start. You would constantly get sacked (lose possession).

This way of playing rewards athleticism, but are the fans, coaches, players, and community craving more creativity? Structure with spontaneity. I think they are.

The NFL’s rule change was made to try to limit the number of full-speed crunching tackles that have either paralyzed or nearly paralyzed players returning the ball or tackling. But the upside is that now that they get to be creative in the way they attack and defend, more spontaneous, unexpected things are happening, which will make it more entertaining.

Spontaneity is more entertaining in the NFL, and European football should take inspiration from that.

It does not matter who you place in there at center-back; they are all instructed to aggressively position themselves, electing to jump out. One of the best examples of this occurred in their loss at Crystal Palace.

The problem is that when the ball is played wide to the wing and Bennett retreats back to the defensive line, Casemiro isn’t in a position to mark the Liverpool player Bennett demarked from.

That leaves a large space between Manchester United’s back line and their midfield. Because that space is there, the left-back can’t go out to challenge the ball.

The first alternative approach would be for Bennett to not retreat back and stay with the Liverpool player he marked. That would allow Casemiro to focus on the players on the far side. If you are going to jump out, you might as well go all the way, not half-way. Go all the way or not at all.

That is better than leaving space and forcing Casemiro to mark that player, but not a perfect solution because the ball side left-back can’t go out to challenge the ball. He should force Liverpool wide because he can’t let that forward next to him get behind him; there would be no one there to mark them.

The second alternative would be to be more passive and have Casemiro pick up the player Bennett was originally jumping out to mark. Then, when the ball is played wide, the space is smaller, and Casemiro can get ahead of that player to cut off any passes into their feet from the wing or forward to their right. That would also allow the left-back to challenge the ball, with Bennett calmly shifting over to cover for them.

Match: Manchester United 0-3 Liverpool, 3 August 2024

This is different from passing side to side endlessly, something I have complained about in teams like England, for example. Bayern Munich play through the middle, but no matter where they pass the ball, their first thought is to play to the other side of the pitch.

Play to the other side because eventually the pass into the box will open up because Tottenham could never get into position to challenge the ball. They were having to constantly rotate their hips and chase.

It is important that the team share the same mindset because then the runs being made are tailored to the pass. When Gabriel Vidovic peels off on the right, Thomas Müller is ready for the pass on the far side.

Most would play to Serge Gnabry, but if Vidovic plays to Gnabry, then he would be forced into a one-v-one or pass back to Sacha Boey. Vidovic pealed off to the right to attract Tottenham to the ball-side, but you can tell the goal is to switch.

Vincent Kompany spoke after the game about why they did not start with a natural center-forward:

It was purely tactical, based on the spaces we could create. We have players flexible enough to execute that. Tottenham are one of the highest pressing teams in England. […] They don’t really allow any controlled possession. So for us, it was important to create danger from the moment we had the ball. I think we did that really well. If you play with two number tens and two wingers on the top line, it’s about how many people finish in the box. When we finished in the box, we always had numbers; that’s why we created chances. For this game, it was this tactic. Maybe another game it will be something else. It depends on the opponent.

I think the tactic of constantly looking for the pass to the other side of the pitch will persist despite the fact that the players picked were for the opponent because it was effective.

It was a very effective way of playing against Tottenham because they do try to press high, although their press is a bit half-hearted. Defenders are rarely challenging the man from behind with the same intensity as Bayern Munich. Tottenham are already stretched across the pitch attempting to press high, then you throw in constant switches of play, and as Munich zigzag around the pitch, space into the box opens up.

They created danger by always playing the most dangerous pass. Never allowing Tottenham to settle on one side of the pitch. Each pass opens up a vertical switch of play, which was a goal of previous manager Thomas Tuchel, but the pattern of thought that goes into each pass before the switch is what sets their passing patterns apart. Kompany’s method makes the game more open, while Tuchel’s method creates moments in the channels.

Match: Bayern Munich 2-1 Tottenham, 3 August 2024

Fabian Hurzeler speaking on Brighton & Hove Albion’s podcast:

I work a lot with principles because there are so many different situations in the game the players have to deal with, and principles help them to give them orientation. When there’s less space, when the opponents tag hard (mark players tightly), and when they don’t have a lot of time to think about the solution, that’s why I try to work with principles.

If you watch my game, it’s very fluid, so it’s not a fixed formation. Of course, in the media, they have to put a formation before (the match), and it’s mostly a 3-4-3. In the end, it’s very fluid, and the most important for me is that the players are positioned in areas where they can be the best version of themselves, and that’s, I think, the most important for me as a coach.

Around this time last year, I wrote about teams switching to a 3-4-3 diamond formation and outlined its benefits. A formation that was not commonly used by the bigger teams at the time. All of the teams I mentioned in the article attempted it at some point in the season, most at the start of the season, but once teams started generating more and more injuries, they had to abandon it.

You need the personnel in midfield on hand to make it work. Brighton had and have the personnel to make it work.

I agree that they are not fixed. No one has to move to a specific position based on where the ball is. That is what made them enjoyable to watch against Tokyo Verdy.

Under previous manager Roberto De Zerbi they had confidence in the system. Remove the player from the system and the preprogrammed plays, and those players look less than they did when they were playing in the system. Under Fabian Hurzeler, you can sense the players have greater confidence in themselves, which allows them to improvise.

There are counter movements in, towards the ball, to open space behind for passes from the center-back to the forwards or midfielders, central. A lot of emphasis is on the center-backs to find passes between the lines. The poise Jan Paul van Hecke had reminded me of Ricardo Calafiori. He should be the centerpiece of their team. Center-backs are given a license to roam from their position. The fullbacks can trail down the line or invert inside.

Fabian Hurzeler:

I think that we need to have a plan for both phases. We need to have a balance between a defense stability and of controlling the game. We conceded the less (amount of) goals in the last season but we were also top in ball possession.

[…] There’s a message you always say, ‘defense wins Championship,’ I think there’s truth inside the sentence and that’s why I like to to work hard against the ball. I like to defend to score goals, not to defend my own goal, to defend to score goals and that’s it’s main part of my style of play. […]

Despite the fact that Italians are normally stereotypically defensive-minded, De Zerbi was not defensive-minded. Fabian Hurzeler seems to be more mindful of the defense. After the Tokyo Verdy match, he spent almost the entire post-match press conference talking about how they should have kept a clean sheet and how it annoyed him.

That mentality ‘to defend to score goals, not to defend my own goal,’ is exciting. Take the game to the opponent. He is mindful of the defense but is always thinking about the attack.

Match: Tokyo Verdy 2-4 Brighton, 28 July 2024

What I don’t like is people, or you, or fans, or the club expecting the same football that Manchester City is doing, because when I joined Leicester and I met the chairman and sporting director, they asked me, ‘We want to change the style and we want to play the same way that City play’. And I told them, ‘We don’t have the same players and I am not the same manager’. The same thing when I met Chelsea. I said, ‘The idea is that idea, but probably we need time because the players also need to understand what way we want to play and it’s a bit different’.

[…] It is something I struggle a little bit with. ‘Because he’s bald and with a beard, he wants to play the same [as Pep Guardiola].’ No, I don’t. I fell in love with that idea, but that does not mean it is exactly the same.

When you watch Manchester City now, especially towards the end of the season, they are much more fluid. It is moving closer and closer to a hybrid of non-zonal and zonal attacking principles. I don’t think it will ever become completely non-zonal under Guardiola; he wants too much control, but when I watch Chelsea in preseason or Leicester City last season, I see fewer similarities.

It is born from the same idea, but watching Chelsea in preseason gives you a greater appreciation for how much freedom he is giving to the players. Guardiola is releasing more and more control.

Enzo Maresca on watching Chelsea last season out of possession:

Sometimes it looks like an excuse but for instance, everyone that watches us is focused on what we do with the ball, we build from behind. But I watched many, many games last season of Chelsea and I almost never saw man-to-man high pressing. They always wait a little bit. Since we started, we have decided to go man-to-man because it is our way, so aggressive. It’s a big change.

This was part of Juanma Lillo’s warning. We all have preferences, but not all football has to be the same. Chelsea did not defend well last season. I don’t think Maresca wants it to be the same, although he is alluding to the fact that it was unorthodox last season. But there are other ways of defending that work other than defending man-to-man. I don’t have a problem with more passive approaches, like that used by Manchester City and Liverpool last season in transition.

Enzo Maresca on how much freedom he will give Cole Palmer:

I had Cole one year so I know him. I know he likes a little bit of freedom. But if Cole is what he is now, it’s because he learned for 10 to 15 years the way he learned at Manchester City.

Cole Palmer was given freedom in the U21 team for England, at Chelsea under Pochettinho last season, and in the Euro’s for England under Gareth Southgate in the summer. He excelled on all three teams. At Manchester City, he played a completely different role and did not reach the same heights. We will never know if he would have reached the same heights if he had stayed at City. He likely would have if he were there this season because the players are now allowed to roam from their positions.

Maresca is hinting that he won’t allow Palmer to roam from his position; he won’t have the same freedom that gave him major success last season. Before, he had 50 yards to operate in on both sides of the pitch; now he’ll have 20 yards in a zone on one side; how will that impact his output, and will he become secondary to the more athletic players like at Manchester City, or can he adapt to a more limiting environment? He has so much to give but I think managers like Mauricio Pochettinho, Ange Postecoglou, and Thiago Motta would get the most out of him.

The drill starts like this with two center-backs, two midfielders, and two forwards on the attacking side (red), with one player marking the center-backs, two players marking the midfielders, and one player marking the forwards in defense (green). This is used to practice playing out from the goalkeeper to the wings or through in on goal.

The ball gets played out by the goalkeeper, and then the center-backs pass back and forth. The goalkeeper doesn’t get involved after the initial pass.

The center-backs will not pass forward to the midfielders or forwards until the opposition defender presses them. Once that defender presses, they will then look to play a pass to the ball-side midfielder or forward.

The ball is played out, and then every move thereafter is natural to find the quickest pass out to the forwards, whether that be direct or back to the center-backs to combine with the midfielders.

It is the quickness of the passing that sets Liverpool apart, as shown in their first preseason match against Real Betis and in their match against Arsenal.

Once they bait the press and trigger the pass, that pass forward, then back, and then bait the opponent’s second line into pressing seems important to them. There is freedom to be spontaneous, but they are always unconsciously looking for and finding that pass. It is not a pre planned play but it is in their mind before they start passing forward.

Here is a list of the teams most affected by the absences:

Arsenal should be fine because they have great depth. Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice, William Saliba, and David Raya will be back, but they have sufficient cover and quality.

Aston Villa lost key midfielder Douglas Luiz and would have benefited from having everyone ready from day one to adjust to that major loss, especially their two most important players, Emi Martinez and Ollie Watkins.

Chelsea is a massive wildcard because of how extreme the transition will be for the players coming from the break integrating into Enzo Maresca’s very precise positional system. How awkward will Nicolas Jackson, Cole Palmer, Moises Caicedo, Conor Gallagher, and Marc Cucurella look?

Crystal Palace was flying at the end of last season. How will not having Jean-Philippe Mateta (U23 France), Ezeberchi Eze, and Adam Wharton affect their rhythm? I’d like to think they will pick up right where they left off.

Liverpool are without Darwin Nunez, Luis Diaz, Cody Gakpo, Alexis Mac Allister, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Virgil Van Dijk, Ibrahima Konate, and Alisson in the preseason. Arne Slot plays in a completely different way to Jurgen Klopp; they are more patient, and they play to feet on the ground. That’s a massive adjustment.

Manchester City’s entire squad core is out: Julian Alvarez, Kevin De Bruyne, Phil Foden, Jérémy Doku, Bernardo Silva, Rodri, Matheus Nunes, Nathan Ake, Manuel Akanji, Ruben Dias, John Stones, Kyle Walker. Easy fixtures, especially ones where the opposition will play in a low block, look more daunting. They had trouble breaking down teams that sat back last season, and it shouldn’t be easier without those key players, especially Rodri.

Manchester United are without Bruno Fernandes, Kobbie Mainoo, and Diogo Dalot, but maybe that is a blessing in disguise because they won’t be subjected to Erik Ten Hag’s strenuous training.

Tottenham have fielded midfielders and fullbacks in defense, no center-backs, with Cristian Romero and Mickey Van de Ven unavailable. They had trouble defensively last season and would have benefited from having the time to work on organizing before the season.

Pep Guardiola put it bluntly:

I would have preferred to bring [on tour] Kevin De Bruyne, John Stones, Kyle Walker, all the guys the people are waiting for but the schedule is the schedule and it would not be possible for them to come here.

We will arrive late, but not against United, against Chelsea, and Ipswich. We will be late, it’s try to not drop many points, try to compete well. We don’t have players because they have to rest, if the big bosses and all the institutions like FIFA, UEFA and the Premier League don’t think about the players then the managers have to think about them, otherwise they will die.

It’s too much. That’s why three weeks or one month is necessary, but the competition is there and you have to adapt.

How far have we fallen as a football community that the teams have to be put at this much of a disadvantage?

I watch football year-round; it is very hard for me to get burned out, but if you are, imagine how burned out the players are. Pep Guardiola touched on this:

Come back when you have the desire to touch the ball again. If you don’t feel it, stay at home. I guess it will be before the Community Shield, if not a few days after.

Rodri hinted that players might strike if there is no change in the schedule. With comments like this, “Come back when you have the desire to touch the ball again,” there should be change.

Most of the teams that were at the top of the table last season will immediately be behind the eight ball to start the season. I’d expect teams to stick with the players, young or old, that you see starting now in preseason to start week one of the new season. We’ll probably see changes in formation to compensate, and then changes again once players work into the team. It is a mess.

He can play in the center of defense, wide left as a fullback, inverting into midfield, starting in the midfield, running through the channels, and overlapping wide. He is tall but nimble, not awkward on the ball, and fast. I’m sure he can play on the right side of the defense. Top teams need multiple Calafiori’s.

Calafori on who he models his game after:

John Stones is my reference. His style of play is closest to mine. It’s not off the cuff when I go into midfield. It’s following the guidelines of the coach.

This versatility, the ability to play anywhere is what will be needed if teams want to break free from the zonal approach. He shouldn’t be shackled to one position. To get everything out of him, you have to let him move where he wants to move. He needs to be allowed to play “off the cuff.”

Midfielders that can play as defenders or fullbacks, central defenders that can play as midfielders or fullbacks, wingers that can play as fullbacks or center-forwards, fullbacks that can play as wingers or midfielders—this should be where the game in Europe is headed again, in my opinion.

Everyone except for the goalkeeper will need to play in at least two positions. That helps when dealing with the congested schedule, but it will allow teams to be unpredictable.

Gabriel Martinelli should be protecting him at all costs because the Italian will be providing him the same service Bukayo Saka receives from Ben White on the right wing, something that was missing on the left wing.

Mikel Arteta on if he will play as a center-back or left-back:

Both positions, especially the way we want to play and the way we want to evolve in our game models. He is a player who is going to fit into what we want.

I really wanted to see him play again for Thiago Motta at Juventus because he brought that out of him. He played for Motta as a left center-back at Bologna. Now the question is, will Arteta allow him to show that spontaneity that got him signed, or will he play a more reserved role?

The play starts on the right wing. When Erling Haaland scans forward, he is going to notice the defenders are retreating back towards their own goal, and Haaland positions himself to receive behind the defenders at the top of the box. Oscar Bobb dribbles into the box, cuts it back to Haaland, and Haaland scores across goal into the bottom left-hand corner.

Not only is Haaland constantly scanning, he is also thinking ahead. If there is an early cross or if a player dribbles into the box, he needs to get open. This is his biggest strength. Most forwards would try to charge to the back post.

The space is behind the defenders as they run back toward their own goal. Allow the defenders to run towards their own goal and then be ready for the cut-back at the top of the box.

When you see that live in the TV broadcast view, it looks simple. He stays back and then shoots when he receives the ball from Bobb. Nothing special, but there is so much thinking going on.

Having to look at the ball, look over his shoulder, look at the ball, calculate where the space will be, prepare the body to receive the pass, time the run perfectly to meet the pass, and then execute the shot.

You wouldn’t know unless you squinted and zoomed in that he scanned six times. And this is only ten seconds; there are 5,400 seconds in a 90-minute match. With each attack, they are constantly scanning, passing, shooting, moving, and jockeying for position. It is not only physically draining; it is also mentally draining.

Match: Manchester City 2-3 AC Milan, 27 July 2024

When the left-back, Jonas Rouhi, drops back to receive from the goalkeeper, he would normally have to play directly to the winger. That winger would then become trapped wide, with no one to play off of central. They’d either be forced back, force a pass central, or try to dribble down the wing.

The moment one of the center-backs moves into the midfield, moving from inside to outside of the fullback, the play opens up. They are not passing and moving; they are moving in anticipation of the pass. Left center-back Facundo González moves into the half-space, and he can provide the wall pass from the fullback to the wing. That wall pass is important because it draws the opposition midfielders in to defend. That then opens space down the left wing.

When Juventus don’t move the center-backs, they use an orthodox 4-2-3-1 formation. The back four is where you expect them to be: two center-backs central with two fullbacks wide. They then work the ball through the wings. The movement from the center-backs is what makes them special.

One, I thought this would take weeks in-game for players to look relaxed in these unorthodox roles, but they look relaxed. Two, I thought the ease at which the center-back performs this action was unique to Riccardo Calafiori, but the fact that Facundo González can do this now is remarkable. What is unique about Calafiori is his ability to continue his run all the way up towards the front line.

Match: 1.FC Nürnberg 3-0 Juventus, 26 July 2024

They are attracting the press like a De Zerbi team, but they don’t have to complete X pass to play pass Y. It is a less sterile mindset. You can see it in the body language of center-backs Jarell Quansah and Sepp van den Berg and goalkeeper Caoimhín Kelleher that they are patient but always looking to get the ball past the initial press. Certain other teams pass, and pass, and pass mindlessly at the back but the intention with Liverpool is different.

It looks similar to Feyenoord already, which speaks to the quality of the Liverpool players and new manager Arne Slot’s ability as a coach that he would be able to enact his way of playing this quickly.

Then, once they get past, I would compare the runs from the fullbacks and attacking midfielders to a barrage of unguided rockets. When they launch, they aim for a path, and then they must finish the run, but unlike with Klopp, where every run was rewarded with an attempted long pass, they have to be ready to switch off from the run to receive short in tight spaces, combining with the other midfielders.

It is the most direct way of playing without having to play the ball through the air.

Match: Liverpool 1-0 Real Betis, 27 July 2024

If these attackers stay in the center of their zone, they should be able to pass around the back, but what about going forward? The old approach doesn’t reward risk-takers.

Risk takers like Noni Madueke and Cole Palmer are annoying in a zonal attack because when you carefully and meticulously pass the ball around the back for 20 minutes, you don’t want to give the ball to one player and allow them to quickly lose it immediately.

It is like working in an office cubicle. You stay within your cubicle, do your job, and pass the tasks around to the next worker.

But then the more dynamic players become restless, and it’s only until then, when they go to the edge of their zone to overlap with another player’s, that the team starts to break down the opponent because then they can work the ball through the center.

Current Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca is working towards a zonal attack, and a non-zonal attack is what I think former manager Mauricio Pochettino was working towards.

It is harder to work the ball forward and create chances in a super rigid zonal attack, but it is easier to defend with the ball. If Wrexham can stop a super rigid zonal attack, you could make the argument that it has been found out by most teams, that it might be becoming outdated.

Technical and athletic system players like Raheem Sterling and Christopher Nkunku should perform better in a zonal attack because the rigidity helps showcase their sharpness, while playmakers and creatives like Cole Palmer and Noni Madueke should perform better in a non-zonal attack because they’d have more room and freedom to move.

Match: Chelsea 2-2 Wrexham, 25 July 2024

As we know from Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca’s Coaches’ Voice video, he likes using a 3-2 sub-structure. Three center-backs and a double pivot in possession transform into a 4-4-2 formation out of possession.

Enzo Maresca when asked if he would use an inverted left-back:

No, no. In these weeks, we try different situation; we try James inside, Reece. I watch his game when […] he was loan from Chelsea to another club (Wigan in 2018/19); I don’t remember now; he was playing as a midfielder. I watched some games during the summer, so he can do that, to be honest. Malo (Gusto) is trying to do that, and he’s doing fantastic. Marc (Cucurrela), as you said, he can do that, and we also try a different situation, different players that they can do it.

By “different situation,” he is referring to a different tactic where maybe the left-back doesn’t invert and the right-back does, or neither fullback inverts into the midfield.

He did not mention left-back Ben Chilwill because, as everyone was already aware, he can’t play inside in the midfield. This is the new requirement for fullbacks; you either have to be able to play as either a center-back and fullback, a midfielder and a fullback, or both. Playing as a winger alone may not suffice, as most fullbacks typically lack the same level of skill at that position as natural wingers, whom they will be competing against for a position.

When you see the depth chart, you can understand why they would be okay with selling Conor Gallagher or Trevoah Chalobah, even though you could argue they should get a place in the team ahead of some of the players lower on the list in their position. There will be a lot of players with nearly equal talent and potential on the bench.

One man is open, the right center-back, and then when they receive the pass, the second man has to get free. The focal point of the buildup deep in their half has to be the defensive midfielder because they are the ones that can drop in between the center-backs.

To me, it doesn’t matter who you put in that position; the distance makes it hard to connect three passes, especially if those center-backs remain in their position. One from the center-back, to the defensive midfielder, and then out to a fullback. The fullback always receives under immense pressure.

The open pass will always be to the wings, but that is predictable, and if there’s no pace on the wing, then it is hard to take advantage of the space offered to the offense. And with the midfielders higher up in the half-spaces, the center-forward is forced to be the main focal point in the buildup, to drop to receive if they want to play through the middle.

Maybe I’d like it more if the five players dynamically rotated position to open space central as they drag defenders out of position. That would then allow for the midfielders in the half-spaces to get room when they drop to receive because, when those five players are static, there is no space.

If they are going to remain static, I’d rather open space in the half-spaces for the midfielders to drop by placing one or both of the fullbacks wide.

Match: Manchester 3-4 Celtic, 24 July 2024

Goalkeeper Victor Valdés telling the story about his first conversation with Pep Guardiola before the 2008-2009 season for FC Barcelona:

I remember my first conversation with Guardiola when he took over as coach. It was in his office at the Camp Nou. He had a tactics board with two small magnets on either side of the goal, just outside of the box.

He said, “Do you know which players these two are?” I said, “Nope.” And he said, “These are your center-backs.”

I had no idea what he was talking about; it sounded Chinese.

And he said, “When you’ve got the ball, this is where I want them to be.”

I thought he was crazy.

And then he said, “You’ll pass to them, and it’s from here that we’ll build the play.”

I still thought he was completely mad, but given that I’m a bit crazy myself, I felt in tune with him. So I told him the defenders would have to be brave and want the ball. And Pep said, “Don’t worry, that’s my job. I’ll make sure they want it.” And that’s how it all started.

The center-backs push wide, which allows the fullbacks to move further upfield. That then frees the wingers to move infield and help overload the middle with the midfielders.

At the time, in 2008, the spaces between defenders were large; the competitive advantage this one change brought was massive.

It was “crazy” because if any of the players were unwilling or unable to play out like this, accurately passing, brave enough to play under immediate pressure from the front as they faced play, they would be completely exposed in the box once they turned the ball over.

View the key.

From his first interview before the start of preseason:

You can look at it many different ways: Sequence of matches. I always look a lot at the type of opponent we’re going to play, what kind of formation, what kind of managers, can we have some consistency over a few weeks? The difficulty is when you look there, there’s not an easy game there.

[…] In the Champions League this season, we’re going to have to prepare many more games because in the group stages we were repeating matches; this season, this is not going to happen. So our analysts and ourselves as coaches we’re going to have very very different demands.

So we’re going to put things in place to try to be more efficient, to simplify the messages as well because the preparation of games is going to be really short, so we’re going to have to maximize that time to give as much clarity and belief to the players to go and execute what they have to do to win the game.

Every team that has a similar schedule will likely have to adapt in a similar way. This could have two different outcomes.

One is that it might make things more predictable than before. For example, when Arsenal faces a high-pressing opponent like Bournemouth in matchweek 8, they’ll have one strategy to counter it. However, if they then face similar teams like Liverpool and Newcastle in subsequent matchweeks 9 and 10, they may struggle to adjust. Since Liverpool and Newcastle play similarly to Bournemouth, they’ll have a chance to prepare and counter Arsenal’s approach, which is likely to be similar to the one they used against Bournemouth.

Two, this might force Arsenal’s staff to think less. They’ll be less likely to overthink things. If the strategy works, it might be easier to get into a rhythm because they’ll be forced to stick to one tactic due to the lack of time to find different solutions that would include more drastic changes from game to game.

The back line in the first half was Jamie Donley, Oliver Skipp, Archie Gray, and Pedro Porro. I am a fan of using fullbacks and midfielders in the center-back position. Having players that can pass, dribble, and rotate in and out with the players ahead in the midfield and out on the wings is invaluable in games where you plan to have the majority of possession.

Tottenham looked more comfortable. Of course, Hearts is not a tough opponent, but last season they had trouble breaking down teams that sat back, regardless of how even the game was.

It helps having Dejan Kulusevski central because he is very creative, and that gives James Maddison an outlet central other than Heung-Min Son to combine with. He is a thinker who thinks ahead to not only the next pass but the pass after that, and because of that he can pull off those more expressive one-touch flicks in the tighter pockets of space.

The problem they had was, ‘How do we get the ball from the halfway line into the box’, because they are good at crashing the front and back post, but they moved slowly and reminded static. Kulusevski was one of the few that was passing and moving, finding space, and dragging defenders. That led to an overabundance of crossing because they had to reset to create space.

They should want to try to move the ball on the run because if they walk the ball into the box, the opponent’s defense can drop back and crowd the box. They need those quick one-touch passing combinations to play the crossing player through to find the player crashing the front or back post.

Tottenham should continue to allow every player to get forward. Djed Spence is the last man; he plays a one-two, carries, and within a few seconds he finds himself near the front line. The players seemed more trained to notice when a player wanted to get forward and to see when that one touch was on to allow that player to continue forward. They don’t look as surprised or unprepared when they receive the first pass.

I hope to see their center-backs get more involved in the attack and not be afraid to pass and move forward.

Match: Hearts 1-5 Tottenham, 17 July 2024

Martin Rafelt made the good point that ‘the physical level in the Premier League is so high that good players don’t survive there’:

[…] I tend to use a simplified model that explains a lot of strange performance development: basic level and playing ability. How high can you play, and how good can you play?

Basic level, aka, how high can you play? What’s your level of speed and strength? How high can you go in basic actions (running duels, aerial duels, picking up loose balls, just keeping the ball under physical pressure, playing simple passes quickly)?

Playing ability, aka, how good can you play? On the given level that you can survive, how effective are you going to be there? How are your decisions, your positioning, and your timing to actually create offensive output? How often can you beat defenders that are evenly matched?

[…]

The Bundesliga, and especially Dortmund, whose players scored the most in the tournament (Euro 2024), can afford to get very smart, talented players who might not have the basic level to consistently survive EPL physicality. (Sancho?, Götze, Lindström, Simons?, etc.)

The EPL is so extreme in their physical selection that this leaves little space for these kinds of players. You end up selecting a lot of strong, fast players who are not necessarily great at knowing what to do but can survive at least. (Benteke or Mudryk, to name two extremes.)

Pedri to me is someone right now that falls into that category of a player with world-class playing ability who doesn’t have the basic level to survive in a physical game. More specifically, a physical game with little space.

As Messi said, there is less space and the game is more ‘tactical’. Lamine Yamal learned that you have to bulk up if you want to survive; even though he is young, just look at a picture of him then and now. Players are prioritizing muscle; you never saw this with Neymar. Bukayo Saka is the new baseline; he is built like a rock.

When Bukayo Saka plays for Arsenal, we say he is dropping deep from the right-wing to help Ben White defend, but when he plays for England, we say he is a right-wing-back. This does not match what is happening in possession during the game.

Why are we not talking about the fact Gareth Southgate has attempted to copy the exact dynamic Manchester City uses with a left-back, Kieran Trippier for England or Josko Gvardiol for Manchester City, pushed up high to act as a left-winger in possession, with the left-winger, Phil Foden, inverted infield?

I understand that it is common for a broadcaster to get the formation wrong, but this is a snapshot of the discussion online, on TV, during play-by-play commentary. Everything is seen through a defensive lens. It does not match what is happening on the pitch.

When I watch England, I see a 4-3-3 formation that can transform into a 3-4-3 box midfield formation, a system popularized in England by Pep Guardiola two seasons prior, but everything Gareth Southgate does is seen through a defensive lens. Therefore, everyone assumes this is a 5-2-3 formation based on graphics like the one used by the BBC. It was a 5-2-3 out of possession, like how Arsenal defend deep when protecting a lead, but in possession it was not a 5-2-3.

England has had 53% possession, 49%, 73%, 63%, 52%, and 59% during this tournament. They were on the back-foot defending after 20 minutes in the first two games, but throughout the tournament they have held the majority of possession. They are failing to attack, but they are attacking. Kyle Walker is the right-back; there is no right-wing-back Bukayo Saka when England have the ball. He is pinned high to the right.

If I’m Gareth Southgate, I’d be out promoting the fact that they are attacking. They use “wing-backs” when out of possession, but in possession, there has been an effort to mimic the top English teams.

When Saka plays on the left, he pushes high, like he did when he was trialed on the left against Slovakia, like Kieran Trippier did against the Netherlands, because they didn’t need Trippier to sit as deep as he did. Can we call that a left-winger dropping deep, or do we need to call him a left-back?

This is a public relations or marketing problem with the way we are framing each position. The formation completely changes based on where the ball is or who has the ball. He’s a left-back if the opposition have the ball, but a left-winger when England have the ball; call him a left-winger then when you’re going to have a majority of the possession.

You would expect Busquets to pass back to the goalkeeper, pass back to the defender, or play to the opposite side to Xavi because there is a large space between the opposition’s forwards and midfielders, but he chooses the least obvious pass to Iniesta. It breaks a line; no one expects it, not even the person operating the camera.

Whatever you think plan A is, he always takes plan C or B and will only take plan A to reset. Take plan A, the defense gets into shape, and then go hunting for the next unexpected pass. He did this when he dribbled and passed. A lot of midfielders don’t think like this. They want to follow a plan, a preset play. Play the quickest, safest solution.

Busquets receives the ball, and he gets pressure from a defender in front of him. Every midfielder would immediately play the pass to the left to relieve pressure, but that is too predictable. He feints to the right and makes the defender miss towards the left, towards the predictable pass. Then the pass opens up to his right, but that is too safe; he wants to find the least obvious pass. He ignores that pass and passes forward to Iniesta.

When he had the ball, each defender’s head is up looking at him, and their body language is restless because they were waiting anxiously for him. They can’t commit to what they expect because he is not going to play it safe. Messi, Xavi, or Iniesta aren’t anxious because they know he’ll find him. He controls the pace of play; his decisions are like the ref’s whistle, and then they go when he chooses. You can see the defenders waiting, almost like it is a free kick or dead ball whenever he takes his first touch.

Happy Birthday to Sergio Busquets, who turned 36 yesterday!

James Rodriguez is 33 years old, but everyone remembers his stunning volley from 30 yards in 2014 during the World Cup in Brazil. He won’t lose his edge in the same way an aging Cristiano Ronaldo, a speedy finisher, would. While your body gives out, the mind doesn’t change, and Rodriguez’s mind is his strength. I wouldn’t describe Rodriguez as a “physical freak” like Ronaldo was. That instinct to take risks and the class to come up with unorthodox solutions to hard problems doesn’t leave you.

A playmaker’s thinking before they receive the ball is different from that of other players. There is no data point to point to the way he plays. He floats around to find the next chance. He never takes the easy option. He finds the quickest solution. He doesn’t wait for the ball in order to find the next pass. He maps out the pitch ahead in his head before he gets the ball, and then he is immediately a threat after his first touch.

Playmakers are still being made. The doom and gloom around the lack of creativity and spontaneity is justified because, as viewers have eyes, we can see they are not taking risks like they were before, but there are players like Cole Palmer who do take risks on every action. When you see Palmer succeed, it is hard to be pessimistic about the future.

The way James Rodriguez plays is the way I hope Lionel Messi, Kevin De Bruyne, and Mohamed Salah play as they inch towards retirement because it doesn’t require them to rely on the physical side of their game. Roam slowly, pick out passes, and focus on the next pass without having to sprint and dribble.

Match: Argentina 1-0 Columbia, 15 July 2024

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The problem lies with the players at the back because the players at the front were not fed enough ball all tournament. I’m not blaming one individual either, although they might play better with Adam Wharton in holding midfield. The instinct to look forward first can be learned from the coach.

Declan Rice did not play that pass on dozens of occasions. He is awkward with his back to play; he takes too many touches; he plays too safe; and it is always sideways first. It is sideways first, and by the time he sees the forward pass, the gap closes, and he is not great at finding the pass on his first or second touch. He can learn how to take risks with time if he really wants to play in that position. When Rice did play that pass, England’s system worked.

Trent Alexander-Arnold didn’t find Phil Foden or Jude Bellingham to feet in the tight spaces when he played in midfield, nor did John Stones frequently enough, Kieran Trippier, Kobbie Mainoo, or Conor Gallagher. Kyle Walker did try to fizz in a pass every once and a while, but he was positioned wide, so it was infrequent. Luke Shaw was sharper and more direct than Trippier against Spain.

Marc Guéhi was the only player consistently looking to play forward to feet through the center of the pitch. He always looks forward first. I’d love to enter a simulation to see what they’d look like with Guéhi and Rice swapped positions.

Watch Manchester City or Brighton. That pass is like oxygen for a possession-based team that plays slowly and doesn’t rely on pace or long, mazing dribbling runs. Once you realize that, you will be as obsessed as I am with looking forward first.

It is a mindset to always look forward. Look forward, look forward, look forward, not on; play the safe pass. Not, look sideways, look sideways, look forward, gap closes, and play the safe pass. That is football’s version of constipation.

England had an easier route to the final. If you put Rice, Mainoo, Trippier, Guéhi, Stones, and Walker into Spain’s side, they likely wouldn’t advance to the final after facing Croatia, Italy, Germany, and France. Put Rodri, Fabián Ruiz, Cucurella, Laporte, Le Normand, and Carvajal into England’s side, and they’d wipe everyone away.

Not to say the forwards played perfectly, they did not, at times they were bad, but there is your problem. The match went as I thought it would, but England were more organized defensively than I imagined they would be. England did take more risks passing against Spain, but the quality of the passing under pressure is not to the same level of Spain.

Match: England 1-2 Spain, 14 July 2024

England may try to press high. Their counter-press was sort of half-hearted against Switzerland and the Netherlands, but I don’t think it will work against Spain. Spain has too much technical quality; they should play through it.

So say England are forced to defend deep as Spain’s wingers Lamine Yamal and Nico Williams come crashing in. Bukayo Saka will be out wide on the right to assist Kyle Walker, marking Nico Williams either one-on-one or two-on-one. The hope will be to limit Spain to shots from outside the box, but no shot is a safe shot against Spain.

If England get the ball, they will need to slowly progress the ball forward, working their way to the halfway line. They’ll need to move slowly because they’ll need players ahead of the ball. I can’t see a scenario, outside of a massive error by Spain, in which Harry Kane, Phil Foden, and Jude Bellingham outrun Rodri, Dani Carvajal, Le Normand, Laporte, or Cucurella on the counter as they collapse on each pass.

Spain are effective at pressing high off the ball, but if England get past that press, Spain have a habit of intentionally leaving space wide.

The problem for England is the way their first eleven are setup to attack. Dani Carvajal will push in from the right to mark Jude Bellingham, and Marc Cucurella will push in from the left to mark Phil Foden. Bukayo Saka will be high on the right, an outlet behind Cucurella, and Nico Williams will track back to mark him.

Kieran Trippier is an issue. I argued they didn’t need a left-back in the group stage against lesser opponents, but unfortunately they will need one against Spain to defend against Lamine Yamal. If Trippier does not get forward high up the wing to pin Lamine Yamal back, Spain should be able to easily suffocate England centrally, pushing them back. Yamal will be able to help put pressure on Declan Rice and Marc Guéhi, with the midfielders, as they press England’s back-line.

Spain showed France that they are flexible out of possession. They normally pack the center of the pitch but, like England, France progresses through the wings. Everything is sideways.

The difference between France and England is that France had speed on the wings and in the center-forward position with Theo Hernandez, Kylian Mbappe, Kolo Muani, and Ousmane Dembele. Except for Bukayo Saka, England do not have pace on the wings, which is fine as long as you can effectively progress through the center of the pitch, but Declan Rice frequently ignores open passes to the feet of Phil Foden and Jude Bellingham.

If England avoids passing through the center all together, then Spain should be able to spread out and/or push resources inside and back towards England’s backline.

If England can come out of the first half with the game tied or if they can grab the lead, they have succeeded. If they go down a goal, the difference will need to come from the bench, as it often has for England in this tournament. That is a bit harder to predict because it is dependent on who Spain brings on off the bench. I know England will likely throw on Cole Palmer, Connor Gallagher, Luke Shaw, Ivan Toney, Ollie Watkins, or Trent Alexander-Arnold at halftime or past the 70th minute.

I think England will get pinned back, and Spain will pick away at them slowly. I’m picturing a one-sided game in favor of Spain, but it could be more open. In a knock-out match, anything can happen.

Match: England vs. Spain pre-match, 14 July 2024

Rodri on his position as the ‘architect’:

It’s an important position, especially the way [City and Spain] play. I try to give movement to the play, a dynamism, a rhythm. To connect to the players in front of you as soon as you can, to help the game mature, to interpret it, take it where you want it to be. That’s what most defines the role of the pivot: when to accelerate, when to brake, when to press higher, when to move deeper. Those thoughts are always going through your mind. When the ball comes to me and we need to apply a pause, I’m not going to accelerate the play.

‘To connect to the players up front’ is the key part for me. I don’t care if you are the ball winner or a pure passer; a basic requirement for a holding midfielder should be that they will always look to connect play to the players up front.

If, like in most top teams, they play with two or more attacking midfielders in the half-spaces, or especially if they float around, not playing forward to feet would make possession suffocating. And not suffocating for the opponent, suffocating for your team.

Rodri, on watching games back after the match:

I always watch games back, whole. Especially if I think there are things that can be done better. I watch them alone. You see lots of things you didn’t see on the pitch. The feeling you have watching it is different to how it felt at the time. I often find there are things I don’t even remember having happened. I like to analyse the game, not just mine, but the rest of the team.

I could not imagine why a professional player would not watch the match back, especially with how accessible match footage is.

From July 11, 2023, until today, Rodri has played 5,181 minutes for club and country. That is 57.56 full matches in total. He said, “I reached a point where I can’t [do it] any more,” and then went on to say that the players need to take a stand:

Yes, yes. It is going to have to be like that. In fact, over this past year, there have been situations in which we have spoken, that we have to do things, although it is complicated because we’re dispersed. We’re at different clubs, it is not easy to generate that [collective voice]. But someone has to put their hand up. And the people who have power, the big organisations, have to say: “Look, this is all well and good but we have to take care, especially of this generation of players, boys like Lamine [Yamal] who is 16 …” No one can play 60, 70 games a season. Over a couple of seasons, maybe, but not 10.

The Premier League season starts on August 17th, thirty-four days after the EURO Final against England on Sunday. Manchester City’s first preseason match is on July 23rd.

Something has to give. He does seem to be hinting at a player strike for the upcoming season. The players can’t keep going like this all year: 365 days, two to three days of rest between games, no rest.

He never waits in the pocket after receiving. He is always looking for the next pass forward, either through him or through a teammate, by moving out of the space after passing. There is no hesitation in the movement.

Passes forward like this are not necessary, but they are helpful to help break England’s shape by forcing them to collapse on the ball carrier. Force England to collapse, play it back from where it originally came, and then switch.

Once the Netherlands switch to the right side, Tijjani Reijnders moves and then finds the pocket again to receive.

He receives, looks upfield as he receives, takes two or three touches, then plays the forward pass, breaking England’s first line. He didn’t receive, turn to face open to the play, take an unnecessary touch, and then play sideways to the center-back on the opposite side.

He always looks forward first. The moment the pass is open in the pocket for the midfielder or forward to receive, he plays the pass. And the pass is perfectly weighted to roll past in front of Xavi Simmons, anticipating the pressure ahead from Declan Rice.

I can’t quite explain the way he runs off the ball. It is not a sprint, and it is not a jog, he looks like he is floating across the pitch. He immediately makes the run forward after playing that pass to Xavi Simmons, as England slowly retreats.

Look at the distance he covered within 30 seconds of playing. The space on the left in the pocket, created by him; the space on the right, created by him; the line-breaking pass; and then the run to finish the move, locking the English block back in their own half.

If he is not playing two or three touch, pass, and move, he is not afraid to carry the ball forward, and then he goes right back to passing and moving. He has the temperament and consistency of a central controller to know when to slow the game down and when to punch through the space.

Jude Bellingham and Phil Foden need to be played to feet central without any hesitation from the passer. If England had someone like that in holding midfield, they’d always attack like they did in the first half, all match, every match. They didn’t have that in the second half. It is simple when done correctly, and it is relentless.

Match: England 2-1 Netherlands, 10 July 2024

Players: Tijjani Reijnders

I’ve already talked about this but the two examples from both of Spain’s goals are too hard to pass on because we have been deprived of scenarios like this while watching the other top teams.

Spain play a simple pass forward, and France collapse on Dani Olmo. Even when Dani Olmo loses the ball, it bounces out to Lamine Yamal. Look at all the space that one pass from Nacho Fernandez created in the wide areas.

This is an exaggerated example because Kylian Mbappe never tracks back to defend, therefore Jesús Navas is wide open on the right wing.

Naturally, France will both retreat and spread out to mark the players in the wide areas. Lamine Yamal smartly pauses, dribbles, and pauses to wait for this movement before curling in a shot from a distance for the first goal.

Lamine Yamal would never have this space without that first pass forward from Nacho Fernandez. It seems insignificant in the moment but it opens up the pitch.

The second goal featured two forward passes. Force France to collapse on the ball; they chase the ball carrier; then Spain passes out wide where the space is.

Jesús Navas whips in a cross as left-back Theo Hernandez tries to close him down. It gets knocked down from the six-yard box, for which the two center-backs have retreated, and it falls to Dani Olmo.

Dani Olmo has room to the right of the defender closest to him because Theo Hernadez was preoccupied wide with the cross; he fakes that defender out, dribbles past, and then shoots across goal. It deflects in off Jules Koundé at the back post.

Like Lamine Yamal, Dani Olmo would not have this space without the two forward passes. I’m not talking about progressive passes because by definition not every forward pass is counted in that stat. Pass forward, any length, to force the defense to collapse on the ball.

The sick thing is that Spain of all teams should be playing sideways because Nico Williams and Lamine Yamal are world-class in isolation one-on-one, but they are creating even more space and opportunities by passing forward. Pass forward if you want space central because it creates space wide, and then play back inside to take advantage of that space like Spain did. That pass initiates the attack.

Match: Spain 2-1 France, 9 July 2024

You will see Dani Carvajal and Marc Cucurella checking over their shoulders to see an opposition winger or fullback wide, but they’ll ignore them. You can see from their body language and face that they naturally want to go out to mark them, but they restrain that instinct and stay inside.

On their right side, Lamine Yamal tracks the fullback back if they make the run forward. Nico Williams on the left side isn’t as defensively disciplined as Yamal.

Spain wants the center of the pitch to be compact. It is a risky game to play. They did the same thing against Croatia, but neither Croatia nor Germany could put in a good enough cross or header when the ball went wide to out-score them.

They will either, A, very quickly get the ball back because this chance is too hard to ignore for the opponent, or B, they’ll get scored on from a cross.

It would be hard to talk them out of defending like this because, to be fair, it has worked. They’ve conceded two goals and kept three clean sheets, a defensive record bested by their next opponent, France, who have only conceded one goal and kept four clean sheets.

Match: Spain 2-1 Germany, 5 July 2024

Our narrator for this summer of football, Uruguay manager Marcelo Bielsa:

Football has more and more spectators, but it is becoming less and less attractive. What made this game the best game in the world at the time is not prioritized today. Then this process will be finished. No matter how many people watch football, if you don’t ensure that what people watch is something pleasant, it will only benefit the business because the business only cares about how many people watch it. But in a few years, the players who deserve to be watched will be fewer, and the games produced will become less enjoyable. This current artificial increase in spectators will come to an end.

While I agree that football is becoming less attractive, that doesn’t mean it is not entertaining. You pay to watch the team, you don’t come to watch one player anymore. The problem is deeper rooted.

I have more hope than Bielsa because of how boring the Manchester City versus Arsenal match in April was, it was an inflection point for me. Zero progression, defensive, rigid rational occupation of space, side-to-side play. No one wants that type of game on a regular basis. When you watch France, England, or Portugal in the Euro’s, we are getting that type of painfully dull game.

I don’t blame the managers; they have to win. The players are the tactics; the players available determine the way the team plays. Flair has become more precise and automated, and the process of building robots starts young. I blame the coaches who taught the players not to express themselves. Those coaches had to sacrifice expression to focus development on quickness and strength to build physical athletes who would follow a playbook.

It is turning into American football, with players running preset plays, but the entertainment in that sport comes from being a physical freak. The problem football has is that William Saliba can’t rugby tackle Phil Foden. Pepe would love that too much. Football is more about technique.

We need to win; we can’t just entertain. That is the nature of the sport. One-two, quick pass and move, technical play forward is the only way to counter this and win. Embrace the tight space by making it tighter to entice the opponent in, play out, create more room, and disrupt the structure of the defense. It seems counterintuitive, but it is proven that it opens space. The dribblers, the forward thinkers, the playmakers, and the entertainers need space. Michael Jackson can’t moonwalk in a phone booth; he needs a stage.

They will come up with solutions that will bring back the entertainers, and that style of football is more attractive.

Marcelo Bielsa:

Football is popular property. The poor have very little ability to access happiness because they do not have money to buy happiness. That football, which is one of the few things that the poorest maintain horizontally, they no longer have.

Football needs to be free and accessible for all and the kids need to be given a platforms to express themselves, find their own solutions, and practice spontaneity so we can have more entertainers in the future.

Translation credit to Juani Jimena

Gareth Southgate mentioned that he gave Bukayo Saka “very complex instructions” on “how to defend and track back.” He wasn’t lying. The relationship between Bukayo Saka and right-back Kyle Walker is important.

When England loses the ball, Bukayo Saka drops back to move in line with left-back Kieran Trippier. Depending on where the ball is, that would place Saka on the outside or inside of Kyle Walker.

When they counter-press, Bukayo Saka makes it seem like he will be the one responsible for applying pressure to the opposition’s left-back, but he is always looking over his shoulder behind him to see if anyone is making a run ahead of Kyle Walker.

If someone does make a run through the half-space ahead of Walker, Saka then tracks them closely wherever they move infield ahead of the center-backs. This allows Walker to stay wide and mark the opponent’s left-winger. Today that is Ruben Vargas; next that will be Cody Gakpo; and in the final that will be either Kylian Mbappe or Nico Williams.

If the ball is played behind England’s initial press into the half-space, Saka will jump to tackle.

Tracking the run inside of Walker is important because Walker needs to fully focus on the one-on-one on the wing. Saka has the half-space, and John Stones has the space behind Walker. Walker can have full tunnel vision on the winger. Then a midfielder, normally Phil Foden against Switzerland, can come over to counter any attempted overload by the opponent.

The midfielder moving over will become important when they face the Netherlands, France, or Spain because of the threat of overlapping or underlapping fullbacks Nathan Ake, Theo Hernandez, or Marc Cucurella. Bukayo Saka will be responsible for tracking the fullback, leaving Walker to mark the winger.

This is the portion that makes the role key. If Kyle Walker decides to shift over to the center of the pitch, Saka then stays wide to mark the opponent’s left-wing. Someone must always be marking the left-wing.

This role, which requires Saka to position himself in the counter-press to not allow the opposition space to work the ball down the left-wing while scanning and tracking runs in the half-space, mixed with coordinating movement with Walker to always have the left-winger and fullback marked, is indeed complex.

Gareth Southgate spoke to BBC 5 Live before the tournament started about making changes:

You are never as good as you think you are and you’re never as bad as people might think. You are normally five percent away from where you need to be. There is a risk you rip things up and you then don’t have foundations to build on.

You can understand why England would be opposed to making whole-scale changes in the middle of the tournament. They have tailored this role to stop France, Spain, and the Netherlands. This complex relationship between Walker and Saka needs time so they can build a rhythm. Any change would disrupt that rhythm because they’d have to adjust the way they defend to accommodate that change. Their plan has flaws but at least they have a plan.

This might be why they wanted someone like Trent Alexander-Arnold on the right to help overload the right, and why a ball-winner like Conor Gallagher was chosen to replace Alexander-Arnold when he lost his spot, but I think Phil Foden or Kobbie Mainoo are sufficient enough cover in defense.

Match: England 1-1 (2-1) Switzerland, 7 July 2024

Germany manager Julian Nagelsmann spoke before the game about how they would deal with 16-year-old right-winger Lamine Yamal:

[…] on the other hand, he doesn’t have much experience on this level when things don’t go his way or when the opponent tackles him a little bit stronger. This is not a plan where we want to hurt him or tackle him all the time. […] Lamine Yamal is excellent, very funny, and inexperienced.

The plan was to rough up the inexperienced players: Pedri, Lamine Yamal, and Nico Williams. Seven minutes into the game, Pedri was taken out of the game and tournament by Toni Kroos, reportedly suffering an “internal lateral sprain” of his left knee. Germany watched too many Copa America games.

I think one of the reasons Robert Andrich and Maximilian Mittelstädt did not start was partly due to this plan to press high, go hard into tackles with the inexperienced players, and collect yellow cards. Good or bad, that is the calculated move a club manager would make, not an international team manager.

An international manager acts more like Luis de la Fuente; he puts out his best eleven players regardless of what the opposition is doing. A club manager is more calculated, like Julian Nagelsmann; he carefully plans out each substitute for the tactic and game state. He saved Robert Andrich, Maximilian Mittelstädt, and Florian Wirtz for the second half.

This is not the normal Spanish team we have grown accustomed to watching. They aren’t afraid to shoot on sight and look in a rush to score; rather, in the past, Spanish teams took their time. That lends well to how Germany played because you couldn’t spend very long on the ball without getting hacked down.

Nagelsmann stated as such:

Spain always tries to press high to force turnovers and win the ball high up the pitch. That’s a quality they have gained, it’s no longer just tiki-taka. There are many good approaches to defending a lot of possessions. But we also want to have the ball ourselves. That’s always more pleasant, and that’s the idea for tomorrow. We will not succeed in doing that in 90 minutes. There will be phases in which we want to attack and make life difficult for them.

On Rodri, Nagelsmann said:

He won’t be able to play every ball without pressure.

You started to see Lamine Yamal give in to that pressure by dribbling less than he would normally, but that faster play is contagious. When Germany won back the ball, they in turn tried to mimic Spain by playing fast.

Germany normally plays slowly in the buildup, not super quick, and then they attack the channels. They counter-press, but they don’t press super high, they always have sufficient numbers behind the ball. For most of the game, especially in the first half, they tried to play more like Spain.

It is not fighting fire with fire; it is trying to remix a platinum record. It is like bringing a boxer to fight a skilled martial artist at martial arts. The advantage will be with Spain if you try to beat them at their own game.

It did not unsettle Spain because they have too much quality. It opened more space for Spain in transition to attack and in the penalty area for Moratta. When they lost the ball, it placed Germany on the back foot. They gave up possession unnecessarily when they tried to pass quicker.

It made them look weaker because when they play their game, the battle is more even, like in the second half when they brought on Robert Andrich, Maximilian Mittelstädt, Niclas Füllkrug, and Florian Wirtz. Germany is stronger and taller, but Spain is more technically gifted and faster. Play to your strengths, not the opponent’s.

Germany only seemed likely to score once they were bailed out by Spain’s lack of planning with their substitutions. Spain bet on the fact that they could score and then hold the lead when they subbed off Lamine Yamal, Alvaro Morata, and Nico Williams. They were never going to go the full 90 minutes, but to switch to a front three made up of Dani Olmo on the left-wing, Mikel Oyarzabel up-top, and Ferran Torres at right-wing made little sense in regards to scoring or maintaining possession. Oyarzabel is not a center forward. Balance was restored in extra-time when Joselu was brought on up-top, moving Oyarzabel out of the center-forward position.

I like when teams play their own game; I like when there is a clear plan, but in a knockout game, at the club or international level, I don’t like when the quality of the starting lineup is sacrificed to accommodate a plan to mirror the opponent. That is the move of an antagonist.

Match: Spain 2-1 Germany, 5 June 2024

When Antonee Robinson pushed forward, Giovanni Reyna moved from the left half-space out to the left wing, timing the run to arrive wide when Robinson moved past by. This movement from Robinson dragged Uruguay right-winger Facundo Pellistri back.

Midfielders Weston McKennie, Tyler Adams, and Yunus Musah focused all of their efforts on occupying central zones. If the ball was lost, Robinson was responsible for getting back to defend.

Uruguay’s way of countering this movement was to target the opposite side of the pitch, their left side, when they got the ball. When they targeted the left, Robinson was forced to move all the way back to defend with the two other center-backs. The fullback on the opposite side, Joseph Scally, would try to pressure Uruguay’s winger on the ball-side, leaving space behind him for a pass to be played into.

Uruguay pinning Robinson back was their way of maintaining their role as the protagonist in the match. Whenever the USA regained possession, Robinson would have to travel all the way up the wing, up and down, up and down.

The USA had the numerical advantage in the midfield, so if they had a versatile midfielder who could defend the wide areas on their left, they would have had the ability to use one of those midfielders as cover for Robinson when he got forward, but it seems none of their midfielders are capable of marking Nicolás de la Cruz or Darwin Nunez. Therefore, the USA was always at a disadvantage in possession because they could never get in a rhythm.

Match: USA 0-1 Uruguay, 2 July 2024

Simon Austin talking to René Marić on the Training Ground Guru podcast:

Simon Austin: And I was talking to a very, very good coach and educator today called Brian Ashton. And he was saying he thinks sometimes tactics can be restrictive because they’re stopping the players from thinking for themselves on the pitch.

René Marić: Yeah, that’s another reason why I only think about from the players perspective and in terms of the decision-making. Because if you get pressed on the outside, there was space in behind that, but you might have to go inside in one way or the other to get to that space that the opponent opened. And then if you want to make it a formations and everything, yes, but you might make it harder to grasp, and then you maybe need half a second longer, and then you might not be able to execute that decision or you might make the wrong decision.

So it’s a matter of the quality of the explanation. And I think it helps with the quality of explanation if you focus on the eyes, and the head, and the legs of the players and teach the game, not teach your personal favourite style, language, or whatever.

I binge-watch JFootballTV videos, a YouTube channel by Lee Jung-Jin, a South Korean professional football player. He straps a camera to his head when he plays to show his first-person perspective. He has had a very inspiring journey through football, now adventuring to many countries, hopping from one opportunity to the next. I’d recommend checking out his channel and learning more about his story.

It is entertaining because he is a very talented player, but watching serves as a reminder as to what the player’s perspective is. I never played professionally myself, but I started kicking a ball when I could walk, and I did play competitively.

Even in public analysis where we are trying to teach the person reading or watching, I think I can do a better job by trying to put myself in the shoes of the player that I’m talking about. Then, by doing that, it might help the audience because they can better see the perspective of the player through the writing. That will improve the quality of my explanation.

We have an idea of a structure or movement from our eyes, but what does the player see?Rather than translate what the audience sees, translate what the player sees. And their view is limited as to how much they can see.

Marcelo Bielsa, when asked if he has a Plan B to defend rather than attack, translation provided by Juani Jimena:

In general terms, football is about possessing the ball rather than trying to recover it. Our goal is to spend more time with the ball than trying to recover it. Football is also playing on your own pitch or on your opponent’s pitch. Our goal is to play on the opponent’s pitch and not on our own. Usually, those who play on the opponent’s pitch have control of the game. And usually, those who dominate the game increase their chances of scoring and suffer less.

Plan B that you asked me, I understand, refers to not possessing the ball, and playing in our own half of the pitch. I don’t know if your question refers to that, but it is the only option that remains contrary to our plan. In football, you either have the ball or the opponent has it, or you play on your own pitch and make counter-attacks, or you play on the opponent’s pitch. I aspire that the quality of the players I coach will determine whether we will be protagonists or the protagonist will be the rival. In this case, and in all cases, I always choose that my team is the protagonist.

Furthermore, the need to use a Plan B in a game where Uruguay created three times more chances of scoring than its rival and dominates 70/80% of the minutes does not make sense.

In a high-stakes, must-win game, the protagonist needs individuals who can act as talismans. Uruguay has Darwin Nunez, Luis Suarez, Federico Valverde, and Ronald Araujo. High-impact difference makers who can score when the opponent defends deep and the attack is at a standstill. Austria is great when working as a team, but their talismans, Marcel Sabitzer and Christoph Baumgartner, need the team to be in motion to score. When asked to attack Türkiye for eighty-nine minutes, they don’t have the answer. They aren’t going to create something out of nothing or overpower the opponent with their quality.

A team without a high-impact talisman can struggle when they are the protagonist against an equal opponent. Austria have not lost under Ralf Rangnick when they have forty to fifty percent possession, but they lost to Belgium when they had the majority of the ball, fifty-eight percent possession, in European qualification back in October 2023.

Spain has Lamine Yamal, Germany has Jamal Musiala, Portugal has Cristiano Ronaldo, France has Kylian Mbappe, the Netherlands has Cody Gakpo, Türkiye has Arda Güler, England has Jude Bellingham, and Switzerland has the same issue as Austria. Who will you look to when your team needs a goal, and do you have several talismans if one is not performing?

Cover photo credit to CONMEBOL Copa América

Read the full article on Between The Posts.

The pass backward or side to side is open, but the window to the most forward pass into feet is also open. You take the most forward pass option if you want to progress through the center. If you want to progress through the wings, you would pass backwards or side to side.

Even if you don’t complete it, you force the opposition to defend the pass. If that pass is never even attempted, why guard the players centrally? The opposition can focus their attention more on the perimeter, applying pressure to Rodri, the defenders, and wingers while ignoring Pedri, Ruiz, and Morata.

Rodri could switch to Lamine Yamal, pass to the left from where the ball last came, pass back to one of the defenders to continue to circulate the ball, or play the most forward pass central to Pedri.

Rodri turns and with his third touch he chooses to play the most forward pass central to Pedri. No hesitation. If there was space open behind Pedri when he received the ball, he could turn to play the center-forward in. When Pedri receives the ball, he takes his touch forward, and Georgia’s midfield collapses on him. He allows them to collapse and then passes backward.

By playing the forward pass central to Pedri, when the ball is worked around to Lamine Yamal on the right-wing, a few things happen.

• Yamal has space to go one-on-one with the fullback, with the second defender having to cover a lot of space to help double-team him.
• The defenders have space for the pass back from Yamal.
• Pedri is ahead of his marker with only a center-back in his way if he wanted to make a run into the box.
• Most importantly, Rodri and Fabián Ruiz have space central.

Every Spanish outfield player has more space from that one pass by Rodri. Georgia is having to defend both the pass to the wings, the half-spaces, the pass back, and central; therefore, they are stretched.

Hypothetically, if Rodri were to play a pass to one of the center-backs to get the ball to Yamal, ignoring Pedri, Georgia would defend differently. They’d be able to stay more compact because they wouldn’t be drawn centrally to collapse on Pedri. They’d immediately anticipate the pass wide to the wing.

The difference in the amount of space is drastic.

• Yamal has little space to go one-on-one with the fullback, and with the second defender having less ground cover, he can immediately help to double-team him.
• The defenders have space for the pass back from Yamal, but that’s the only pass available.
• Pedri is no longer ahead of his marker, and Yamal can’t play the pass into him, so he can’t make the run into the box, nor can Pedri check to Yamal to help.
• Most importantly, Rodri and Fabián Ruiz have no space central.

Spain would then enter into a horseshoe shape, passing back and forth at the back. There’s no progression because there’s no central space. Everything must go through the wings.

And the same would happen if Rodri were to switch it to Lamine Yamal instead of playing back to the center-back. Pedri would be too far away from Yamal, Yamal would be forced into a one-on-one, and Yamal would either beat his man to cross or play back to the rest of the defense. If he plays back, they enter the horseshoe.

The two most important passes when you want to play central are either the pass immediately forward or backwards. Straight forward, like this pass from Rodri to Ruiz, or straight backward, like the pass from Pedri to the center-back. Straight up and down the pitch.

Force the opposition to collapse centrally with a forward pass into the center of the pitch, play out of that immediate pressure, and then take advantage of the space between each defender when they expand, either centrally or in the half-spaces.

The pass doesn’t even have to break a line; it just needs to move straight up and down the middle of the pitch. Every midfielder is obsessed with playing forward because it opens space centrally. Finding the least obvious pass is the job of the holding midfielder. It is a mindset. Passing side to side is fine but if you are not obsessed with passing forward, enjoy the wings and the horseshoe around with no progression.

Switzerland used their long cover-shadow and short cover-shadow to deny Germany time in the center of the pitch. İlkay Gündoğan, as he normally does, sits ahead of Florian Wirtz and Jamal Musiala, closer to the ball.

Against Denmark, İlkay Gündoğan sat behind Jamal Musiala and Leroy Sané which opened space for Robert Andrich, Toni Kroos, or Jamal Musiala when he dropped into that space ahead of Germany’s back line. Denmark did not defend as well as Switzerland did, but it helps to have more time and space to work against a similar defensive structure.

Germany manager Julian Nagelsmann talked before the match about why he started Leroy Sané ahead of Florian Wirtz:

We didn’t have enough deep runs against Switzerland. Leroy is a player who embodies that very well. Flo also generally has good runs, but he’s more of a player who wants to have the ball at his feet and creates things from there by dribbling or by two-touch actions with final passes. Leroy is someone who can offer a lot of depth himself because of his pace.

Denmark are, of course, extremely powerful in the air and physically very, very good in their back three. On the ground, they do have problems against agile players. Leroy is someone who can bring what was a bit lacking against Switzerland. He trained very well, from the substitute training last week up until yesterday, and made a good impression. I’m choosing between two world-class players, so the decision can only be a good one.

In order to facilitate ‘deep runs’ with short to medium-length passes through, you need to receive the ball central. If you are denied space central, then you would have to play longer-range passes. Longer-range passes are effective, but they are more effective when paired with short and medium-length passes.

The periods in which Germany had the most joy were when they got the ball into the feet of İlkay Gündoğan because the space was already created for Andrich. Receive central, attract the defense to the ball, play out to the free man, then play the ball through to the runners from deep.

I noticed that Germany were much more forceful with their runs. There was one wave, then the next, then the next, and those runs were at full speed. It was coordinated, and the players had to fully commit to their run for it to work. It was an effort to overwhelm the space ahead and in around Denmark’s defensive line.

Match: Germany 2-0 Denmark, 29 June 2024

Roger Federer delivering the Commencement address at Dartmouth on June 9, 2024:

Perfection is impossible. In the 1,526 singles matches I played in my career, I won almost 80% of those matches. Now I have a question for you: What percentage of points do you think I won in those matches? Only 54%.

In other words, even top ranked tennis players win barely more than half of the points they play. When you lose ever second point on average, you learn not to dwell on every shot.

You teach yourself to think: ‘Okay, I double faulted,it’s only a point. Okay, I came to the net and I got passed again; it’s only a point.’ Even a great shot, an overhead backhand smash that ends up on ESPN’s top 10 playlist, that too is just a point.

And here’s why I’m telling you this: When you’re playing a point, it has to be the most important thing in the world and it is. But when it’s behind you, it’s behind you. This mindset is crucial because it frees you to fully commit to the next point and the next point after that with intensity, clarity, and focus.

You want to become a master at overcoming hard moments. That is to me the sign of a champion. The best in the world are not the best because they win every point. It’s because they lose again and again and have learnt how to deal with it. You accept it, cry it out if you need to and force a smile.

Fully commit to the challenge, dribble, pass, or shot with clarity. Ignore all the fails and trust your ability.

Varsky: How much importance do you give to tactics, and what is tactics to you?

Messi: The truth is, I didn’t give much importance to tactics either. With Guardiola, I think I learned a lot and understood much more about the game, spaces, ball possession, and controlling matches through possession. I think football has evolved a lot too, and today it’s all very tactical, too tactical. Today, any team with a 4-4-2 line, putting five at the back, organized and well-worked, can complicate things for you. Before, there was much more space. I think today it’s much more tactical and physical.

“Too tactical.” I’d like to think that Messi wants the players around him to be unpredictable because he can read the situation better than anyone else. He is right; when you look back at the past there was a lot more space. Those Barcelona teams had an edge; I’m not sure if they’d have an edge if they played today.

Varsky: On the one hand, there is greater and better defensive organization, but there is less spontaneity and less dribbling. Why do you think that happens? Because players are more formatted by the academy than by the street?

Messi: Yes, I think that the Guardiola era also confused things a bit because everyone wanted to copy and wanted their teams to play that way, to be like Barcelona at that time. Many times, we talked about kids who are starting at six or seven years old, being told they have to play two touches, play quickly, and can’t hold the ball much. I think at that age, it has to be a bit like what happened to me: everyone is who they are. Yes, you have to teach them to understand the game better from a young age, to know how to move, find spaces, and play quickly, but also not take away their spontaneity. I think that has always been the case, that South American players have always been different and had much more of that than Europeans.

The greater problem now is not the nostalgia, thinking about how the Barcelona we loved would not have an edge today, the problem is that we are developing less creative players. Thankfully, coaches have expressed that they realized this and are again embracing street football, but the idea of positional football has infected too much of the footballing world.

It could take years to see change, but that opens an opportunity for the innovators to gain their own competitive advantage by countering the positional game with more relational principles from the street. The truth is that not giving an instruction is a tactic.

Varsky: It helped you to start, at least as a professional, playing as a right winger. The sideline kept you in order at that time until it got to a point where it limited you more than it organized you.

Messi: Well, I had no choice either, because it was the only space where I could play at that moment. I had played my entire youth career; we played 3-4-3. I was the tip of the diamond, playing as an attacking midfielder, and it suited me perfectly. We played with a five-man defense, and Víctor Vázquez was our central midfielder.

Varsky: And you were behind him?

Messi: Yes, and we had a great team back then too.

Varsky: It was a 3-4-3 formation?

Messi: Yes, it was the era where, in a way, Cruyff set the style, and we all played that way. Even the first team played that way often. When Rijkaard came, he changed to a 4-3-3. I had no choice but to play on the right wing. Honestly, I didn’t understand much about the position either.

Varsky: Did Rijkaard convince you, or did you just adapt?

Messi: I adapted. I was good one-on-one, quick, and understood the game. I adapted because of the quality of the players I had around me. Having players at that level makes you better. At the beginning of my career, when I debuted, I was more individualistic, playing one-on-one and doing my moves. But I learned to play more as a team player. I grew, added new elements to my game, and adapted to the winger position. But it was never my natural position.

I’d pay money to see Lionel Messi sit behind Romario at the top of Johan Cruyff’s 3-4-3 diamond formation. I’ve never heard him say right-wing wasn’t his natural position, but it makes sense. You’d want him at the center of everything.

Varsky: When did playing together with short, 4-5-meter passes become natural?

Messi: I think we felt it during the match against Brazil. We felt we had played a great game, and despite the result, we were superior in the game. Things just developed from there. You can have an idea, but you need the right players too. We found wonderful ‘Enganche’s’ (playmakers), most of whom had been playmakers at some point, and it shows. It shows in our ball possession. Generally, playmakers are different players who rarely lose the ball, and in the midfield, we started losing the ball less and had long possessions. Rodrigo (De Paul), Enzo (Fernandez), Alexis (Mac Allister), Leandro (Paredes), Gio (Lo Celso), even Fideo (Di María) were playmakers.

Varsky: You too. You’ve been playing as Messi for a while, but you’re a playmaker.

Messi: Yes, it’s what we said at the beginning. If I had to fill out a customs form, I’d put “Enganche.” Even though playmakers don’t really exist anymore, they are more like central midfielders now. But yes, that’s why I say all the midfielders have very good skills. We found a bit of balance.

The teams that want that edge that I talked about need ‘Enganche’s’. If it doesn’t work on the street, it won’t work on the pitch.

Messi offered up some trivia about Argentina manager Lionel Scaloni, whom he played with in 2006:

Messi: Scaloni also mentioned that he gave me the first pass in the national team, but I don’t remember that; I didn’t see it. Overall, the locker room supported me a lot.

The entire interview is a gold mine of information from a player who normally doesn’t go into this much detail publicly.

Read the article on Between The Posts.

England wants Phil Foden to invert from the left-wing. In order to invert, he needs Trippier to fill in for him, occupying the space he vacates, holding width on the left. If Trippier does not fill in that space, either Foden or Jude Bellingham will rotate in and out of that left-wing position.

If they want to stay offensive, Trippier would immediately run up the wing to force Foden and Bellingham inside. England looks more dangerous when both are in close proximity to Rice and Gallagher. If they want to stay defensive, Trippier stays back with the rest of the defenders.

Think Josko Gvardiol for Manchester City. He plays this similar role at left-back to allow Jérémy Doku or Jack Grealish to invert from the left-wing. Gvardiol doesn’t receive the ball frequently; he holds width, but every time City looks to retain possession when they break into the middle third and attack, he simply moves up as high as he can forward up the left-wing. This movement happens often, especially against lower-quality opponents. He’ll drop if the opposition is pressing high or if City wants to maintain a back-four to stay defensive, which forces Doku or Grealish to stay wide.

The problem for England is that Trippier does this half-committal movement where he neither stays back with the back four nor gets up as high as he can. That then creates this large, awkward empty space on the left-wing when both Foden and Bellingham invert. The opposition’s right-back can then push behind Foden or Bellingham, which crowds the midfield. Then the natural thing to do is play down the right-wing, but the space for Saka is smaller; Foden and Bellingham aren’t anywhere near close to Saka because they are rotating on the left, and Walker won’t overlap because they want to maintain a back-three when Trippier “gets forward.”

When Trippier pushes fully forward down the left-wing, the opposition right-back has to stay pinned back, which creates space for Foden and Bellingham in the zone ahead of Rice and in the left half-space. Foden and Bellingham can stay close to both wings, moving from half-space to half-space individually, and Declan Rice and the defenders have larger paths through the middle to pass the ball forward.

A left-back like Trippier is great in situations like this. To whip in a cross from the left. This is a position Josko Gvardiol would find himself in when Manchester City get into the final third. The problem is, how do you get into a position like this consistently, with high volume, if you can’t get out of the middle third? Trippier is a good crosser of the ball, but his touch isn’t that of a winger, and his short passing is inconsistent when he plays on the left. He plays right-back for Newcastle.

Why does England feel the need to have a traditional left-back on the pitch, positioned defensively in this setup, against far inferior, slower opponents? Why not have a more attacking option like Marcus Rashford, Raheem Sterling, Jack Grealish, Anthony Gordon, or Eberechi Eze in Trippier’s position? Someone who has a better touch and is a better passer who can rotate with Foden or Bellingham and just be a body out of possession while being a bigger threat in attack.

This is defending not defending with the ball. Without Trippier high in this zonal attack, I feel it’s harder to keep possession, which in turn makes it harder to sustain pressure defensively. They are shooting themselves in the foot.

Having Marc Guéhi, John Stones, and Kyle Walker with Declan Rice close, acting as the plus one, is sufficient cover to defend against the slow Benjamin Sesko and Andraz Sporar. Against Denmark, who are you afraid of on the counter, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Christian Eriksen? Serbia had Aleksandar Mitrovic, Dusan Vlahovic, and Sergej Milinkovic-Savoic, but that is still a three-on-three, with Declan Rice acting as the plus one.

They are so close, one change away, from my ideal lineup, the simple solution. I don’t think having Luke Shaw available to start will improve this imbalance because he likes to stay back more than Trippier does.

Match: England 0-0 Slovenia, 25 June 2024

When you defend in your own end, you have to set up your team to counter. Italy’s forwards don’t have a ton of pace, especially when Chiesa is on the bench; therefore, they are of little threat on the counter. They had to commit to only defending. They are betting that an experienced Croatia will not score.

The moment Luka Modric puts it past Donnarumma, it is a race against the clock. Italy has to scramble. They have to change to a more attacking formation, strikers come on for defenders and midfielders, and the momentum is not on their side.

You could argue that there are pros to this approach. Croatia has been attacking the entire match, they aren’t in a rhythm to defend. Their goalkeeper, Dominik Livakovic, is cold; he hasn’t had to make many saves. If Italy can generate a high volume of chances, they might catch Croatia in a bad moment. The time crunch to try to find the goal when you haven’t been attacking or maintaining possession the entire game is the risk.

Spain, on the other hand, defends with the ball. They maintain possession the entire match; they won’t feel obligated to rush to attack the box, and they won’t allow the opposition to have the ball. Instead of endless defending, it’s endless passing. The only way Albania can score is if there is a massive mistake.

Hypothetically, say Albania finds a way to score. The only con to this approach to keeping the ball is if Spain has trouble generating chances prior to conceding. If you’ve been dominating possession the entire match and haven’t scored, it is hard to think of new ways to enter the box in a time crunch. Players might become desperate, try to shoot from outside the box, and rush chances.

Unlike Croatia, Albania would be used to defending because they’ve been defending the entire game. Neither team will have ways to make many meaningful adjustments through subbing players on or changing the structure of the team. It comes down to individual impact players and moments.

The pro of keeping the ball is that if you are good at generating chances when the opposition is pinned back in their own half, like Spain and Italy can be on a good day, then there’s not this mad dash. It becomes a simple game of converting. Even though Albania hypothetically scored, Spain would have the momentum because now you expect them to tie the game. In reality, Albania never scored because Spain was good at keeping the ball.

Spain had already qualified for the next round before the match, with first place in the group locked down. They would have wanted to keep the winning rhythm going against Albania, but they didn’t have anything to play for. Albania still had a slim chance to win to take second or third place from Italy or Croatia. I know that Spain would have approached this match in the same way they did if they needed a draw or win.

Italy did not have to win to advance out of the group stage; all they needed was a draw. In a high-stakes match such as this, it is hard to bet against Croatia not scoring. A team of Croatia’s quality, with their vast amount of experience in tournaments, should squeak out a goal, which they did.

In my opinion, Italy has enough quality in defense and midfield to circulate the ball and maintain possession at the back. I don’t think it was necessary to take the risk of defending first; I prefer when teams defend with the ball. Luckily for them, they got the draw with Zaccagni’s dramatic 97th minute equalizer, and they advance with Spain to the round of 16.

Match: Croatia 1-1 Italy and Albania 0-1 Spain, 24 June 2024

Being that Xhaka and Freuler were at the base of their midfield, they were the ones most responsible for finding the pass no one else was looking for. As holding midfielders, they know best how to read Toni Kroos, Robert Andrich, and the rest of the German defenders when they look to play forward into Kai Havertz, İlkay Gündoğan, Jamal Musiala, and Florian Wirtz.

The short cover-shadow covered the progressive pass, into feet, to the closest German central player, the player that could turn to play in one of the forwards on the front-line.

The long cover-shadow covered the pass to feet for the German forward on the front line. The most threatening pass that could be played. This pass must always be covered.

Each German forward had their own zone of attack. They would swap between zones, but they rarely encroach on each other’s zone for long, if at all.

Switzerland’s backline stays flat in a line across the pitch.

The pressing trigger when the ball was with Germany’s backline was often a pass to one of the wide players. Switzerland’s backline now steps out to mold their defense around the movement of the German forwards.

Once Switzerland commits to pressing the ball, each player follows their closest man, except for one, the long cover-shadow. This was usually Freuler’s responsibility. He doesn’t join the press; he blocks off the pass, and that forces Germany to pass around the permitter. If they tried to pass centrally, Switzerland collapsed on the ball.

It was almost as if Switzerland were baiting this pass because each player in and around the ball was waiting to collapse centrally. They put pressure on the backline but always had an eye behind them to anticipate and surround the pass forward.

When Germany broke into the final third, all of the Switzerland midfielders and forwards plucked away at the ball, but Freuler was always responsible for manning the long cover-shadow.

Switzerland were well organized to stop Germany from having multiple touches in the midfield. All this made it hard for Germany to break into the box in the normal way they would like to, and was a major contributing factor to why Germany only had two shots on target in the first ninety-one minutes. A match in which Switzerland nearly won, had it not been for Niclas Füllkrug’s equalizer in the 92nd minute.

Match: Switzerland 1-1 Germany, 23 June 2024

Read the full article on Between The Posts

It’s like when the British colonized lands for their spices and then never used them in their food. The Premier League colonized all these tactics from other lands, but their national team didn’t want to use them.

Although the execution is not there, the way Gareth Southgate has them setup in the EURO’s is super close to what you would expect if you wanted to replicate the tactics used by the top teams in the Premier League. That’s why I said “the national team was detached from those ideas,” keyword was, past tense.

Michael Cox from his article “From Scholes to Iniesta to Ozil: How successful tournament teams often compromise on the left wing” in the Athletic:

Tactically, the frustration and the fascination of international football comes from the same concept: a manager is stuck with a specific and limited group of players to choose from. Whereas weaknesses in the club game are addressed by new signings, in the international game you simply have to cope.

And so there’s a common dilemma for managers with a problem position: do you opt for a player who is accustomed to playing in that position, but probably isn’t at the level of his team-mates, or do you select a top-class player who is excellent in another role, and ask him to adjust?

The perhaps surprising lesson from international football, at least over the last couple of decades, is the latter.

To me, this was more of an England issue than an international issue. The main problem I see is that over the past 20 years, tactics have become more complicated. The league with the most money and the most competition is the Premier League, where the majority of the English players play.

The tactics in international football are not complicated. There are very few instructions. Therefore, the English players train and play in a completely different environment from that of their international team, more so than players from other nations.

When I watch Spain, they use similar structures and systems when compared to the teams in La Liga. When I watch Italy, I see the Serie A. When I watch Germany, I see the Bundesliga. When I watch England, I don’t see them playing in a similar style to the teams at the top of the Premier League. The culture of football in that nation is not bland anymore. The cultures of many nations are rubbing off on them.

The manager dumbs down their approach because everyone thinks you must, but I think it’s harder for the players to adapt when the environment is unfamiliar to them. The players look more comfortable when you copy the familiar systems of Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Aston Villa, Tottenham, Chelsea, Newcastle, or Manchester United.

The ball is passed wide right by goalkeeper Donnarumma to right-back Di Lorenzo, and he is immediately put under pressure. Federico Chiesa does something smart. He drops very deep to pin left-back Marc Cucurella and provides the passing option for Di Lorenzo.

Notice that Spain has committed numbers to the ball-side. When you commit numbers to the ball, someone should be open on the far side. Nicolo Barella, Italy’s best creator, is left open central.

Chiesa plays it back to Di Lorenzo, and then Di Lorenzo plays it vertically to Barella. Now Italy has the advantage. Davide Frattesi peals off from Rodri, and Barella plays Frattesi down the wing. Frattesi would be quickly closed down and pinched by Cucurella and Rodri if Chiesa did not pin Cucurella higher up the pitch.

The three Spain defenders are forced to retreat, and if the attack is succinct, this type of play should result in a shot. It did not result in a shot because Frattesi’s touch wasn’t good and he is quite slow, but this is one way to play out of that suffocating counter-press.

Italy was not sharp throughout the match. When they weren’t misplacing a pass or botching a touch, Spain were doing a good job hunting down the ball. Spain defends by keeping the ball and maintaining possession, but they are sneaky good at defending transitions, pressing, and winning back the ball.

Match: Spain 1-0 Italy, 20 June 2024

Fatigue should be mentioned when talking about England’s performance because they looked tired after this long, grueling season.

Italy coach Luciano Spalletti spoke about Nicolo Barella starting against Albania after he missed training due to injury:

The fact that he missed a few training sessions at this stage of the season can only be good for him. We all say, we come to the end of the season, we’re really tired, we’re tired, we’re tired, exhausted, but one guy who’s missed two training sessions sessions, okay, he shouldn’t have necessarily played because he missed two training sessions. No, he played because he rested up. It’s actually the contrary, it’s the opposite.

Phil Foden can invert from the left wing because left-back Kiernan Trippier is there to push up on the left. When Trippier isn’t there, Phil Foden and Jude Bellingham have to work harder, covering the space Trippier occupied. That takes players out of the center of the pitch.

When you take players out of the center of the pitch, then England can’t progress on the ground; they have to go vertical, which they did. This issue compounds because Declan Rice only passes side to side. Trent Alexander-Arnold was progressing the ball, but due to the fact he is often wide right, he can’t thread a pass on the ground to Kane, Bellingham, or Foden. They are too far away from him, with bodies in the way.

Notice the lack of straight passes forward into that zone where Phil Foden can turn. To get the most from Foden and Bellingham, you need to funnel the ball through that zone. Play the ball into their feet with their back to goal, and then they can turn towards the penalty box.

The selection of players is not the problem; the selection of passes is. You might as well not start Foden if you are not going to play this pass. Foden is not Jérémy Doku; he won’t dribble past five people. He is a jack-in-the-box that you wind up in small spaces, pass the ball into feet to pop out of the space, pass or shoot, and then start again.

Of the two progressive passes Declan Rice played to Phil Foden in the first half, neither were forward, both sideways, and neither were in that zone central. Marc Guéhi was one of the main sources of cutting passes to break Serbia’s first line of defense.

This is the problem with having Declan Rice as the anchor. This will go overlooked because of how good of a footballer he is, but he is unwilling to play this pass forward between the lines. He passes from side to side, left to right, like a center-back. His mind and thinking are more similar to that of Gabriel Magalhães, not Rodri. He is not a natural six and is used to Arsenal playing through the wings. Jorginho, Partey, Mainoo, and Wharton find the least obvious pass. Rodri finds that pass and dictates the pace of play to allow Foden time and space on the ball to turn.

It is not a lack of ability on Rice’s part, it is a conscious mindset to always look forward when everyone else is looking back at the ball. It is a switch he can flip because I know he knows he can play those passes.

I gave credit to Marc Guéhi but you can also give credit to John Stones. Stones, over time, has learned how to think like Rodri—to think like a six. He was the first one to play the forward pass into Foden in that zone in the final third. You play that pass, and then the entire attack opens up. It is a small window to pass into, but that is where Foden needs the ball. It looks impossible to receive a pass in that small a space, but for Foden, it is necessary.

Those one-twos open up the defense. Without that combination play, you can’t progress the ball forward without going through the wings.

When Trippier was active down the wing, this dynamic worked because Trent could progress through the center to Foden and Bellingham due to the smaller distance between them, and then they could pass out to Bukayo Saka and Trippier on the wings. When Trippier isn’t active, Trent Alexander-Arnold has to go long or through the wing.

The switch was flipped in the 20th minute. England began to go long. When England goes long, the game is lost because a game of many transitions does not play into their strengths as a team. Other than Bellingham, that midfield is not great in transition, Kane is not going to win every aerial duel, and with Trippier back in England’s half, there is no outlet on the left wing.

They don’t need to start a left-winger, but they have to slow the pace of the game down and focus on funneling the ball through the center of the pitch to distribute into the box or wide to be crossed. If they do not, they will repeat this same static and frustrating performance.

Match: England 1-0 Serbia, 16 June 2024

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Austria manager Ralf Rangnick said after the match:

We left everything on the pitch. They were tested until the last second. I spoke to (Dayot) Upamecano at full-time and he said he was happy it was over. It shows our performance.

They hounded France for as much of the match as they could, a testament to Upamecano’s ‘happy it was over’ remark. The intensity of their pressure trailed off in the second half, but they left energy for specific periods to keep France on their toes.

France has three forwards, and Austria has four defenders. When they counter-press, they commit all of their forwards and midfielders to shift pressure man-to-man to the ball-side. That leaves Grizemann free, unless left center-back Maximilian Wöber jumps out to mark him.

Kylian Mbappe and Marcus Thuram both switched positions throughout the match. You can’t leave Mbappe alone. Because you can’t leave him alone, when right-back Stefan Posch moves forward to help pressure left-back Theo Hernandez, then left center-back Maximilian Wöber has to move over to mark Mbappe.

Wöber was marking Griezmann, Austria continued to commit everyone to the ball, so they left Griezmann unmarked. If France could have found a way to play a quick, driven pass ahead of Griezmann, they would have been in. Their best creator is open, with Dembélé on his right and Mbappe running down the middle.

It’s a tough call on Austria’s part for who to give that free space to. Maybe you could leave Dembele alone, but you can’t leave Thuram or Mbappe open. Maybe you don’t need to mark right-back Jules Kounde, but that leaves the safe switch to the right side open, so that would make it easier for France to retain possession. The goal is to pinch France to force them forward.

Unfortunately for France, they never found that pass to Griezmann once in the match. They did create a situation in which Griezmann received the ball in similar conditions, not originating from a pass out the back but as a result of France doing the pressing when Austria had the ball. They won back the ball, quickly got it to Grizemann on the ground, and he played the ball over the top to Mbappe resulting in one of their clearest goal-scoring chances. He should have scored.

This open space for one of the advanced midfielders or forwards is a feature of Austria’s counter-press that could be exploited by someone like Xavi Simmons for the Netherlands or Sebastian Szyzmański for Poland. Whoever is the free man in the half-space behind the forwards should be targeted as the outlet.

Match: Austria 0-1 France, 17 June 2024

Cody Gakpo was the forward who looked the most alive for the Netherlands. It makes sense why Poland would want to slow his progress immediately when he received the ball, but they were left vulnerable when the rest of their four defenders shifted far away from Frankowski.

It meant their midfielders had to compensate for the lack of presence in the half-space behind Frankowski. It is no surprise why Ake provided two assists in the match because he had a lot of room ahead of Poland’s defense and midfield to carry into the half-space and distribute into the box.

When Cody Gakpo received the ball, the pass was always ahead into the half-space, giving Gakpo the option to follow his pass or break behind Frankowski into the box.

Frankowski was used to positioning himself far ahead of the nearest center-back, close to Gakpo. When Poland lost the ball on their left side, in their own half, Frankowski was caught out wide, allowing Gakpo to slip in and score from the left half-space.

Shifting right center-back Jan Bednarek over to make the distance between himself, Przemysław Frankowski, and center-back Bartosz Salamon, more equidistant, would have given the midfielders on the ballside, closest to Gakpo, more freedom to challenge either the midfielder in the half-space or Nathan Ake out wide. That would have provided more balance to the separation between each defender, and they would not have had to chase the open spaces as much as the ball was passed about.

The Netherlands lack pace in midfield and will always find it easier to move the ball if the opponent is forced into chasing the play.

Match: Poland 1-2 Netherlands, 16 June 2024

Switzerland has one of Italy’s best goalkeepers, Yann Sommer from Inter, and outfield players from Manchester City, Newcastle, Torino, Bologna, Mainz, Bayer Leverkusen, Augsburg, and more. Starting players from the top teams in the European leagues. It is great to put each player on a chalkboard and plot out the movement and spot the weaknesses, but you have to factor in the gap in ability.

Hungary’s only win since 1994 against Switzerland was in 1998. Their 3-1 loss in the group stage this year makes it their fourth consecutive loss since 2002.

When Scotland lost to Germany, I knew they could play better than they did. When Croatia lost to Spain, that’s football, it’s two top teams competing and one had a better day. When Italy plays Albania, you would not expect Albania to win. It doesn’t matter how they move or their structure, they don’t have the quality. Maybe one day they will, or they’ll get lucky, but not today.

Before picking apart how they play, you should set the correct expectations for the result first and not allow the result to cloud your thinking. Critique the idea when you expect them to win, but if they aren’t expected to win, then the idea becomes more palatable.

Relational play has a way of elevating the performance of the individual players to a level you would not expect them to reach, especially the creatives. The opponent sits at a standstill as the team constantly moves. They’re tactically interesting for that reason and others, but they are an underdog, not a dark horse. Tactically interesting in the same way Brighton were under Roberto De Zerbi. You want them to win but they were not favorites to win the Premier League, lower your expectations.

Hungary should keep playing like they did in the second half. Dynamism, non-zonal attack, with dummy runs to open spaces, pass-and-move quick tight passes out through the wings to attack the box vertically. Yes, Hungary were porous defensively, but it’s the difference in quality between the two teams. Just play their game against Germany and Scotland, like Fluminese did against Manchester City in the Club World Cup.

That’s why I said I would like to see Hungary advance past the group stage. These ideas need results before they are taken seriously by the positional laggards. The laggards will benefit more in an international competition compared to club football because the teams are much less rigid and more free-flowing with fewer instructions. Less of an edge for a team like Hungary.

Match: Hungary 1-3 Switzerland, 15 June 2024

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Jamie Hamilton in his article “THE HUNGARIAN CONNECTION”:

Players approach the ball carrier to offer the kényszerítő — kényszerítő (the Hungarian word for one-two) means ‘forcing’, as in ‘to force’ the opponent into a decision they don’t want to make — follow the ball? follow the man? or be left for dead.

I always appreciate Jamie’s deliberate thoughtfulness to try to incorporate the culture, the language ‘kényszerítő’, of the team into his writing. When you are talking to an English-speaking audience, the first thought is to make what you are saying familiar to the reader, but it is easy to forget about the language spoken by the team you are talking about.

This subject of culture and tactics is thought-provoking. I believe coaches should try to curate an environment that replicates the way you played growing up as a child into how you play as a man, because that is what will be most natural. How you grew up playing is inherently part of the culture of where you grew up.

The issue now for Brazil is that the players playing at the top level look more comfortable playing positionally. It is not natural because that is not how they grew up playing, but they look comfortable because that is how they play for their club. So to go to the national team and flip the mental switch is difficult, and you see it in the results when they try.

You could see that mental tug and pull when Diniz coached Brazil; players were not used to playing in that way and reverted to what was a familiar safe space when things went wrong.

Players like Vinicius, Rodrygo, Militao, and Endrick look comfortable because their club has adopted these principles, but the rest are used to how they play for their club. Brazil will be one of the first to benefit once the relational principles start to win matches and become more popular in the clubs these players train in. I don’t think it is a coincidence that these ideas resurfaced as Argentina lifted South America’s first World Cup in 20 years. Ideas that Lionel Scaloni subscribes to and uses.

That is why I am looking forward to seeing what ideas Hungary has for Euro 2024. I would like to see them make it out of their group. You do not have to agree or like the ideas, but you can’t change a player’s roots, the way they grew up.

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The context is the movement of the opposition. The opposition moves, the player scans, and then the player moves into the unoccupied space.

At normal speed, I’d see Saric receive the ball, but I wouldn’t be able to as easily spot the context for why he moved. When it is sped up, you see Italy’s defensive shape and movement in relation to the ball, and it is easier to spot the tiny changes in movement from his marker before the pass.

Once you obtain the context for Saric’s movement, you can immediately move on to focus on Hajradinovic. You can’t see them scan; you can see that at normal speed or when you pause, but when it is sped up, you can more easily spot the intent of the move.

Bosnia and Herzegovina are finding space on the fringes of Italy’s core. They are reacting to each jump and lunge from Italy’s defense as they shift side to side with the ball.

I always look forward to reviewing the footage after the game because then you can go back and spot the context for certain actions. Speeding up the video is a useful tool because not only does it save time, it can also make it easier to see a range of smaller positional changes across the pitch.

This is my favorite example from his post, “Using Tracking Data To Inform & Provide Blueprints for IDP Training Sessions”. He comes to this final conclusion after analyzing the data and video while working with a midfielder, trying to understand why they lack the ability to turn and face up the pitch when receiving passes from the center-backs:

The midfielder is left footed and it’s clear that they struggle to receive across their body (i.e. let the pass run across them so they can turn at the same time up the pitch): Rather than doing so, they almost take an unnecessary touch which closes open spaces as opponents recover and shut down lanes OR they simply don’t even try to scan and turn — choosing to play back to the CB who has just played the pass.

In this hypothetical scenario, the analyst can bring a video package of these 15 clips to both the player & coach and watch them together — 15 clips that provide infinitely more value to the 50+ clips that you could possibly show them. Since I added in filters for space the CM received in and where his teammates were positioned ahead of him at the same time, it’s impossible for them to misconstrue the message tracking data provided you. The IDP sessions one can create from this are endless, both in a vacuum and as a part of a coaching point for 11v11/small sided sessions with the rest of the group.

It is one action in a game, but when you fix that one action, the game opens up.

It takes a smart mind from the analyst to think of the ‘when’—to locate the area they need to focus on. That objective for the coach and player could not be created efficiently without this type of data analysis. It speeds up the process of finding all the needles within the haystack.

It is like climbing. It is one thing to say, ‘you have a problem receiving passes from the center-back’, and then we are forced to discover the path through trial and error. It is another thing to see the issue, and then immediately know the intended path because you can see what works and what doesn’t in the data.

Elgbert laments about Germany’s struggles over the past years and how it is now changing at the youth level, in James Gheerbrant’s piece, “After a decade of wrong turns, Germany can see path to home glory” for The Times:

But, Elgert believes, these errors of emphasis are being put right. “We’ve completely changed our approach, even with the youngest ages,” he says. “There has been a total rethink, back in the direction of what Germany was good at: street football, two against two, three against three. The coaches are there to coach through supervision, not by constantly determining what’s happening. We are back on the right path.” The restoration of German football, it turns out, is not fixing a broken-down machine, but rather reconnecting with the subtle, human, intuitive qualities that made it great all along.

This is how coaches will gain an edge. Embrace the roots of football in the street. It is not a lazy or passive way of approaching the game, it is a way to embrace the natural instincts of the players by giving them as few instructions as possible. Train in an environment that replicates that, and then force players to find their own solutions.

The mood around German football is more optimistic than it has been for a long while, not just because the Nationalmannschaft has turned a corner, beating France and Holland in Nagelsmann’s fifth and sixth games in charge. Last year Germany’s under-17s, featuring Elgert’s latest discovery, Assan Ouédraogo, won the European Championship and the World Cup.

Elgert believes there has been a necessary shift from positional deliberation towards empowering players to make quick, sharp, instinctive decisions. “Football has changed,” he says. “Everything has become quicker: speed of running, speed of thought. That’s where the biggest room for improvement is: on the cognitive side. You have to think quickly — play, anticipate, scan — not, ‘Should I pass there or there?’‌”

With more athletes, it is harder to tire the opponent compared to a decade ago. Maybe that helped the players with ideas shine because those that were defending were tired and more prone to error. And those with the best ideas that the opponent couldn’t expect were not always the best athletes.

Spontaneity should not be punished. The next generation should develop their minds first and then their bodies, because if this trend continues away from ‘positional deliberation towards empowering players to make quick, sharp, instinctive decisions’ then those players with the unique ideas will shine brighter again.

Ilkay Gündoğan speaking to SPIEGAL about his role in Germany’s new system under Julian Nagelsmann:

SPIEGEL: That’s why you’ve moved from the holding midfield position further up to the number ten spot and are playing there alongside the two 21-year-olds, Florian Wirtz and Jamal Musiala. We suddenly see a lot less of you. Why?

Gündoğan: My role has changed. We now play with three number tens up front. Each of us has a similar drive towards goal, makes similar runs, and wants to dribble with the ball. It’s all the more important that I pay attention to what Flo and Jamal are doing. How can I adjust my runs so that we find the right balance?

This is as balanced as Germany could be. It feels like a team. There are ways to release pressure. Everyone compliments each other well. The entire system is built around these three tens, so they can be close together and constantly be a threat.

SPIEGEL: But you are the captain, and they are the youngsters. Shouldn’t Wirtz and Musiala adapt to you?

Gündoğan: I see it differently. Unlike the two, I have experience. I need to adapt my game to theirs, not the other way around. If Flo runs to the left, then I shouldn’t sprint there too, but instead find a different path to create space. If Jamal goes into a dribble, I need to clear the way for him.

SPIEGEL: Do you do that with words or with your feet, by simply running elsewhere?

Gündoğan: Both. Many players intuitively do on the field what’s best for their own game. Flo and Jamal, for example, often come from the half-left position in their club teams. If one of them plays half-right in the national team, he naturally moves a bit more towards the center. My job is to recognize that and move to the right side, where space is created but also where a counterattack against us might occur if we lose the ball. Flo and Jamal shouldn’t have to worry about that; they should focus entirely on their artistry. I adapt to them so that we can be successful.

Without someone as experienced in thinking and mind as Ilkay Gündoğan this narrow formation might not work as well. He needs to constantly be moving in an unselfish way to create space for Musiala and Wirtz so they can dribble and create.

Without that space, everything would become cramped, and then the wide areas would become exposed because when Wirtz or Musiala move inside, there’s space open wide. Gündoğan becomes their most important player on the pitch.

This is something that is discussed before the game. The shot between the legs is difficult for the goalkeeper because they can’t see the ball carrier take the shot. Ramsdale can’t get a clear view.

When Stones commits to blocking the shot to the far side, Ramsdale should then be almost fully committed to blocking the shot to the near post. He can’t fully commit 100 percent because what if Stones doesn’t get a solid block on the ball?

When the ball goes through Stones’ outstretched legs, Ramsdale isn’t prepared for the shot, and he dives late. It slips by him for the goal.

You would have to assume this is a lack of communication between Stones and Ramsdale. Ramsdale should never be beat this easily to his near post if he knows Stones has the far post covered off.

In the example image in Figure 2.1 the defender is performing the other technique to block a shot, to cover the far post. If John Stones wanted to cover off the shot to the near post, he could block the shot like this.

Bend his trailing leg; don’t allow the shot to go through his legs, which would allow Ramsdale to fully commit to the far post. If the ball hits Stones, it will have a higher likelihood of getting deflected away from goal, out of bounds.

Match: England 0-1 Iceland, 7 June 2024

Goalkeepers

Jordan Pickford, Aaron Ramsdale, Dean Henderson

There are no surprises in the goalkeeper selection. Jordan Pickford is the clear number one, he is on the plane. Aaron Ramsdale has been second choice at Arsenal, and Dean Henderson spawned out of nowhere towards the tail end of the season for Crystal Palace.

Watch for the steady theme of favoring and giving opportunities to Crystal Palace players in this squad. Crystal Palace had a good end to the season, and Gareth Southgate is a former Crystal Palace player.

Defenders

Lewis Dunk, Joe Gomez, Marc Guehi, Ezri Konsa, Luke Shaw, John Stones, Kieran Trippier, Kyle Walker

• Having the experience of Lewis Dunk is smart; he’s error-prone but a great passer of the ball.
• Joe Gomez had a great season, is very versatile, and is able to play on the right and left sides at fullback and at center-back if needed.
• The first questionable decision is Marc Guehi. Guehi had a pretty mediocre season overall, being injured from February 3rd to May 6th. His first meaningful minutes since February came in the final game of the season, 76 minutes against Aston Villa. I think Chris Richards might have displaced him at left center-back in Crystal Palace’s lineup towards the end of the season.
• Ezri Konsa deserves a spot based on how he has played this season for Aston Villa and in recent international friendlies, playing 70 or more minutes against Brazil, Belgium, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. He can be used at right-back or center-back. Very composed, kind of slow, but solid in the tackle.
• Luke Shaw has been injured for most of the season, but he needs to be in the squad if fit because of his leadership and ability. There are not a lot of options at left-back, Ben Chillwell isn’t a very reliable option due to constant injuries, and he’s not as good of a defender as Shaw.
• John Stones is John Stones.
• I don’t think Kiernan Trippier will start over Kyle Walker or Ezri Konsa, but he has a lot of experience, and if you need an assist from a cross, he’s one of the best England can offer.
• Kyle Walker like Luke Shaw, is a leader and has the ability to be the starting right-back. It’s either him or Ezri Konsa at right back, probably.

Left-back is the weakest position, with only Luke Shaw or Joe Gomez as solid options. Kiernan Trippier or Trent Alexander-Arnold could attempt to play there, but they never play left-back for their clubs.

Harry Maguire missed out due to injury; Jared Branthwaite and Jarrel Quansah were sent home. Quansah was never going to make the final squad; he barely starts for Liverpool but is a selection for the future. It was a nice gesture to include him.

Branthwaite is rumored to be moving to many of the top clubs. Anyone who can afford him is interested. If he made that move last summer, I think he likely gets picked. He has a ton of momentum when compared to Guehi in terms of form and likely has a higher ceiling. They’re both the same age, 23 years-old. I don’t understand that choice.

The starting back-four is likely Ezri Konsa, John Stones, Lewis Dunk, and Luke Shaw. It’s not a defense that fills me with a ton of confidence defensively, but offensively, it looks solid.

Midfielders

Declan Rice, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Conor Gallagher, Adam Wharton, Kobbie Mainoo

• Declan Rice is the ultimate Swiss army knife. He can play in defense or midfield. Holding midfield, attacking as an eight in the half-spaces. He should be on all corners and free-kicks.
• Trent Alexander-Arnold is listed as a midfielder in the England team-sheet. This is fantastic news because, in my opinion, he is a better midfielder than a fullback. England’s Toni Kroos.
• Conor Gallagher had a really good season, but he played as a number ten for Chelsea. He should be a backup to one of the holding midfielders. He’s a solid option off the bench, a great tackler, and a good leader, but he has confusing decision making at times when attempting to create chances. Should never play as a number ten.
• Kobbie Mainoo is the darling of Old Trafford. He impressed against Brazil, offering something that England has lacked in holding midfield as a six.
• Adam Wharton has had a break-out season for Crystal Palace. He’s better at finding the least obvious pass, he can offer more than Kobbie Mainoo as a six, but he’s very inexperienced like Mainoo. Mainoo is a better dribbler, and Wharton is a better passer.

For me, it is either Kobbie Mainoo in the squad or Adam Wharton. One stays, one goes home. I’d pick Kobbie Mainoo because he is more versatile and can play in advanced positions as an eight. Neither will get meaningful minutes; it seems like a waste to have both. Adam Wharton could be England’s future starting number six, though, because I don’t consider Declan Rice a six; he’s much more than that because he has more to offer in other positions.

Second questionable decision. This is a lot of holding midfielders taking up spots in the squad, especially when you add John Stones into the mix because he can play in the midfield. It seems unnecessary and overkill, a decision that has knock-on effects for the forwards.

Trent Alexander-Arnold and Declan Rice should be the starting holding midfielders.

Forwards

Jude Bellingham, Jarrod Bowen, Eberechi Eze, Phil Foden, Anthony Gordon, Harry Kane, Cole Palmer, Bukayo Saka, Ivan Toney, Ollie Watkins

• Jude Bellingham is a Ballon D’or candidate; no one will displace him for many years.
• Jarrod Bowen is an experienced option off the bench in a game. He is an impact player who can carry a team. A great backup to Bukayo Saka, who may or may not have been injured off-and-on during the tournament off injury towards the end of last season. An important selection.
• Eberechi Eze is on fire form-wise at Crystal Palace since Oliver Glasner took over. When I watch him dribble, he is what Pep Guardiola thought Jack Grealish would be when he signed Grealish. He can play on the left-wing and as an advanced midfielder. Great creator.
• Phil Foden is the Premier League Player of the Season, but he is the Player of the Season in the midfield. They should not play him on the wing. If I see him playing on the wing, I will cry, and I rarely cry. He has not played very often on the left-wing this season but can play on the right-wing, but Jarrod Bowen is there.
• Anthony Gordon is quick, he is sharp, he is great one-on-one, and he can find the corner cutting in from the left. He should be starting on the left-wing, first choice.
• Harry Kane is Harry Kane, a goal-scoring machine and first-choice starting center-forward.
• Cole Palmer is silky and unique. He shouldn’t start, but he can play left-wing, advanced midfield, and right-wing.
• Bukayo Saka is the nailed right-winger.
• Third questionable choice is Ivan Toney. I am happy for him, but I have no idea why he has been picked. He was out until January 20th due to an eight-month betting ban. He has looked subpar in comparison to the season prior and has not scored for Brentford in the past three months, since February 20th. If I was Dominic Solanke, I would be fuming.
• Ollie Watkins is the most underappreciated player in England today. He had a remarkable season, leading the line as the talisman for Aston Villa, barely missing a game, scoring 23 goals, and assisting 13 in all competitions.

One of Dominic Solanke, Marcus Rashford, James Maddison, or Jack Grealish should get a place ahead of Ivan Toney. And then one of whoever is remaining, once you replace Toney, should get a place ahead of one of Adam Wharton or Kobbie Mainoo.

Picking Eberechi Eze over Jack Grealish or Marcus Rashford is a very difficult call because both Grealish and Rashford haven’t had the best of seasons, but they both are big-game players. I do think Eze offers more than both as far as his ability to play in multiple positions, but Rashford will get you that big goal and Grealish has a ton of composure. A very ruthless call to make, kind of questionable, but might help with the balance of the squad.

I understand why James Maddison and Curtis Jones were sent home. Jude Bellingham, Phil Foden and Cole Palmer are in their way, and they are not as useful on the wing as Eze or Palmer.

Jude Bellingham and Phil Foden should be the advanced midfielders; Bukayo Saka will start on the right-wing, with Harry Kane at center-forward.

I’d rather they lineup like this to replicate the dynamics these players have at club level, but the likelihood of that happening seems low.

We may see Phil Foden play on the left-wing, but hopefully he’ll be rotating with Jude Bellingham in and out of that number-ten position.

Ezri Konsa can move back to right center-back in possession, like he does for Aston Villa, to allow Luke Shaw to move up the left-wing. That will allow Phil Foden to invert. A double pivot of Trent Alexander-Arnold and Declan Rice would be super overpowered. Bukayo Saka can maintain width on the right, and Harry Kane can drop to help.

There are four questionable decisions in total. The squad is fairly balanced and built like a Premier League all-star team, but I don’t think it is as impressive in balance or depth compared to France, Germany, or Portugal.

For me, the Euro’s is more complicated than the World Cup. Even though there is much more pressure at the World Cup.

But here all the teams know each other, we play against each other all the time. Tactically it’s very similar football.

The wildcard teams tactically in the World Cup, that made it past the group stage, were Japan, Brazil, Argentina, Senegal, and Morocco.

It is more of a game of who has the best quality squad in the Euro’s. Everyone plays roughly the same way. International friendlies throughout the season between each other means that each team knows what to expect.

That makes it more complicated because the margins will be smaller. Teams will gain when they deviate from what they are used to.

There’s so much movement and interchanging of position, you must feel comfortable playing in every position. One weak link can exaggerate the weaknesses of the team as a whole when you have to trust your teammates to fill the role you vacate. All the out-and-out one dimensional players are surplus.

Midfielder Weston McKennie and winger Federico Chiesa are rumored to be on the outs. McKennie’s departure wouldn’t be surprising, because how comfortable are you with him playing on the back line or out wide as a winger or fullback?

Chiesa to me is an out-and-out winger, not someone that will feel comfortable rotating all the way back to left center-back or moving into the midfield, like Thiago Motta has asked his wingers to do at Bologna, especially those that play on the left. Chiesa can play on both wings, but I think he needs to at least be effective in midfield to be wanted by Motta.

Right-back Danilo was rumored to not be wanted, but he has reportedly since made it clear he wants to stay to lead as captain. He might have been seen as not versatile or lacking the ability to contribute when he rotates into the midfield. I’m not sure.

The goalkeeper is going to have to be able to read the game with the ball at their feet and pick out more unorthodox, intricate passes a midfielder would make because of the movement ahead of them. It was likely a prerequisite for Motta to join that he would be able to upgrade the goalkeeping position.

Wojciech Szczesny is a legend of the game, but Michele Di Gregorio is one of, if not the best, goalkeepers in Europe last season. A top shot-stopper but that ability to pass out from the back isn’t make-or-break, in my opinion, but it makes it so much easier when Di Gregorio is as secure with the ball at his feet.

Defenders that are prepared to move essentially everywhere, wide left or right, in the midfield, through the channels to the forward line are a necessity. The fullbacks must be able to shift from their position to center-back and the center-backs to fullback. Thiago Motta taking Riccardo Calafiori with him from Bologna is not a surprise, for this reason. Cambiaso and Bremer fit into that category.

Ignore the formation because, when you watched Bologna last season, you quickly realized how unimportant the starting formation is. Sure, there’s a structure, but Calafiori could end up in the right half-space from left center-back.

Teun Koopmeiners is, to me, an advanced midfielder who can play on the wing, either behind Vlahovic or out wide. I could see him drifting in from the left.

The two main highlights of the team will be Douglas Luiz and Nicolo Fagioli. Both are remarkable passers. Douglas Luiz was Aston Villa’s most valuable and underappreciated player last season. Someone who you would notice most when he isn’t playing because of how vital he is to the way they move the ball. Fagioli is a very highly regarded midfielder of the future. Both are players who would be comfortable dropping back or playing more advanced in the half-spaces.

I’m a bit undecided on whether it will be a midfield three with Rabiot, Locatelli, or Alcaraz as the third-wheel midfielders or if they’ll have two wingers with Koopmeiners playing as a 10. I don’t know who the left-winger will be if Koopmeiners plays centrally or who the right-winger will be, period. Whether it will be one of their current wingers or if they’ll bring a new one in.

This is the beauty of the versatility and talent they’ll have. They’ll be spoiled for choice. There are so many different combinations they can go with to play the style of football Thiago Motta likes to play. Very fluid, unpredictable, relational football. A mix of youth with high expectations and experience.

Center-forward Dusan Vlahovic is the most fascinating piece of the puzzle. Joshua Zirkzee was a chameleon last season for Bologna, able to drop anywhere on the pitch and immediately fit in. I initially thought Vlahovic would fit into that out-and-out center-forward one-dimensional category of player to be sold, but that does not seem to be the case. Turning one of Serie A’s most potent center-forwards into a chameleon is going to be an interesting project to follow closely.

Thiago Motta will both be able to exaggerate the strengths of each player, extract the most out of the attributes they possess now, and bring out some of the hidden creative attributes other more rigid positional systems suppress.

Referee David Webb talking to the Training Ground Guru about what he gets from the data pack that the PGMOL provides mid-week before the match on the weekend:

What I find particularly useful is the information on goalkeeper distribution and passing lanes that you get. If a team is going to pass through the centre of the pitch, I know I will have to alternate my position from there.

If they tend to play more direct, I will have to anticipate play a bit more and be on the front foot. Looking at the passing lanes, I’ll know I can stay out of that zone and arc my runs left and right.

I find it beneficial to be proactive in a positional sense, rather than reacting. During the game you’re scanning, anticipating where play is going and you move that way. You’re looking at the ball but also what is going on around you.

Referees get a bad wrap because, when you are watching, it is easy to see when they get something wrong, but you have to appreciate all the information they take in.

They have someone in their ear, constantly running, talking non-stop with the rest of their team over their radios, scanning. That ability to remain proactive is necessary, or it would be a complete mess.

After every match I referee, I will create clips from the game, including big decisions, as well as positioning and movement examples.

It is common sense that they plan their movements, but who knew the extent to which they prepare for a match.

Featured image credit to the PGMOL

Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola was asked by Ben Fisher for the Guardian, how important is athleticism to implementing his style:

It is key because we try to play with a fast rhythm. We don’t want the games to stop, and you don’t have time to recover. I always say, ‘You have to ask for the ball when you’re tired.’ If you are waiting to rest before asking again for the ball or making the run into space, everyone can do this. But you are a Premier League player, and if you are tired, this is the moment you have to push the opposition, when they are also tired, and try to break them. To do that, you have to be at your best physically.

The human body can be pushed much further than you would think. Training the mind to push past that pain threshold gives those players an edge. Those Bournemouth players probably get excited when they get tired, because that will normally mean the opponent is just as tired, if not more, than them.

Featured image credit to Bournemouth

I watched this video of these American soldiers in a firefight in Afghanistan. The entire squadron was firing at this area ahead, hunkered down, and behind cover. Then walks up this one solider named “Jamsheed,” informally known by me as the one dude with an RPG. Without a care in the world, with rounds flying by him, he calmly walked forward in the open air, without cover, aimed his RPG at the target, and fired. Everyone cheers.

The guy with the RPG in this match was Carlo Ancelotti. Every other manager is afraid to take risks, hunkered down behind the cover of their control, automations, and drilled structures. All the other managers want control in every phase to win, but Carlo does not need control in attack. He calmly walks up and tells his players, ‘Do what you need to do.’ Then everyone is left stunned when he wins, because how can you win without “control”?

I spend a lot of time defensively, working with my team, working together. Offensively I give some information, but not too much. What can I tell them?

The Real Madrid players don’t need a ton of instructions in attack. Let them play their own game and find their own solutions. Let Vinicius, Rodrygo, Bellingham, Kroos be creative. He doesn’t put guard rails up. He is the perfect manager for a team with this much talent because there is no need to hold them back.

This approach is foreign in the modern game, but it wasn’t foreign years ago. I remember Eto’o, Pirlo, Drogba, Xavi, Iniesta, Berbatov, Messi, Tevez, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Henry, Klose, Ronaldinho, Lampard, Gerrard, David Villa, Scholes, Ronaldo, Ibrahimović, Fernando Torres, van Persie. I don’t remember the managers they played under, and their control over the game. The game was not won or lost based on the manager’s instructions, the praise went to the players first. I felt this when I watched the Netherlands play Brazil in the 1974 World Cup. If the players didn’t find the solutions, it was mainly their problem.

The instructions come in defense. Real Madrid allowed Dortmund to occupy certain areas of the pitch when they lost the ball. There were instances where Real Madrid’s defensive organization at the back was tested, and their offside trap failed. Those chances almost resulted in goals.

Dortmund outplayed Real Madrid in the first half because Madrid kept misplacing passes and losing possession unnecessarily. If the passes were more accurate, we’d see a more succinct performance from Real Madrid, like we saw for the majority of the second half.

I liked the way Real Madrid applied pressure on Dortmund, especially when the ball was in Dortmund’s own half on the left side. The pressure in moments where they had the numbers to overwhelm was well timed. That pressure tired Dortmund.

Real Madrid did not allow Dortmund to advance through the wide areas. They owned the wide areas by crowding the ball carrier and cutting off any passes out of pressure. It would take a major mistake from a player defending inside the box for one of these chances to result in a goal.

Even if Dortmund scored in the first half, I’d still come to the conclusion that Real Madrid deserved it because of how they defended. Carlo Ancelotti wins his fifth Champions League. Empowering individuals to play their own way to become the most successful individual in Champions League history. Poetic.

Match: Real Madrid 2-0 Dortmund, 1 June 2024

At first, they lie in wait, and then pounce as a unit together. The diagonal they create in the press signals the direction they want the ball to be played.

They did this a lot immediately after losing the ball. They didn’t allow Brazil to advance past their second line. It wasn’t a half-hearted effort. It is all or nothing; everyone joins in.

Once they commit to the press, everyone has to also commit to the tackle and get a foot in. Brazil can never feel comfortable on the ball. Each touch is met with a lunge.

The diagonal that forms is the most prominent and consistent figure, though. I’ve never seen a team do this. I am imagining someone yelling “now!” like in medieval times in battle, and then they charge.

It is effective against relational play because relationalism promotes play in close proximity. By charging as a unit, the opposition can’t advance. There is a wall ahead of them in the space where they would want to create their own diagonal. Counter the diagonal with a diagonal press.

Match: Netherlands 2-0 Brazil, 3 July 1974

Enzo Maresca previously served as an assistant coach to Pep Guardiola at Manchester City during their 2022/23 treble winning season, and he utilized a lot of the same tactical principles City used when he managed Leicester City this season. He explains all of that in the video.

I think teams at the highest levels in Europe are starting to figure out how to halt the progression of the ball when teams use this type of system.

Enzo Maresca explains what happens to Leicester City’s 3-box-3 structure once they lose the ball:

Even when we are already with our fullback inside, and we lose the ball, immediately, we try to maintain the same shape.

The fullback stays inside until we recover the ball now, if the opponent, they are able to (complete) four, five, six passes in a row, so fullback come back in his position, and we become line of four, with the fullback.

The main idea is the moment that we are attacking, and we lose the ball. We don’t drop with our fullback; we maintain the same shape, and we try to be aggressive with all players.

Most teams, when they use the 3-box-3 formation, immediately drop the fullback to form a back-four. They don’t wait to see if the opposition will complete a certain number of passes.

Maintaining that shape without dropping the fullback to immediately apply pressure works when you have the qualitative superiority over the opponent, like he had with Manchester City and Leicester City, but when you don’t, it seems a bit risky to me.

The three most important players in this system are the goalkeeper, who needs to be able to distribute effectively, a ball-playing center-back to advance the ball forward, and the center-forward who drops to connect play. If only one of them is off, they lose possession. Then a press resistant playmaker advanced ahead of the double pivot that has quick feet to connect play and create chances.

If he is at all stubborn and forces players to stay aggressive, we might see situations next season where the back three become outnumbered four-v-three in defensive transition.

In today’s game, any manager can underperform expectations. Kompany is a manager who should perform better with a higher quality squad. He has a special ability to extract the maximum from his players, with his team punching above their weight with the ball.

Their top goalscorer in the Championship, Nathan Tella, went to Bayer Leverkusen in the summer; Ian Maatsen left for Chelsea then Borussia Dortmund. They both played for Burnley the season they were promoted. They were missing that extra special quality in the lineup. Wilson Odobert brought some of that extra energy and dribbling threat, but it was not the same.

Burnley’s lineup in the Championship the season they were promoted was stronger than the one they had in the Premier League. They didn’t replace the players they lost. They tried to replace goalkeeper Arijanet Muric with an exciting English prospect in James Trafford. That didn’t work out. The loan of center-forward David Datro Fofana from Chelsea in January came too late in the season to make a difference.

Kompany completely transformed the way they play to help them get promoted, but I don’t think many managers would be able to save Burnley from relegation based on the lower budget they had and the recruitment that resulted from said budget. Burnley did not have the quality to play the way he wants but he persisted anyway.

Right now, Kompany is the default positional coach with tremendous leadership qualities. He uses a high line. He likes using the 3-box-3 midfield formation in possession. He’ll have the goalkeeper come out to help in the build-up. What you see is what you get; he is somewhat predictable. He has a way he likes to play, and will brute force his way through games by playing that specific way regardless of the opponent or what his availble squad is.

The imagination comes in when you try to predict what he will do when he gets higher quality players, players of Bayern Munich’s ability. Will he change things, come up with more solutions we have not seen.

Based on the past, I could see him using a back-four to start, which then shifts into that 3-box-3 formation. Someone of Joshua Kimmich’s profile would be important, because he can play both at fullback, holding midfield, and as an outside center-back on the right.

It’s a very solid base for players like Alexsander Pavlovic and Jamal Musiala to work from. He likes quick, fast-paced passing sequences, and that requires highly technically gifted players. Those dribblers are needed to help force defenses to come out.

His former manager, Pep Guardiola, has been singing his praises ever since the former Manchester City captain retired:

It doesn’t matter if he was relegated with Burnley. I have a high opinion about his work, as a person, his personality, knowledge of the game, how he handles the media.

Vincent Kompany will become a future Man City manager, mark my words. Yeah, it will happen for sure. You will call me when this is going to happen.

I’m confident that with experience, he should succeed, but if he doesn’t, that is football. I respect the risk Bayern Munich is taking.

The slow trickle down of information and ideas has reached the lowest performing teams in each league. Every automation, every formation, and most combinations have been tried. We have made the bezels smaller, the notch less noticeable, and the frame thinner. Everyone knows what to expect.

Going forward, any team in Europe that intends to play strictly positionally will be considered a laggard. You can update the software and the players, but the hardware of each new device and the structure of the team are the same.

When I flip the channel between games, I can close my eyes and picture what is happening. It is too predictable. This is the safe space, the safe way to play. They take a risk, try something new, but when things are going wrong, they retreat back to the safe system.

Innovation is happening in defense. No matter where you are on the table or what league you play in, everyone plays positionally. Everyone trains against their own offense, so they know their weaknesses and strengths. Through that repetition, teams are quickly learning how to clog up the passing lanes and stem the flow of chances.

When one rigid structure faces another rigid structure, it becomes hard to create.

Everyone is afraid to make the Apple Vision Pro. Something that is new. A risk. The teams that break through are the ones that are taking risks and improvising.

Take more risks. Give more freedom to the players to roam. Create systems that put the emphasis on the creators. Less automations, more thinking for themselves.

Those that do that are the new innovators that will best the laggards. Results will convince everyone that this is the way to win; it will be adopted, and then the cycle starts over.

Read my article on Between The Posts

Goalkeeper is the most interesting position to me, they have my respect. There is so much nuance to what they do. The position of their body, the way they plant their feet, the way they shuffle their feet, where they place their hands before the shot, what portion of the hand makes contact with the ball, how much power to parry.

You can practice through repetition to prepare to react in the game, but it is still reacting. It is not predictable, every save is slightly different.

It is great that Swansea City gave us this access.

There are many tiny factors that are hidden because most wouldn’t know what to look for. I would imagine it is incredibly mentally draining because they can’t make a mistake. Make a mistake, and you concede.

The moment John Stones follows Rashford, Gvardiol and Ake should notice this and move in line with Stones. There’s a very large pocket of space for Garnacho to run into behind Stones, and they never attempt to close that space. Garnacho has the jump.

Their high-line isn’t disciplined. They aren’t attempting to create an off-side trap. One of the defenders is always playing someone onside, either near them or on the far side.

Even when Stones abandons Rashford, Ake isn’t in line with Stones, and Gvardiol is positioned to have Garnacho in his blindside, behind him. Gvardiol should probably be ahead of Garnacho to be ready for that ball over the top.

The ball over the top was played, and it resulted in the first goal.

The second goal was the same exact thing. Stones and Ake are roughly in-line, Ake is ahead of Stones, but Gvardiol is not. Again, they are not worried about Garnacho; they are perfectly fine with the ball being played over the top.

I don’t necessarily understand the reasoning behind why they wouldn’t be worried about a ball played ahead of Gvardiol to Garnacho. They are happy to rely on their pace to compensate for the space they’re allowing Garnacho to have, while simultaneously guarding no one. There’s no obvious benefit for Gvardiol to position himself the way he is.

The ball is played wide, so they get away with Gvardiol’s positioning, but now they have another problem. Gvardiol is challenging Garnacho, Ake is tracking Wan-Bissaka, and John Stones is watching Bruno Fernandes, but who is marking Kobbie Mainoo? It should be Kyle Walker.

I mentioned this last season; Kyle Walker relies on his pace a lot to bail him out of situations that develop due to his poor positional awareness. He improved at the start of the season but has since regressed back to old habits in the later part of this campaign.

I would assume he is expecting John Stones to see and mark Kobbie Mainoo; therefore, he’s fine with jogging back, but Walker should be back marking Mainoo. Stones is preoccupied with watching Fernandes and can’t see or defend against a low-cross to Mainoo behind him.

The mixture of a lack of an offside trap due to the disorganization of their high line mixed with a lack of positional awareness makes you feel like the opposition will score on each transition. The positive thing for Manchester City is that they rarely give the ball away, but when they do, someone is always playing an attacker onside.

They might as well not use a high line and allow the opposition to enter their half. Limit the possibility of conceding on the counter.

Match: Manchester City 0-2 Manchester United, 25 May 2024

Modern rigid defensive shapes aren’t made to follow all this movement. You can’t have a center-back follow center-forward Isaac Kiese Thelin when he moves from the center of the pitch to the wing. It’s too hard to track the movement of the midfielders. The best you can do is shift as a unit.

Shift as a unit, and then the free man is there on the far-side. We normally say overload to isolate, but that underplays it, that is an acre of space.

It is the law of expansion and contraction. When Malmö overloads the wing, the opposition contracts around the ball. When they break out of that overload, the opposition expands, and then they attempt to contract around the ball.

When they contract, the wings are open. More often than not, when the ball was switched out to the left-wing, Kalmar overcommitted to the left-wing, which left the run from the right-wing, the pass to the blind side of the defenders because they were all facing towards the left-wing, more open to be played into the box.

Malmö are one of the most interesting teams in Europe right now because they’re doing things most teams in Europe do not do. They are a must-watch.

The overload and movements are not random either. It is coordinated; each player knows what weaknesses to exploit, where to run, and when not to make a run. It is not reckless, not illogical, and they have other methods to work the ball into the box.

Match: Malmö 5-0 Kalmar, 24 May 2024

Johan Cruyff discussing where the term “tiki-taka” came from:

Tiki-taka — That’s something like this where we play the ball as quick as possible, and these sorts of things. When we started in Barcelona (in 1988) to do possession play.

It’s the responsibility of the ball, where you play, how you play — controlling the ball is the basis of football.

In the beginning, that was something people laughed about because they didn’t understand that it was football. Until it had the results and people enjoyed it, people loved it, and now it’s a fantastic world.

Europe is going through a cycle now with the implementation of principles from relational play, and until there’s results, silverware, everyone will to continue to stick to what works.

The top teams need to be prepared for it to work and take over.

Amine Adli moves higher, and that cuts off the flow from the back to the front on the ground. Atalanta squeezes you with their man-marking. Leverkusen is in control of where those markers are.

To take advantage of the space created by Adli, Leverkusen would need to play the ball over Atalanta’s second line. That’s going to require a precise pass, and it will be a physical one-v-one with a defender.

If you’re going to make the pitch small, I think you should go all the way by having Amine Adli drop. Promote shorter passes. Overload the ball side, and then take advantage of the pace in larger spaces behind the Atalanta’s second line. Avoid physical battles and quickly out-pass them.

The same thing happens when they switch the ball to the opposite end. I don’t like the spacing. Four men close to the ball, Xhaka and Palacios just far enough away to not be a short pass option, and then Jeremie Frimpong higher up the wing.

If you play the ball into Xhaka, Palacios is too far away from him for a quick one-touch pass out of pressure, and Frimpong is completely out of the play for a short pass into that space on the right-wing.

Because of that spacing, this passing sequence should naturally end with a long ball to the ball-side winger. Atalanta has the switch to the other winger covered, and there’s no one central.

If the passing was more succinct, maybe we would see Bayer Leverkusen string together a potent transitional focused attack, but Atalanta are more than solid defensively, very tough, and strong in the tackle. Bayer Leverkusen wanted that battle with the long ball, and it didn’t favor them.

Match: Bayer Leverkusen 0-3 Atalanta, 22 May 2024

It’s not immediately apparent where the runners will exit this diagonal or how the ball is intended to enter the box, but that diagonal allows Malmö to adapt and react on the fly.

When Sebastian Nanasi and Elison Makolli peel off, that traps the opposition in their own half because their midfield four has to follow the runners to compensate for their back-line’s lack of preparedness.

Malmö is organized, and Häcken is now reacting.

Malmö manager Henrik Rydstrom speaking to Sky Sports:

I have this image of us as pickpockets when we overload. Maybe not so much pickpockets, more like close-up magicians.

You think you see everything but there is so much going on — one player drops, another moves away — and then suddenly, boom, we steal this thing that everyone thought they had their eye on.

It is like when you hide the ball in one of three cups and then move the ball. You see everything in front of you, but then we fool you.

The close proximity of the players allows Malmö to quickly ping the ball around like they’re in a pinball machine. Which makes it hard to defend and win back the ball. The opposition defense has to wait for a mistake.

It’s another way of defending with the ball because if Häcken intercepts a pass, eight of their players are behind the ball, chasing.

Match: Häcken 2-2 Malmö, 20 May 2024

This is not an isolated incident. This happens all the time when you watch Bologna. Each player is prepared to play in every position on the pitch.

For the majority of the teams Juventus faces, very few will allow their center-backs to venture forward like this, nor will the center-backs have the ability to recognize where the space is and execute when they receive the ball.

The natural thing for a football player to do, without any instruction, is to be threatening. They want to attack the box, they want to contribute to the attack.

Players are trained to stick to their positions, occupy space unnaturally because the team has a strategy. Do not create chaos because no one else on your own team is prepared for it. But Bologna knows how to rotate; they are prepared for it.

Because of this, this movement from Calafiori is unexpected. Bologna expects it; they cover for him, but Juventus are caught off guard. Therefore, Juventus do not mark him.

If he doesn’t make that run, no one is there to score, and no one is there to constantly help overwhelm the defense. It was a beautifully composed chip from Calafiori; that of a number nine not a center-back.

Match: Bologna 3-3 Juventus, 20 May 2024

Players: Riccardo Calafiori

Link to article

I definitely don’t see myself as world-class. I’ve got to score in big games and finals to be world class. I’m capable of doing that, so it’s something I strive for.

Players such as Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe and Cristiano Ronaldo are way above me at the moment. But I could be there one day. It’s all about taking small steps in the right direction. I just want to take my Manchester City form into the England national team.

The goal from outside the box at the Santiago Bernabéu to level the score two-to-two was world-class. The two goals against West Ham to win Manchester City their fourth consecutive Premier League title were world-class.

It is one thing to contribute to a team that won an Under-17 World Cup, an English Super Cup, four English League Cups, two English FA Cups, a UEFA Super Cup, six Premier League titles, a FIFA Club World Cup, or a Champions League title. It’s another thing to be the talisman in a title winning team.

Deserved Premier League Player of the Season.

The former 1978 World Cup winning Argentina manager spoke at the 6th Congreso Nacional de Directores Tecnicos de Futbol in 1995:

The fear that I go through in recent times is that the player loses his nature as a player. That in favor of modernism, and tactics, the tactics is nothing more than the geographical location of a team on the pitch to recover the ball, and the geographical location to then play with the ball. That it is just trying to now allow the rivals score goals, and we to score goals.

So my concern is that coaches do not assume the right to take the show from the game.

With the excuse of a philosophical reasoning that has no basis, which is to “avoid risks”. I do not know of any system that avoids risks. The risks are there, as in life. If one wanted to avoid risks, we would never fall in love for fear of being betrayed, or one would not have friends for fear of being disappointed. So the risks in football are always there. The only way that there are no risks in any game is by not playing the game.

So that’s my concern.

Juan Lillo has the same concern now, but he has hindsight and the ability to use that hindsight to better form his opinion for the future.

The fear remains the same but the positive is that managers are beginning to take risks.

I see with what disrespect they have been incorporated into the media, because of the great business that football is, I see with what difficulty a coach has to manage in the middle of a terrible struggle, between television rights, for the great business. I also see with great fear, the lack of protection of the player’s development.

Think of all the managers that struggled this season under the pressure of congested schedules, constant press conferences, constant questions.

My concern is the lack of training between matches. Pep Guardiola put it plainly when he said “we do not train”. You can’t when you have a game every three days.

Think of all the exciting ideas managers could develop and implement if they could actually work with their players between matches. The training happens during games between the eleven players and five substitutes.

Thank you to Juani Jimena for the translation. You can view his entire talk with English subtitles here. César Luis Menotti sadly passed away on May 5th and his passing resurfaced this great presentation. Rest in peace.

Liverpool Academy director, Alex Inglethorpe:

I think Trent’s a good example — we didn’t teach him. So, he’s good at passing, right? We all know he’s good at passing - we didn’t teach him that. No. But we didn’t tell him to stop it either.

We wouldn’t say, “Pass five yards here, pass five yards there. “Only play in your triangle on the side, only do this,” you know. He had freedom and I think he taught himself in the end because the hardest thing to do is, especially if you want to be a player that affects the game.

If you want to be a player that makes the difference, you’ve got to have an awful lot of failure. Yeah?

How many shots would you have had before? Know what I mean, as a kid? How many dribbles would you have taken on, how many chances would you have missed, to become good at what you’re doing? Or you can play safe and just like, ok, “pass to you there, pass to you there.” No risk but little reward.

I don’t think players are afraid to take risks, I think they are trained to find the simplest solution. It is ingrained in them. But players that are forced to find their own solution are the difference makers that stand out because everyone else is playing safe. They stick out.

Several generations of creatives never reached their potential because they were told to fall in line. The next Dimitar Berbatov is stuck helping circulate the ball in the lower leagues because that type is not usually one of the top athletes.

Antonio Gagliardi and Francesco Bordin in Notiziario del Settore Tecnico:

Of course, this is just an example; depending on the team, the characteristics of the players and the level reached, there will be structures with a higher or lower number of perimetral players and spatial players.

The more spatial players are part of the same team, the more dynamic and fluid the system will become. This is a great response to man-marking strategies which can often struggle against the fluid movement of players creating these asymmetrical areas of numerical superiority: obviously, these man-marking structures would be totally disrupted if their objective is to continue to track down individual players.

The characteristics of the perimetral and spatial players are different. For example, the latter are much more associative players, good in tight space and usually technically skilled.

It is race to find those technically skilled players that can operate as spatial players. As they describe, teams are currently using a combination of perimetral and spatial players.

There’s many great examples in the article but the best example, that not many are talking about, that I have is Manchester City versus Brighton. Kyle Walker, Manuel Akanji, Nathan Ake, and Josko Gvardiol are the permiteral players, and the rest are spacial. Brighton could not keep up with all of the coordinated movement.

And here comes one of the greatest challenges brought by this evolution: to delegate and to accept the players making apparently random movement and positions.

I don’t think it’s “random”. It’s expressive but there’s a purpose behind every movement, be it hidden or obvious.

Realistically, even in positional football, choices and movements are almost always decided by the players on the pitch (fortunately, we would say), but there is still the illusion of control. Precisely, an illusion: because then, in a situational sport like football, the random element is an absolutely influential factor.

It is a system built on trust. Like a trust fall. One player falls and you have to trust the next will catch them, cover for them.

But what happens when a team of Manchester City’s quality abandons the permitter allow every player on the pitch to move freely, even the defenders? I think that would be completely overwhelming.

That first movement from Nicolas Jackson to make the run central towards Lewis Dunk is good, but he needs to check the space within that ball-side triangle of defenders to the near post when Marc Cucurella cuts inside.

That lack of experience translates to unintelligent movement. The intelligent move is to check to the space because you can’t get a ton of power on a header on a looped cross up into that gaggle of Brighton defenders near the penalty spot, but you can tap it in across the goal if you check to that triangle of space.

Cole Palmer does the right thing. He attacks that triangle of space at the near post when Marc Cucurella is ready to cross. You’d want Jackson to then recognize the pass is going to the near post, and he should want to then get behind Lewis Dunk. Remain in an athletic stance.

Remaining in an athletic stance means that your body, your legs, arms, chest are prepared to shoot or receive. If the ball falls to you, your body should not have to adjust.

Instead, when Palmer heads the ball, Jackson checks to the penalty spot, likely betting that Palmer will miss the header and it will fall to him. This is another unintelligent run in my opinion.

If Palmer’s header is saved, the rebound is going to fall right into the six-yard box, and no one will be there to tap-in the goal. That’s where Jackson should be.

And he’s also not in an athletic stance. His chest is pointed away from the goal, his left foot is up, knee bent. He needs to have his chest pointed at Palmer, arms out square to the ball, with his left foot ready to collect or shoot first-time.

Once you see Malo Gusto on the overlap, the run should be automatic. Fake a run to the far post, like you’re planning on trying to get on the end of a low cross across the goal, but then you check back into the space ahead of Brighton’s back-line.

Plant the left foot down hard to shake off the defender, check to the space with your chest pointed towards the ball, and have your right foot ready to shoot.

This is great movement to sneak to the back-post, but you have to attack the space once the pass is played. His body isn’t prepared to attack the cross; he is not in an athletic stance.

Right leg should be ahead of the left, ready to launch off the left heel, to sprint the moment Gusto crosses. He’s trying to stay onside, but he should be preparing his body, out of view of the defense, to sneak up on that far-post.

This is an intelligent run from both Jackson and Nkunku. Jackson continues his run which creates space for Nkunku. It pins Brighton back towards the net.

Nkunku deceives the defender with his run. He checks to the far-post, that makes right-back Tariq Lamptey commit to defending the low cross across the goal. Then Nkunku checks to the space behind Jackson. He’s in an athletic stance, chest pointed at the ball, with his right leg prepared to shoot first time. Simple pass into the net for the goal.

That instinct to know how to deceive based on where the ball is comes with experience. Remember that Nicolas Jackson is only 22 years old. You would be wrong to compare him to experienced 25-year-olds like Viktor Gyökeres or Victor Osimhen.

Jackson’s work-rate, tackling ability, engine, speed, dribbling, and hold-up play is special. Constantly running without a noticeable drop in fatigue. The flicks, the improv, the ingenuity, the entire package is unique. Take him out of the team and put in a more traditional center-forward, and you lose that quality that few center-forwards have outside of the box to connect play.

He’s great at getting the right positions to run the channels. Train him to move more intelligently in the box, surround him with creators, play him the ball, and give him the confidence so that he can return to the clinical finishing of his Villarreal 2022/23 season, and you have one of the most dynamic and versatile center-forwards in world football.

In a world where you need players to feel comfortable in all positions, he is the perfect type of striker to build around.

Match: Brighton 1-2 Chelsea, 15 May 2024

Tottenham were always on Manchester City’s heels. It’s one thing to press, but the intent to force the pass forward was clear and exhausting.

Tottenham pressed City’s backline, but once the pass was played forward to the midfielders or forward, City were locked into the transition. It is like a Border Collie herding sheep. They were funneled into trouble.

They made them play quickly. City need the pass backwards to walk the ball up the pitch. They don’t have the pace necessary as a collective to compete against Tottenham in a straight line. They need that slow build-up to take advantage of their technical ability superiority.

Tottenham were fine with allowing that space to be open in behind because they could be bailed out by the pace of Mickey van de Ven. The most important thing was to make Manchester City rush.

And Tottenham were fine with allowing the space wide because they could easily collapse on the ball. They gave ample space to Josko Gvardiol on the left and Kyle Walker on the right.

City don’t want to play wide because when they play wide, one, they leave the defense more vulnerable because the man with the ball is a defender and a midfielder has to cover for the defender, and two, normally the pass inside is blocked off so if they don’t get a cross off, they will be forced to play back to center-backs Ruben Dias or Manuel Akanji. It’s easy to press the center-backs.

The threat with leaving space wide is that if someone on the wing receives the ball in line with Tottenham’s backline and in the half-space, it is free shooting practice. All that is needed is the low cross across the penalty box. That is how Manchester City scored their first goal. Kevin De Bruyne receives, cuts across goal to Haaland for the tap-in.

Forcing Manchester City to play quickly forward forces the midfield to commit numbers ahead of the ball. When they commit numbers ahead of the ball, and Tottenham win back the ball, the backline immediately is left vulnerable to the counter. Everyone knows how good Tottenham are on the counter. Manchester City are not very good at defending transitions because of how risk-averse they are in regard to tackling.

This is hell for Manchester City. They can learn how to beat a team that defends deep, but they’d need to adjust many things to be functional in transition.

It was a very well-executed plan from Ange Postecoglou’s team. The wind played a major part in the game. City weren’t playing well, but it was swirling in the first half, which made it more difficult than usual for them to connect passes succinctly. That wind settled down in the second half. Pair the wind dying down with the general tiredness that comes with Tottenham chasing City around the pitch and making endless runs, then City got better command of the ball.

Match: Tottenham 0-2 Manchester City, 14 May 2024

“Football’s finished and now whatever this is has emerged, I don’t dare name it” is a jolting but fitting start to Manchester City assistant coach Juanma Lillo’s piece in the Athletic.

Lillo mentions that he is “a regretful father” because he feels responsible for helping popularize this way of thinking:

It really is wonderful because we, the managers, have too much influence. It’s unbearable. We have our own ideas and we say that we espouse them to help people to understand the game. Bullshit! It should be for the players to understand the game as they understand it.

People praised Carlo Ancelotti after their win against Bayern Munich for in-game tactical changes even though he alluded to the fact before and after the game that the majority of the problem solving authority was given to the players on the pitch.

The concept that the players are more responsible for the result than the manager has been lost. Everything good that happens at the start and every change during a game is the manager, it can’t be the players improvising. To me, that isn’t fair to the players who come up with the ideas.

It’s funny now how everyone talks about high block, low block… the only blocks that I know are apartment blocks. With a garage? Without a garage? This eagerness to find vocabulary that makes football more difficult to understand pisses me off.

I have become more conscious of this in my writing.

Everyone thinks complicated but the complicated parts of football need to be translated by those that know what to look for into simple terms so that anyone can learn what to look for. The goal should not be to come up with the most complicated explanation.

It’s harder to explain things simply. People should not need to learn new vocabulary to understand what is happening on the pitch or how to apply new ideas. I try to avoid using it.

I prefer talking in phases rather than numerical formations. As Pep Guardiola said, “I thought it was a 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1, or telephone number my wife.” A team rarely uses one formation in or out of possession.

Oversimplifying it would be saying X team uses a 4-3-3 with the ball and a 4-2-2 without the ball. The structure is temporary based on the phase of play, the opponent, and the ball. Trying to keep track of the numbers becomes exhausting and confusing. It’s meant to simplify but it ends up being misleading.

These types of voices like Lillo’s need to be around Pep Guardiola at Manchester City during this period of football’s evolution. He has in the past said “Guardiola is like my son.” It might be time for the duo to conquer the very beast they themselves created to keep ahead of the curve.

Most teams, especially Liverpool, when they win back the ball, they will immediately look to play the ball up the line. Counter as quickly as possible. This is exactly what Arsenal want you to do. They have players waiting for that pass.

When you counter, they will have at least three players waiting for the pass forward, ready to collapse on the ball.

It is like quicksand. The more Manchester United struggles and forces things, the easier it is to sink. If you take your time, they’ll allow you to advance into their end and create chances.

Arsenal is the shark.

When researchers handle sharks, they often use tonic immobility to subdue them. Many scientists think that this is what occurs when the shark enters a trance-like state of relaxation and becomes deeply rhythmic in its breathing patterns. When gently turned on its back, its thought enters into this stage as an act of disorientation which relaxes the muscles and induces deep breathing rhythms without causing injury or struggle. Once released from these restraints, however, the shark will snap out of this daze within moments.

An apex predator, killing machine, rendered useless with this one trick. This is a compliment to be compared to a shark.

Manchester United don’t fall into the trap of exploiting the space immediately offered to them when they win back the ball. They wait and remain patient. Allow Arsenal to collapse central, and then slowly work the ball up the pitch through the spaces wide.

Allow the shark to swim to you. Don’t swim away from the shark, don’t fight the shark; hold it, flip it over, and it’s immobilized.

When you work the ball up slowly, Arsenal enter into that trance like state in their 4-4-2 low-block. They are flipped upside down like the tonically immobilized shark, waiting to come back to life when they win back the ball. They won’t press you, they’ll sit back and wait for you to attack them.

This is the same plan I set out for Liverpool in February before their match with Arsenal. I think United executed it better than Liverpool but their technical quality wasn’t as sharp in comparison.

The Old Trafford crowd were initially annoyed with how slowly they were playing out from the back, not taking the chance to counter when it seemed to be on, but as the game went on they began to realize how effective it was at neutralizing Arsenal.

When United were without the ball, their main goal was to force the pass back to the goalkeeper David Raya by tightly covering the pass down the wing. Stay patient. Wait for Arsenal to come to you and block off the pass central like Scott Mctominay is in Figure 4.2.

You want Arsenal in that deep low-block without the ball because their midfield and wingers will be forced to defend deeper. When they defend deeper, they can’t support Kai Havertz when they win back the ball. When they can’t support Kai Havertz, you can easily win back the ball because he is isolated.

Win back the ball, work it slowly up the pitch, immobilize the shark, and then when they let their guard down, you’ll get massive chances like this one that Alejandro Garnacho didn’t take advantage of.

Arsenal are incredible defensively and you can’t fight them in a straight line, you have a better chance if you coax them into that tonic immobility state. I wouldn’t put Arsenal’s tepid performance fully down to tiredness, this is a well documented phenomenon that when you play in this way against them they back-off.

Manchester United’s general organization exceeded my expectations. Erik Ten Hag’s game-plan was very well thought out with the way they pressed without the ball, how they passed the ball, how patient they were, but they lacked that ability to enter the box or create meaningful chances.

Saying all of that, if Arsenal would have instead pressed Jonny Evans and Casemiro high and didn’t allow United out of their own end, the game likely ends 0-5 instead of 0-1. I don’t know why they allow inferior teams to stay in matches as significant as this when they have the quality to overwhelm the opposition and end the game quickly.

Match: Manchester United 0-1 Arsenal, 12 May 2024

Tottenham usually look to take their crosses quick. They time their runs to the far and near post to arrive when the ball is played here.

The problem is that when the crosser is this far away from the box, the only option is the run to the near post, and that header is difficult to direct. The far post run would require the crosser to loop the ball over the goalkeeper, across the defenders in the six-yard box, which will not likely be completed.

Then you’re hoping for a deflection. It is not a super high probability cross because of how difficult it is to hit it accurately with pace. If they time it perfectly they could get a flick.

Teams could allow that cross to the near post but it’s probably a better idea to force this pass back.

Block off the initial cross, allow the players in the box to finish their runs, and then force the ball back. Then if Brennan Johnson wants to cross he has to hit it first-time with his standing foot planted, so it is always going to be a high looping cross with little power.

Hard to get any power on the header.

These in-swinging crosses are almost always aimed towards the back post. Really awkward to defend but equally hard to accurately place the cross. When the ball is being moved slowly this is probably Tottenham’s most dangerous crossing type. All they need is a soft tap into the top left-hand corner from an attacker and it’s a goal.

Again, forcing the pass back is better. Very rarely do these out-swinging cross from the position Pedro Porro is standing in Figure 2.1 work. Of note, Pedro Porro in particular has only completed 3 of 25 crosses in the past four matches.

There is no right or wrong way of attacking the penalty area but I wouldn’t associate Tottenham with players that are at skilled at heading the ball. The only players that are proficient headers of the ball are Richarlison, who is injured, and Cristian Romero, a defender who only gets on the end of crosses during free-kicks or corners.

I feel they are limiting their effectiveness of their attack and wasting chances by relying on higher looping crosses, rather than working the ball into the box on the ground. Why cross if you can’t head the ball?

When there’s space, they will look to cross early. This is their bread and butter, what they are good at.

In transition, as the opposition defense consolidate towards the center of the box, these passes from side-to-side across the ground are deadly. The defense should always look to mark the man on the far-side, that is almost always the target.

When space is limited I would like to see them work the ball to the byline, from the wing, or into the box, if they can, for a cut-back or square pass like the one in Figure 5.1. This is harder to defend because you have to stop various passes, the most difficult to defend being the top of the box and the far-post.

Play for a tap-in or take advantage of their finishing ability at the top of the box rather than force Dejan Kulusevski, Heung-Min Son, or Brennan Johnson to contest headers.

We are now entering a moment when just such an alternative is beginning to be seriously considered by coaches and clubs operating at the highest levels of football. There is a growing dissatisfaction with the universalisation of possession styles underpinned by a nagging suspicion that Positionism might not have fully optimised football just yet. While he stopped short of explicitly attributing it to ‘Positional Play’, Guardiola’s assistant Juanma Lillo penned a now infamous polemic against the homogenisation of the global game during the Qatar World Cup.

You have teams that are on the forefront, the early adopters, like Bologna or Malmö pushing the boundaries, showing what is possible. But I’m starting to see signs from teams like Manchester City, Tottenham, Chelsea, Inter Milan, and more that are putting things into practice that they normally would not. Players breaking from position, more rotations, more freedom being given.

A lot of the change comes down to trust. I’ll use Manchester City as an example. Pep Guardiola in the past could not trust his back-line to play out-wide, play in the midfield, and for the midfield to know how to effectively cover for the defense. We see rotations now, but they don’t include the defenders. At most, it’s just the midfield and forwards rotating.

The will need to slowly train or obtain defenders that can play as holding midfielders and fullbacks. Being a defender is not just about defending anymore, just like goalkeeping isn’t just about stopping shots. You will have to be able to perform like a midfielder.

What I think is stopping them is trust. These managers are control freaks, and if they don’t trust certain players they won’t feel comfortable relinquishing control. Once they gain trust in the defenders, I think the floodgates will open. A greater reliance on parts of relationism will become the new meta because the patterns of play that develop from it has its advantages when breaking down rigid static structures.

I put the most emphasis on Pep Guardiola because he is the godfather of this current era we live in of positionism. I don’t think bringing back Juanma Lillo to Manchester City last summer was a coincidence. It would be fitting if he flipped the script and beat the very beast he created.

There’s a parting of the sea between the Bayer Leverkusen center-backs the past few matches I have watched them, since the West Ham Europa League match in April.

Bayer Leverkusen are prioritizing the near and far post but there’s a general lack of organization when the ball is in this phase.

I think they should have the ball-side center-back, Piero Hincapié in most cases, give more or split priority to the player in the center of the box. That far-post should be covered but the near-post run isn’t as much for a threat as the center and far-post.

I don’t have a picture for every example of this happening but you can go back and watch for when the ball is in this area of the pitch, you’ll likely find an unmarked attacker in the center of the box.

It should be “easy” for future opponents to spot this space and score.

This is one of their only flaws, that can be exploited, in this perfect season. It would be unprecedented if they managed to go an entire season unbeaten and complete the treble. Regardless if they do or not, this is one of the most memorable teams I have ever watched.

Match: Bayer Leverkusen 2-2 (4-2) Roma, 9 May 2024

Ancelotti explained before the first-leg against Bayern Munich how much control he gives to the players to allow them to improvise during the match:

I have a clear idea. There are two types of coaches: ones that don’t do anything and other ones who really can cause difficulties.

The match is up to the players, of course, they are on the pitch. You can put or give them the idea or the strategy, that you have the tactic, they have to be convinced to be able to put it on the pitch. It’s all about the players on the pitch, their behavior, and what they can do on the pitch.

What the coach can do is (have the) players understand what the team wants to achieve and how they want to act. The idea, everyone has that. Bayern Munich as well as Paris Saint-German, and it’s up to you where you want to then pose the focus.

He’s alluding to the fact that he gives the creative control to the players. If he forced players to follow a certain pattern or structure, he considers that to be “causing difficulties”.

Give most of the credit to the players first for most in-game changes against Bayern Munich because you would assume most of what transpired was spontaneous.

But also give credit to Carlo Ancelotti because he became the first manager in history to reach six Champions League Finals (AC Milan 2003, 2005, 2007; Real Madrid 2014, 2022, 2024). He has won four of five (AC Milan 2003, 2007; Real Madrid 2014, 2022).

Both Ian Maatsen and Karim Adeyemi outplayed Achraf Hakimi and Ousmane Dembélé in Borussia Dortmund’s first and second leg semi-final matches against PSG.

A positive to Real Madrid’s approach to allow Rodrygo to drift over to the left-wing is that they will be able to bypass, ignore, the Maatsen and Adeyemi double-team by focusing all their efforts on the left-wing.

Vincius Jr., Bellingham, and Rodrygo versus Borussia Dortmund right-back Julian Ryerson could be a mis-match in the final.

I thought Bayern Munich’s best period came when they crowded the ball. For most of the match they were fairly spread out, and the only player that had the pace to take advantage of the gaps was the Bayern goal-scorer, Alphonso Davies.

A negative to Real Madrid focusing their efforts on the left-wing is that Adeyemi will have that same threat that Alphonso Davies had, if the game is open like it was against Bayern Munich, and Dortmund aren’t pinned back.

Match: Real Madrid 2-1 (4-3) Bayern Munich, 8 May 2024

PSG are a rigid positional team, built like they have a pole taped to their back, but many must think, 4-3-3, same thing every match, keep possession. They are more tactically involved than you’d think.

In the first leg against Dortmund, Nuno Mendes was kept back in the rest-defense to ‘protect the left’ from Dortmund’s long-balls. Dembélé had this interesting integral role that had him covering a lot of ground.

In the second leg, midfielder Fabián Ruiz stayed back which allowed Nuno Mendes to push forward to the left-wing. That allowed Kylian Mbappé to invert infield to form a front-two with Goncalo Ramos. That change allowed Ousmane Dembélé to stay forward, and Goncalo Ramos was tasked with marking Emre Can.

They did miss Bradley Barcola’s ingenuity but if they keep Barcola on then Dembélé would have to play that strange role in and out of possession that he played in the first leg. Ramos was a bulldog out-of-possession but he lacked adequate finishing in the box so it kind of cancelled out the change. The positive was that Dembélé could focus on attack.

PSG’s crossing was bad. Nuno Mendes, Achraf Hakimi, and Ousmane Dembélé let them down because their delivery into the box was wayward. It wasn’t helped that when they got that pass to connect, they hit the woodwork four times.

Vitinha was the bright spot. The Wolverhampton Wonders blood runs deep. Wolves are a team of dribblers and Vitinha, a former Wolves player in 2020/21, is no exception. If you want a dribbler, go to Wolves. His ability to swerve and glide past tackles paired with his pinpoint passing is not something you can easily find. He has that sixth sense to find the chance.

That rigid positional pole stuck to your back, stick to your position, style that Luis Enrique deploys needs players like Vitinha to succeed. Thinkers. Players that know how to slow down a game and then pick out a pass. Outside of Vitinha, they don’t have many thinkers, just those that can execute. They need one more thinker in that midfield and maybe one on the wing.

Match: PSG 0-1 (0-2) Borussia Dortmund, 7 May 2024

I remember Nobby Stiles and Eric Harrison — they had us on rope. And basically, back four would be on rope, and obviously, the premise being if your left back moves out towards his right winger, you all come across. And we were literally on rope in training. And the idea of those sort of simple things.

This is a great exercise because it’s a simple concept to apply in a match. It’s not something the current Manchester United squad practice, and that was made evident particularly in their 4-0 loss to Crystal Palace.

Attach that rope to the back four. Three of the four goals conceded to Palace were the result of this strange defensive organization.

They are overly aggressive positionally but the midfielders lack awareness. They don’t cover for defenders when they jump forward, which leaves them vulnerable once a defender moves out of position.

I can’t understand why they do this. It seems like a simple concept to cover the space the defenders vacate.

Gary Neville goes further to explain how the class of ‘92 defense trained to gain awareness:

And then I think of — I’ve just thought of another thing with Don Howe. Do you know the one at the back post when the ball’s over there? Don Howe used to have two people on the […] edge of the halfway line. And he used to put a different color bib up. So basically, if you’re ball watching as a defender. Let’s say you’re a right back and the ball’s coming from that side, you need to know what color that bib was all the time. If he changed it, red, that player running in there (gestures behind) or running inside, you always had an awareness. So that was unbelievable.

When you hear about older squads and think, ‘those teams didn’t have tactics’, they did, these are the tactics. The simple concepts in training.

Match: Crystal Palace 4-0 Manchester United, 6 May 2024

Maurico Pochettinho when asked about Marc Cucurella’s role inverted from left-back:

This role we can implement in the future because you need to build the belief, the confidence, the trust, the team need to compete. All the tactical evolution that we have in our head, (the) coaching staff, yes, we will apply in the future.

But the most important thing; you cannot sit if you don’t have a chair. Before, you need to be in the chair. It’s true. You don’t have a team but you expect behave like a team. You are so selfish, after, you need to be generous on the pitch. It is the priorities in football. An engineer that is going to build a building, ‘I want to see so quick the nice furniture in the flat, and sleep there’ but first of all, we need to build the structure of everything.

That is why sometimes we made a mistake when we shush the show of the people, the coaching staff, and also we have young players. That is always be we say always be careful […] because the most important (thing) is to see in which moment we are in. Which type of team.

This is the exact point I was trying to make in my “A team versus individuals” post from early April. The players looked disconnected. Against West Ham, they looked more like a team. You can see the relationships building. And Cucurella looks great inverted.

It doesn’t matter if they score or win, if they are not a team, they will not be competitive. This is not tennis, this is football. It is a group effort. The team needs to score, not one individual. The goals should be spread. Players should be selfish but when a teammate is in a slump, they need to be unselfish and give them opportunities for the betterment of the team.

If the team do not have these relationships, they will never execute the tactic. These are humans, not robots. A lot of Pochettinho’s work will go unseen because it’s team-bonding. It’s not finishing, better passing, an inverted full-back, a different formation, it is people.

These rotations are the future. They happened in the past, and have continued in other countries, but the concepts are slowly creeping back into the clubs in Europe. Either full on relational play or a hybrid between relational and positional play. This is more of a hybrid currently.

And it’s not just two or three players swapping positions, it’s the entire team feeling comfortable in every position on the pitch. It’s a more expressive way of playing.

This is why I feel players like Cole Palmer look better in this side compared to the more positional Manchester City, because he has freedom to roam and dribble. It is a style that fits many players in Chelsea’s squad.

Each player needs to be able to read what their teammates will do before they do it for it to work. The timing to know when to attack a space needs to be there.

Jackson has built a stronger relationship with Madueke, so he knows when to attack the cross and can better prepare his body to challenge for the ball. Cole Palmer knows to hold his run to sit in that pocket of space behind Jackson, because Jackson and him have that stronger connection to know where each-other is in relation to the ball.

It is a team goal. This specific goal being the most beautiful because it showcased the team and the way in which they were able to work together to score. 20 consecutive passes.

Those relationships that are built allow them to more fluidly move as a team. They need that trust. Badiashile needs to trust Cucurella to cover for him. Chalobah needs to trust Caicedo to read and cover for him when he bombs forward up the wing. You see players switching from side to side, left to right, Jackson tracking back all the way to right-back when defenders and midfielders get forward.

West Ham didn’t play well but you could see that confidence building between the players. When they have that confidence, at that point, they can attempt to implement any tactic they want. The floor, or ‘chair’, has been built where players buy in and work together, now you can ‘sit’.

Match: Chelsea 5-0 West Ham, 5 April 2024

By angling his shoulders towards a different area of the field, he makes the defenders expect the pass to go somewhere other than where he actually intends to send it. The defenders can’t cover both the pass sideways, where his shoulders are pointing, and the pass forward, where his pass will be played between the lines.

Then the man receiving the ball has a larger amount of space to operate in when they take their first touch. The defender that was marking the man receiving the ball switches off because they’re expecting the pass sideways. Even maybe the back-line is switched off because they aren’t prepared for the line-breaking pass.

Then someone from the next line has to step out to challenge the second touch.

In an excellent in-depth interview with Stuart James for The Athletic, Declan Rice explains what Mikel Arteta wants from him when he plays as a holding midfielder:

I would never have done this before. I probably only learnt this about two or three weeks earlier. […]

So when (Bukayo) Saka gets the ball, that space there is occupied by no one,” he explains, pointing to an area that has opened up in front of him. And it’s happened a lot this season where I make that run into there [space] and you’re free.

The manager calls it playing in a ‘good height’. If I’m back here (much deeper), we can’t progress the play. We’d end up going back to Ben (White) and back to the centre-half. So that’s why he says he wants his No 6s to always be in ‘good height’.

They don’t want to waste space or allow the opponent to breathe.

If Kroos attacks that space, you force the opponent to track Kroos. If you don’t mark Kroos, he’s free. When you mark Kroos, others become free, because Bayern Munich have to allocate a defender to Kroos.

If Kroos never makes that run, and stays deep, Bayern Munich might successfully crowd the ball, and then force the play back to the keeper or defense. They are always a threat going forward.

It is a constant game of peek-a-boo. You never know where the next danger will come from.

Anticipating where the space will be before the play starts, is also key to conserving energy. Kroos can jog because he has the experience to know how to angle his runs, to perfectly setup his body to receive within that open space. If he stays wide, where he started, Real Madrid would be forced back to the keeper.

The ability to move slowly, for me, is an important part of being a holding midfielder. Being able to take in all the information around you, to find the space, is a lot easier when you’re at a jogging pace. But not in a disinterested way, purposefully moving, like Kroos. There needs to be a reason behind every movement.

Guglielmo Vicario speaking about why he became a keeper:

I don’t think I was just born into it. I think it was because when you’re small, nobody wants to play in goal, which is a shame. Nobody suggests that you become a keeper. People focus on outfield players. Most people think scoring a goal is better than saving a shot. I go against the grain because I derive a lot of pleasure from the disappointment felt by players who fail to overcome obstacles. That’s always driven me on. I’ve always wanted to have this role.

In a world where the top players want to play for themselves, that is someone who will fight for the team and take pride in their role. Once you filter for the players with that mindset, you then look for the athletes. The Mickey van de Ven’s of the world.

They are a mentally tough group, built like a family, born with the genes to outrun you in a straight line, but they lack ideas.

Ange Postecoglou in an interview with Ed Sulley for Hudl’s High Performance Workflows series in 2020:

My utopia is still going back to 1974 and that total football. The more I can free players of positional constraints, the happier I get, but the crazier it gets. Can I get players not thinking like they’re defenders or midfielders or attackers, and can we get our game even more fluid?

Because a player is not going to say, ‘I’m a centre back, I have to be in this area,’ they’re going to see there’s space and go there and someone else will fill that role.

I think that’s where the game will go at some point.

Right now is the perfect time to introduce this idea, this way of playing, into the Premier League. Freeing players from their positional constraints is an effective way to break down rigid structures.

Outside of inverting the full-backs, Udogie and Pedro Porro, into the half-spaces and forward to the front-line, there has been not much innovation as far as giving players the freedom to create fluid attacks.

They rely on their pace. To take advantage of their pace advantage, they need space. If the opposition reduces the space, they are static and slow, and they are devoid of ideas because they lack clever problem solvers.

If I was building towards that total football utopia, I would look for players that can improvise. To improvise, you need to be creative. When you look at that Tottenham squad, I don’t see many players that can think outside of the box, with or without the ball.

Ange Postecoglou after Tottenham’s 2-0 loss to Chelsea:

The question for me in these circumstances always is, are they doing it because I’m telling them to do it, or are they doing it because they believe in it. That’s always the process you’re going through.

The true belief comes when you know you got the majority of the squad and the staff, who I’m really confident that if I didn’t turn up, they would still go about things the same way. I don’t think we’re at the majority yet.

They look like they’re performing actions they’ve been told to do. They aren’t looking outside of their automations, automations that only end up generating crossing opportunities. Once they’re comfortable with the process, the way the team plays, they’ll have the confidence to break from it when the situation needs it.

They need players that will think irrationally to break from those automations and perform several actions that the opposition won’t expect. That will produce space.

A player like Füllkrug, a very tall player and powerful to play long ball to. We have tried to protect ourselves on [our left] and allow a two-v-one against Bradley Barcola to be in position for each long ball. To have either our winger or our interior with the possibility of helping. To defend those long balls.

Dortmund is a very well-worked team. It has those two options. If you don’t pressure them well, they are capable of outplaying you. If you pressure them well, they play a long ball.

Even though they conceded the one goal from a long ball, a bit of poor organization with their back-line to keep Füllkrug onside, I think was a solid plan to defend against the counter, to not leave themselves vulnerable.

Nuno Mendes always stays back, that’s what Luis Enrique is referring to when he says that they left Bradley Barcola two-v-one. Mendes will never help Barcola because he stays back in the rest defense with defenders Lucas Hernández and Marquinhos.

I prefer Dembélé when he stays on the touchline. Hakimi wasn’t as effective one-v-one when he received facing play against Adeyemi and Maatsen. Mendes can’t get forward because PSG wanted Hakimi forward on the right-wing, to allow Dembélé to invert.

PSG wanted Dembélé to invert because they wanted him to man-mark Dortmund’s holding midfielder, Emre Can, or provide an added option in defensive transition if one of the “interiors” midfielders got further forward, like Warren Zaire-Emery, for example.

That was a lot of responsibility to place on Ousmane Dembélé. If he drops his attention, the space in front of PSG’s second line is fairly open, as the midfield are preoccupied following their markers back into their own half.

Match: Borussia Dortmund 1-0 PSG, 1 May 2024

This 3-box-3 is a defense. It’s not conservative like a low-block or back-four, but the 3-2 sub-structure at the back is in theory helpful when defending against a counter-attacking team like Real Madrid.

If Real Madrid win the ball, Goretzka and Laimer can quickly shift back to help defenders Eric Dier, Kim Min-Jae, and Joshua Kimmich.

The problem is that when Bayern Munich work it wide from the build-up deep, they don’t consistently have the numbers to advance the ball. A byproduct of this is that the passing was too slow, something Thomas Tuchel mentioned in his post-match interview.

Bayern Munich’s slow automations were being outdone by Real Madrid’s killer improvisation on-the-ball.

But Real Madrid are giving them a ton of space between their first and second line. That space was something that was noted in Real Madrid’s quarter-final match against Manchester City.

The change in the second half changed the game for Bayern Munich.

They had to strike a delicate balance to not leave Kim Min-Jae and Eric Dier too vulnerable against the Real Madrid front three of Vinicius Junior, Jude Bellingham, and Rodrygo; but they need more numbers forward to speed up the passing with runs in the channels to take advantage of that space between Real Madrid’s first and second line.

They didn’t need two players in a double pivot in that space. It wasn’t productive enough in attack. You turn, and the other pivot player is behind the ball. The space is massive, they don’t need to combine. They could be more useful further forward on the wing.

Thomas Tuchel first switched Leroy Sané to the right-wing and Jamal Musiala to the left-wing. Then he brought on Raphaël Guerreiro for Goretzka, and he left Konrad Laimer to play as the single pivot. Guerreiro moved to the left-wing, which allowed Musiala to invert into the left half-space.

Play the ball into Laimer, allow Real Madrid to jump to him, the space opens in the half-spaces in-front of Real Madrid’s back-line, and then switch the ball from the half-space or attack from the wide areas.

Bayern Munich now always had their players attacking space ahead when the ball was played wide. That made it easier for them to quickly connect and drive into the box.

Now Bayern Munich allocate all their players to the back-line and front-line, with Laimer as the middle man. That space was accentuated by Real Madrid’s lack of fitness as the match wore on, as Carlo Anchelotti explained after the match:

Jude Bellingham was not at the best level tonight, but same for the entire team. Bellingham got cramps after 60 mins so I had to sub him off.

Take advantage of their tired legs, immediately overload to isolate, and then quickly attack the box.

Thomas Tuchel loves these quick combination plays on one side of the pitch to play a half-space switch. That’s how both of Bayern Munich’s goals were created; the switch to Leroy Sané from the left half-space and the switch to Jamal Musiala from the right half-space.

I thought Real Madrid were the more likely to score, they had the better individual quality, so deadly, but that small switch from Tuchel was smart.

Tuchel gave Real Madrid a taste of their own medicine; an attack paired with incredible switching power, and the highest individual quality in terms of how to maintain the tempo on the counter attack. The technical execution on the counter attack is simple without delay.

Match: Bayern Munich 2-2 Real Madrid, 30 April 2024

Of course, we have seen Real Madrid a few times and watched them with our analysts. If you want to watch for yourself, and see Real Madrid goals are great scoring opportunities.

If you take the trouble to press a pause button ten seconds before hand, you won’t see them coming. Isn’t it often unforeseen. Sometimes you see it coming and the situation is clear, then you think ‘oh yes, things are getting dangerous now’, but sometimes they don’t see it coming. Then everything is running smoothly, everything is actually under control. The security is in place. They seem to be outnumbered.

Press play again and then stop again five seconds later, and then suddenly you see it.

The attack is paired with incredible switching power, and the highest individual quality in terms of how to maintain the tempo on the counter attack. The technical execution on the counter attack is simple without delay.

If you mention a classic, the goal, which they only have a few. In the 71st, they were back 1-1, and are able to give an immediate answer. The winning goal was in the air and then it came in such a spectacular way. And it seemed so natural. And that’s what makes them special. And that’s why they are of course, extremely dangerous in a tournament format, and always able to get through to a next round. Always able to win a tournament because at that point, they basically enjoy the situation and can endure difficult moments too.

Thomas Tuchel on how much Bayern Munich will rely on tactic and how much is just the luck of the day:

The bigger the occasion, the bigger the pressure, the bigger the stress; you cannot just rely on what you know, and just think about things like tactical stuff. I think you can make always a difference with the tactic and with the approach, but the tactic is just a car and the players drive the car.

We have to find a good balance, especially in moments like this, that we show solutions. I think players like to see solutions. Players like to have a plan and like to have a general idea. And overall, they also like and need a freedom to live it because this is the most important.

But as you mention, there is no way to play this game without the luck of the day. If you hit the post, it’s the inside of the post, the outside of the post, it’s a fraction offside, onside. You need these little decisions. Of course, you need the momentum, a bit of luck, and you need the whole package if you want to overcome Real Madrid in the semi-final.

We want to force things to a point where maybe there is a little luck, is then the difference but we cannot rely on it for that, it’s not big enough. So we have to push it and we feel ready for it.

I love the “tactic is just a car and the players drive the car” phrase. We forget the players are humans. They have nerves, they have fears, they have emotions.

Pre-match: Bayern Munich vs Real Madrid, 30 April 2024

Since the West Ham match, Declan Rice has been taking corners from the left-side for Arsenal, and the weight, pace, and accuracy on his cross is perfect every-time. I have not seen him misplace a cross from a corner since.

This is the type of corner that will make you buy new defenders. If you don’t have the correct profiles to deal with the physicality Arsenal have in the box, if you whip it in with enough pace, and the targets are placed in the correct spots, you can’t really defend against this cross.

Rice aims for the space inside the six-yard box, close to the goal, just in-front of the goalkeeper. When there’s the correct amount of pace on the cross, the goalkeeper can’t come out, and the defenders have little time to react. All they can do is jump and pray they get some contact on the ball.

Normally the cross is the hard part, but Declan Rice is too accurate. The hard part is the header, but Arsenal are beginning to perfect that. Imagine having the ability to score one goal whenever you want. Both teams could be tired, your team is defending well, but Arsenal win a corner, and they score. That is devastating.

It’s devastating because Arsenal are ahead of the curve in the evolution of modern football. They have brought in the height and physicality before everyone else, when it has gone out of favor for a decade. Most teams in the Premier League are not built tall. With the need for ball-playing center-backs and more technically gifted midfielders, with tall target men falling out of favor; the amount of tall physically imposing players in teams is less than what you’d find in earlier generations, like in the 2000s for example. But now that is making a comeback.

Arsenal have the height and physicality, and now they have the accuracy. You can stop them in open-play, but you’re behind a goal off one simple corner. Devastating.

Arsenal start by overloading the far-post, and then when Rice is ready to take the corner, they move to the front-post, the target area. Doing this makes it difficult for Tottenham to track the targets, as they defend the cross zonally.

The pace and placement of the cross means that Vicario can’t come out to claim or punch. There’s not enough time. To add some extra assurance that that won’t happen, Ben White uses his body to unsettle Vicario, just before Rice kicks the ball. That’s one benefit.

The second benefit is that when Rice kicks the ball, Vicario is off-balance and discombobulated. He can’t track the ball as effectively, so if the ball is headed in, he won’t likely be able to get a strong enough hand to bat it away to safety. If he makes the save, the ball will likely fall to the floor just in front of goal, where Arsenal are crowded.

• Thomas Partey leads the line. He’s there in case Rice under-hits the ball. He can flick it on.
• Gabriel is the first to jump, he’s the secondary target if the ball is slightly under-hit. By jumping he blocks the view of the defender marking Tomiyasu and Havertz.
• Tomiyasu blocks off the defender behind, Van de Ven, which makes Van de Ven gravitate towards Tomiyasu.
• Havertz is the main target because he’s in the best position to head the ball straight into the net from close range.
• Saliba remains on the back-post for the tap-in if the cross is over-hit, or if there’s some kind of small deflection or dinked header.

This is the basketball equivalent of a 7-foot tall center dunking on a 6-foot forward. It’s unstoppable. It is very hard to guarantee a goal in football, but this is as close as you can get. It’s not one player’s heading ability, it’s all of them, and their ability to toy with the opposition physically.

Tottenham are one of those less equipped teams when defending corners. It’s defenders Cristian Romero and Mickey van de Ven versus everyone else, and van de Ven is just tall, he’s not particularly good heading the ball from a cross. They don’t have the players to mark Partey, Gabriel, Tomiyasu, Havertz, White, and Saliba equally. Every team they play, except for some exceptions, like Everton for example, it is a mismatch.

Match: Tottenham 2-3 Arsenal, 28 April 2024

Bonmatí knows that run is being made ahead so she lets Walsh know she should take her time. The more time Walsh and Guijarro take, the more space Bonmatí has as the Chelsea defense organize. When they organize, they get in that more predictable shape, and the run creates the pocket.

Once she scans, she sees the run again and then begins her run, anticipating the pass from Guijarro.

The first touch is close to her body, which draws in the Chelsea defender from her right, opening space to the right. The second touch then locks the defender’s knees in, with her hips pointed towards Bonamtí’s left side. The defender’s back is now to the space, and she’ll have to fully rotate her hips to track Bonmatí when she takes her next touch.

This is the critical part. Bonmatí scans ahead to the two defenders.

One, if she takes the shot towards the far post, instead of waiting, it will likely be blocked by either the lead defender, Niamh Charles, or last defender, Buchanan.

Two, if she takes a touch, Buchanan may either shield the goalkeeper’s vision when Bonmatí takes the shot, if Buchanan overruns the ball, or the ball might deflect off Buchanan.

The touch gives Bonmatí the necessary separation from Charles, and Buchanan is in a position where she could either block the shot or it will deflect off her and into the goal. Added level of unpredictability for the goalkeeper if the ball deflects.

The ball deflects off Buchanan, between her legs, and the ball trickles into the bottom left hand side of the net.

In a situation where most players would rush to shoot, Aitana Bonmatí knows when to go and when to slow down. It was not a great shot, it appeared to be going straight towards the goalkeeper before it was deflected, but the thought was there to create a situation in which a deflection was more likely to happen than not.

Match: Chelsea 0-2 (1-2) Barcelona (W), 27 April 2024

We review on the bus. We start to go with the report from the next opposition. You don’t have time. You play in the afternoon. The next morning you have video with the players, you have to prepare the video well about the next opponent. You have to see some games. Sometimes you watch some games before you play the next game.

Normally the analysts go before us, they are already preparing for Brighton. We go a little bit later and then the players go after us. It’s a process we are improving and getting better, because you have to be really well prepared.

Also, you have to prepare really well with the tactics, with the video because you cannot spend legs outside, because you have to just recover. I always say for us it is very difficult, for the players it is very difficult, but for the analysts, probably every time we play midweek, it becomes really, really demanding.

It is beautiful that he is acknowledging the hard work of the analysts, but it frustrates me that teams, during a season, aren’t given appropriate time to rest and train, to develop and implement new ideas. There’s no safe space to train, you train during the game.

When in their own half or in the middle third, City’s two separate groups rotated either clockwise or counter-clockwise. Julian Alvarez, Kevin De Bruyne, and Phil Foden in the forward group. Bernardo Silva, Rodri, and Mateo Kovacic in the midfield group.

The four defenders Josko Gvardiol, Nathan Ake, Manuel Akanji, and Kyle Walker did not initially move from their positions.

As time passes, and the game remains at a standstill, City start to become more adventurous and bold. Bernardo Silva and Mateo Kovacic rotate back, Nathan Ake moves forward into the space Kovacic vacated, Kevin De Bruyne moves into the space Ake vacated.

Brighton are forced to abandon their man-marking for more of a zonal approach, because it will be impossible to follow and track all six midfielders and forwards across the pitch. It goes to my theory from Bologna versus Roma, when they were rotating.

This constant unpredictability is a tool most teams in Europe do not have. It’s one of the reasons why I think Bologna is so solid defensively. The opponent’s forwards are frequently out of their position because they’re chasing their marker, the Bologna players, around the pitch, into other zones.

When Roma win the ball, their players are out of sorts, while every Bologna player is ready to defend in all situations.

If you follow, you leave space, if you don’t you’ll likely always allow a free pass because there is always a free man. If you follow and win back the ball, your forwards won’t be in position to take full advantage.

In last season’s match at the Amex, Brighton had their central-defenders follow City’s highest forwards deep. De Bruyne drops, right center-back Levi Colwill follows him deep. That then opens space for Haaland to attack on the right side, and he’s played in.

Surprisingly, Brighton didn’t rectify this flaw in their defense and repeated that movement this season.

The rotations disorient and allow City to always have a pass free, they drop Julian Alvarez to bait Van Hecke to drop, then they play the ball over the top from Ederson to Kyle Walker. It’s an easily manipulated reproducible move that makes Brighton look naive.

The same issue came up for Kevin De Bruyne’s goal. Van Hecke follows Foden, then De Bruyne can attack the space Van Hecke would normally be tasked with defending.

It’s all about manipulating the opponent off-the-ball. That is the edge teams are going to look for now. Every team is optimized to stop rigid positional play. Those games end in stalemates.

The defenders didn’t really get involved in the rotations in this match against Brighton, but City did have John Stones, Manuel Akanji, and Rodri rotate in the FA Cup match. John Stones and Manuel Akanji alternated between one playing in the midfield pivot and one staying back at center-back, with Rodri occasionally rotating back to center-back.

Imagine if and when they combine the positional rotations like what we saw in the FA Cup, with the rotations between the midfield and forwards that we saw against Brighton.

• Manuel Akanji can now play on the right, left, and center of defense, and in the midfield.
• John Stones can play as a holding midfielder, or on the right of defense.
• Rodri can play either left or right center-back.
• Josko Gvardiol and Nathan Ake can play at left-back or left center-back, and both are comfortable further forward.
• Kyle Walker can play at left-back and left-center-back, but he is an outlier because can’t invert into the midfield.
• The only other outlier is Ruben Dias because he can only play in the center of defense or at right center-back.
• Bernardo Silva and Mateo Kovacic can rotate wide to fill for Akanji, Ake, Walker, or Gvardiol.

It comes down to trust. In order for a pragmatic coach like Pep Guardiola to allow players to roam, he needs to trust that they can operate in the midfield, in defense, up top. Normally you wouldn’t trust a center-back to play in the midfield, or a midfielder to play as a center-back, but their team is now built to rotate.

They are one step away from functioning like Bologna, all that is missing rotations that include the defenders. Not only is it more entertaining, it works.

Match: Brighton 0-4 Manchester City, 25 April 2024

Darwin Nunez is one of the biggest culprits. Rarely do you see him finesse a shot simply with the inside of his foot into the opposite side of the goal.

Think of the best Liverpool strikers; Luis Suarez, Fernando Torres, Ian Rush, Kenny Dalglish, Michael Owen, etc. They get the ball on the break, size up the goalkeeper, pass the ball into the opposite corner, and then celebrate. They don’t need to put a hole net.

Michael Owen on Darwin Nunez’s finish in the 35th minute against Brentford:

That finish from Darwin Nunez yesterday was insane. I can’t stop watching it. And I can’t begin to explain how difficult a skill that is. Moving at pace, the ball running away from you, being inside the box with no room for error. Incredible. BUT, it is also further proof that if he is to get closer to becoming the great player many people think he can be, he has to adapt his way of thinking. I mean, to even consider that finish is madness.

It’s a 1 in 10, 2 in 10 finish at best. Learning to slot, dink or go round the GK is a far more productive way to score and will increase his chances to 4 or 5 in 10, thus massively increasing his end return. I’m really not trying to rain on his parade as that goal was pure class. But I’d rather see it when Liverpool are 3-0 up, not at 0-0.

Luis Diaz is one of the forwards with more finesse in his game, but he gets underneath this shot.

It’s a tough technique on the run. Inside the foot volley, if he gets underneath it, it likely won’t matter if he puts this either side of Pickford. There’s not enough power.

If Diaz hits it towards the ground to bounce he might have been able to sneak it underneath him.

If you’re Andrew Robertson, you have to take the shot, in my opinion, but the pass is on across goal if he chooses to simply pass it with the inside of his foot.

But the Liverpool default is the spectacular. Outside the foot, with his left foot, on the opposite side of the body to which the ball is coming from. That is super tough to try to execute. Hard to make contact let alone get the accuracy to place it across goal, on the ground, below a diving Pickford.

If he’s going to shoot it had to be like that to get it across goal, because he needs the power to beat the Pickford’s reflexes.

Jarrad Branthwaite doesn’t attempt anything spectacular. He doesn’t try to get full power on the shot. It’s a simple solid pass.

The smart part is that he aimed his shot towards Alisson’s left. If he tries to go for the corner, Alisson has a chance at a fingertip save. When it goes towards him, it slips underneath, and trickles in. The pitch was wet, the shot on the ground was always the preferred method because the ball is slippery.

Get the ball on the ground, make it awkward for the goalkeeper. Placement and accuracy over power. If Liverpool placed their shots they’d outperform their expected goals.

Updated, 25 April 2024, to add the Michael Owen quote on Darwin Nunez.

Match: Everton 2-0 Liverpool, 24 April 2024

Players: Darwin Núñez, Luis Díaz, Andrew Robertson, Jarrad Branthwaite

I looked at all 20 goals conceded and this pattern of Thomas Beelen asserting himself on the right side is the most prevalent “issue”.

If he can win the ball, it’s effective. If he doesn’t win the ball, the left center-back is normally fairly exposed, and Beelen isn’t particularly fast, so he’s not going to beat other forwards joining the attack to the box.

He jumps, and then there’s a space behind to attack.

It doesn’t matter if it’s Beelen, Traumer, or Geertruida; the right center-back is tasked with marking closely the opposition’s center-forward. Regardless of whether or not moving to mark the center-forward would mean there will be a large space free between the ball-side full-back or far-side center-back.

Geertruida likes to carry forward, and when he’s at right center-back, there’s often a lot of space between him and the left center-back.

All of these examples were goals, and I’m surprised that Feyenoord don’t concede more. This seems like it could be an easy thing to exploit by forcing the center-forward wide or deep to isolate Feyenoord’s left center-back. Use the center-forward to manipulate the position of the right center-back to open space between defenders.

Players: Thomas Beelen, Gernot Trauner, Lutsharel Geertruida

Roma gave Calafiori a lot of space to receive initially, before the pass, when the goalkeeper or Lucumi had the ball, but the pressing trigger was the pass into Calafiori. They forced Calafiori into a mistake early in the game from this pressure.

Bologna had to free Calafiori and open that space wide.

Their first attempt was this. An elaborate movement with Lucumi moving wide left, Aebischer dropping, and El Azzouzi filling the space Lucumi moved from. Calafiori was forced to pass back to the goalkeeper due to a lack of space and passing options forward.

The second attempt was this. Instead of having Calafiori stay wide left, he inverted into the midfield, while Aebischer moved back to the back-line, and Lucumi moved wide left again. You can see Bologna manager Thiago Motta motioning to Calafiori to move into the midfield.

Calafiori lost possession here but Roma are wide open. Look how much space he has if he takes that touch towards the half-way line. Roma will now have to think twice before placing all their chips on pressuring Calafiori because before you know it, he’ll be playing left-wing, or center-forward. Positions don’t matter in Thiago Motta’s system.

Thereafter, with each possession and touch, Roma are forced to back off and divert their attention elsewhere.

This constant unpredictability is a tool most teams in Europe do not have. It’s one of the reasons why I think Bologna is so solid defensively. The opponent’s forwards are frequently out of their position because they’re chasing their marker, the Bologna players, around the pitch, into other zones.

When Roma win the ball, their players are out of sorts, while every Bologna player is ready to defend in all situations.

Midfielder Lewis Ferguson started all 31 of Bologna’s matches this season in Serie A, but he suffered a season-ending injury the match prior. Thiago Motta before the match on if he will have to change the way they play to compensate:

It won’t certainly change the characteristics of the players who will enter their role. It is not the time to touch anything. It’s time to continue on the path that we have done up to today. I repeat, respecting the Roma teams as we have respected all the teams up to today, but playing and trying to put our game into practice.

Oussama El Azzouzi took Ferguson’s place in the midfield, and Bologna didn’t miss a beat. You see in those examples he stepped right into that role on the right and Bologna looked just as robust and true to themselves. El Azzouzi in only his second start of the season nabbed a goal and assist, a tremendous bicycle kick goal at that.

This is just one small example of Bologna rotating to disrupt the opponent. I would need to write a book to cover all the significant movements in one match.

Match: Roma 1-3 Bologna, 22 April 2024

Players: Riccardo Calafiori

You have to review Mbappé’s press. Today he has been the undisputed leader of our team. Review the press of the entire team, it has facilitated that three can press five and we could then be 4v3 in our backline.

Kylian Mbappé shadow-covers Cubarsí, which forces Ronaldo Araujo to be the ball-playing center-back.

Because of this, Dembélé can move back to mark Cancelo on PSG’s right-wing, which then also means Hakimi can stay back to be the +1 in that 4v3 versus Barcelona’s front-line.

Barcelona’s double pivot of Pedri and De Jong are closely man-marked, Gündoğan is closely man-marked, and Barcola switches between loosely marking Koundé and pressuring Araujo with his curved press to cut off the pass to Koundé.

If Cubarsí got the ball, then Mbappé would look to cut off the horizontal pass. This allows the players in that front-line for PSG to shift their focus to other players, to man-mark, so the back-line doesn’t have to jump out and they can protect that 4v3.

If Dembélé allowed Cancelo to get too much space, Mbappé would then switch to cutting off the horizontal pass to him, until Dembélé could get back into position.

I thought Mbappé’s awareness was phenomenal to keep track of Cubarsí’s position and position himself correctly based off what his teammates were doing across the pitch.

No matter the angle, Mbappé’s job was to block off the pass to Cubarsí. PSG obviously saw Cubarsí as a major passing threat. The moment he got the ball, PSG worked as hard as they could to quickly get the ball out of his feet, backwards.

We unfortunately didn’t get to see this tactic play out over 90 minutes because Barcelona went down to 10 men in the 29th minute, but I think teams can learn from this. It’s effective against teams that have a good ball-playing center-back to block off, pass heavy midfield, and an ineffective front-line in the air.

Match: PSG 4-1 (6-4) Barcelona, 16 April 2024

Players: Kylian Mbappé

We are used to this, a flat double pivot. John Stones will stay in line with Rodri. This is the measured approach, great for working the ball quickly between the back-three center-backs and the pivot, but it can be difficult to play out of this when there’s limited space.

When you stagger the pivot, now you open up passing lanes between the lines. Who drops dictates where they want to play the ball.

If they want to play to the left, Rodri will drop, and Stones will move forward. If they want to play to the right, Stones will drop, and Rodri will move forward.

And you’ll notice the intent because Manchester City’s midfielders react to the change on who is dropping. They naturally form a line pointing to the wing they want to play through.

In relational terms, this is known as escadinhas, meaning ‘staircase’ or ‘ladder’. Players arrange themselves on a diagonal. This arrangement then opens up one-two quick passes to play through the lines. You can learn more about relationism here.

I’ve always called this a wall pass — these naturally form due to the staggering of the pivot. The staircase creates this passing lane from Walker to Akanji and then to Rodri, which opens up the pass to the wing. Once Rodri receives from Akanji, he can turn and play wide to Bernardo Silva.

If the pivot remained flat, this passing lane would never be open. They’d be stuck passing between the back-line and the pivot. It’s harder to access the midfielders or the wing.

The winning goal was the product of a wall pass off of Akanji. The diagonal formed facing towards Doku. As a defense you can then anticipate that City will try to play to the left-wing. Doku, play De Bruyne in, cross across the ground to Bernardo for the goal.

Match: Manchester City 1-0 Chelsea, 20 April 2024

Players: Manuel Akanji, Rodri, John Stones

P.S. John Stones walked so Manuel Akanji could run, and he’s quick. The way he moves on the half-turn, the runs he makes in the half-spaces, carrying ability, dribbling in tighter spaces. Akanji is more mobile than Stones, he’s a better passer, better crosser. I prefer Akanji now in that “Stones role”, but the fact they can switch the two whenever they like, and allow Stones to rest his legs, is huge. Stones has the intelligence, but Akanji is more athletic and more able in the smaller spaces.

There is a lot going on in this image.

De Ligt is by himself, and it looks vulnerable. If Arsenal win back the ball, they have Havertz, Martinelli, Rice, Ødegaard, and Saka there to counter ahead of Goretzka, Laimer, and Kimmich versus Dier and De Ligt. 5v2.

Kimmich high pins Martinelli wide. That forces Rice to mark Goretzka instead of Martinelli. Then there’s a domino effect. Ødegaard marks Laimer, instead of Musiala or Dier. That then means Saka has to stay high to press Dier. He could back off but that would make passing out too easy.

Because all of that happening ahead, White can’t follow Guerreiro. He wants to but “he can’t”. I put that in quotes because he technically coule leave him with Saliba, but leaving Saliba with Mazraoui would be a mistake. Guerreiro essentially has free reign of that space behind Saka. Jorginho can’t follow him because he’s pinned to Musiala.

Bayern Munich shift over Laimer, and Dier moves to the touch-line. All the passing lanes are open for Guerreiro.

Notice how Kimmich drops out of frame. He’s now helping De Ligt because Dier moves wide.

And the end goal is to overload to isolate. Isolate Leroy Sané.

Bayern Munich have successfully found a way to play through Arsenal’s stronger side to isolate their weaker side, this week, and found a way to play straight through their weak side, last week.

Playing through the stronger side forces them back to defend, which makes it harder for Arsenal to counter because Bukayo Saka is back chasing Guerreiro.

Match: Bayern Munich 1-0 (3-2) Arsenal, 17 April 2024

Pep Guardiola in the summer on Phil Foden:

He’s a midfield player but in time he’s going to learn to play as a holding midfielder, even, because he has the ability to learn.

Pep Guardiola mentioned after the match he does “not have any regret” after their loss. This is a well executed game-plan, revolving around the position of De Bruyne, Foden, and Bernardo Silva.

• Withstand pressure by having Bernardo Silva rotate wide left.
• Allow Phil Foden to rotate with Kevin De Bruyne on the right when Real Madrid ease off.
• Move Kevin De Bruyne to the left, Foden inside right, Bernardo Silva to the right-wing, and give Manuel Akanji more freedom to roam when Real Madrid aren’t pressing high, defending deeper, and are fatigued.

The Community Shield revealed that a good way to defend against a high-press is to have a holding midfielder rotate wide left of the left center-back. They are more press resistant than a defender, and are more reliable passing under pressure.

Mateo Kovacic rotated wide left in the second half of the first leg against Real Madrid, and Bernardo Silva did the same in the first half of the second leg. If they trusted Foden, they’d use him there in the first half.

You want Phil Foden in that half-space, central, on the turn, not Bernardo Silva. Silva normally plays on the right-wing but Pep Guardiola doesn’t consider Phil Foden to be a holding midfielder, yet. For that reason, they have to compensate based on the conditions of the match.

They start with the most conservative tactic.

Foden and Grealish, retain, they’ll never beat their man one-v-one. Foden will always be the pass before the final pass when he plays on the wing.

You want Silva there on the right-wing in place of Foden, so that Foden can attack the space Silva is attacking behind Erling Haaland in Figure 4.2.

City sacrifice that better dynamic in the final third of De Bruyne and Foden central to have Bernardo wide left when they are under pressure.

Once Manchester City become more comfortable in possession, after 20 minutes pass; then Phil Foden can switch with Kevin De Bruyne to get into those pockets, central. But it doesn’t happen from the start of the match, it doesn’t happen enough, and when it does happen, it happens too late into the half for Foden to make an impact.

In the second half, when Real Madrid back off, that’s when Manchester City makes the change to have Bernardo Silva move to the right-wing. Kevin De Bruyne and Phil Foden move central, and Manuel Akanji has more freedom to move away from Rodri.

Manchester City created better chances in the second half with De Bruyne and Foden central. All that was missing was the finish.

Pep Guardiola:

Johan Cruyff said, “luck doesn’t exist”, and I agree with him. We couldn’t score tonight, we couldn’t score the extra goal. We did almost everything to almost do it, and to lose like this it hurts, but sometimes you have to say, what a fantastic way to lose.

But with that distrust in Foden in the first phase as a holding midfielder, they limited the amount of exposure they had to having De Bruyne and Foden central at the same time to only the second half onwards.

Match: Manchester City 1-1 (4-4 aggregate, 3-4 penalties) Real Madrid, 17 April 2024

Players: Bernardo Silva, Phil Foden, Kevin De Bruyne

Barcelona were fairly compact, allowing space wide for Barcola and Dembélé to attack. Their first goal originated from a pass across the box to the far post, left to right, from Barcola to Dembélé.

The problem was the pass was also on right to left when Dembélé received the ball, but no one was making the run. In the 42nd minute, Dembélé finally motioned to Barcola and Mbappe, but mainly Mbappe, to make that run towards the near post so he could whip in a low in-swinging cross.