"This is your last chance, after this there is no turning back. You take the blue pill and the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."
''All I offer is the truth, nothing more."
By now you've understood that the football industry doesn't like critical thinkers, they don't want people who push against and resist the homogeneity of the modern game. The language we use in football is institutionalised, fixed concepts and theories have been imported to create a globalist footballing identity, it has penetrated the way the masses perceive football, what is seen to me as homogenous and robotic is perceived as 'optimal' by many analysts and coaches- modernity has been pulled over their eyes to blind them from the reality that football is in fact broken.
That chilling scene from the 1999 film 'The Matrix' resonates with my sentiments surrounding the game, people are unknowingly aware that the tactical landscape is geared towards generating artificial and systematic superiorities and advantages. Football has been institutionalised, rather than embracing the radicalisms and individual brilliance that made us fall in love with the game, in the current footballing climate personal spontaneity disappears and the magic of the spectacle is continuously undermined. Positionalism is the prison that you cannot see, taste or touch.
I believe football is a comment on society, problems and polemics that affects football is ultimately a reflection of society as a whole. Western Society itself is homogenised, you go to a foreign city to be enriched in a 'distinct' culture and would often encounter the same eyesore skyscrapers, McDonalds per every square mile and Times Square like billboards in the city center. Language is also homogenised, in every corner of this earth the influence of the English (American variant) language is apparent, language itself is continuously evolving with trends- the generation before learned English from shows like Friends, where todays generation is raised by TikTok and the great content machine with its aggressive algorithms, even quaint words in British English became obsolete in place of more Americanised vocabulary.
This homogenisation and globalisation of society extends to the paradigm of football tactics, with the Premier League at the epicentre of this. The world is told that the Premier League is the best version of football that there can ever be, where there is the most money, the best players and coaches, it is arguably footballs greatest institution. English football abandoned their footballing culture and rich traditions by importing a globalised model, to which every other country followed. English football had now become the aggressive content machine, the world stopped to watch the Premier League, the brand image and the mass exposure it has received aligned perfectly with the arrival of Pep Guardiola at Man City, the exact moment football would see its next revolution.
Guardiola's City set a president and defined an era in which we are living in, an era of structuralism, in the space of a few short years football would come to look completely alien to what it had looked like before. After 2017 every team attacked with 5 players positioned horizontally across the opposition defensive line, we started to talk about the half spaces, triangulation and 'optimal' or efficient structures opposed to technical detail. So much of mainstream tactical analysis is restricted to a zoomed out view of how players interact with the playing environment, this analysis detaches us from the cognitive challenges football posses. As Juanma Lillo, the most quotable man in football, says in an interview, ''in football we have an appetite of scientifizing the game this results in football that we study but can't feel''.
The 3-2-5 and 2-3-5 became the sole focus of tactical analysis both recreationally and in the professional environment, as well as movements and rotations in between structures adopted between the the thirds of attacking progression that aided its on pitch 'construction'. The analysis separated the emotion of the game from the tactical paradigm, influenced by universal terminology and 'knowledge about' fixed concepts'. Ask yourself if you've seen City use a 4-3-3? They have never used it, the media use it on their graphics but they never use it, they spend the game transitioning between structures like a machine.
I don't identify with this need to section the in possession phase into these universal three thirds of build up- progression and final third. Spaces and affordances are constantly changing on the pitch and we have to make our players able to deal with that fact and encourage them to find solutions themselves from their own intuition. Instead of using globalised and oversimplified templates to enforce universal principles, as coaches we can propose solutions to our players and illustrate concepts which they can adopt and make their own. As Jake Pickles mentions in his article, these universal fixed thirds of attack stifles a young players development and decision making, it becomes automatic and mechanical, individual spontaneity is discouraged.
Rest Defence changed the way coaches perceived football, in the age of transitions coaches any potential space to exploit had to be neutralised, this left only a few structures remaining that were deemed 'optimal'- compact attacking structures that had 5;5 split for players ahead and behind the ball. These structures allowed for full attacking coverage in the 5 lanes of positional attack and short distances between players for efficient counter pressure on ball loss with better shadow cover for vacated spaces. This saw teams keep one full back inside into midfield to make a line of three, whilst the other attacked in depth as an example of a typical attacking rotation to transition in-between structures.
These 'clean structures' helped coaches to better manage spaces on the pitch and navigate the spectrum between control and threat, as well as the pursuit of control- which is the bedrock of modern positonalism. Ball retention and long periods of possession in the middle third was encouraged not to find a way to penetrate but to destabilise an opponent's transitional threat. Less threatening phases of the game and more risk aversion in relation to 'fixing the transitions'- solving a puzzle in the tactical jigsaw, which was a flaw of classical structures/formations pre 2017 and the era of structuralism, these clean structures were so efficient at solving these moments of uncertainty and disorder - to retain and restore control quickly- it became universal practise and imported into every footballing culture.
Coaches seek control, this is why we see optimal or efficient structures everywhere because it affords them more control, the 325/316/235 for example instead of classic shapes such as a 442 diamond or a 4231 and 433 with wide deep full backs. Coaches strive to strike the perfect balance between control and threat, they have since become more preoccupied with the transitions and covering space as a primary reference for zone attack, before creation of systematic superiorities and attacking affordances- if not why wouldn't a team put 7 players in between the lines? because the structure behind the ball would be insufficient.
Teams today are far too organised in mid blocks and automated collective defensive actions, you can't attack with an insufficient structure behind the ball, spaces are exploited much quicker and players' technical efficiency and understanding of transition situations has improved incredibly. Today, a team must be compact with the ball as much as in the defensive phase, the 5;5 split in these positional structures affords that. If this is the most efficient way to attack and defend turnovers in possession- counter pressing or falling back into organised defence then why change it?
Think about what I said now with relational rest defence in mind, Malmo does this very well and its not too dissimilar to ball orientated counter pressure seen in most teams. A question we are often faced with is how do we manage the transitions in relationism? How do you manage the transitions if you're leaving so much open field vacated? Counter pressing as a concept doesn't change because we impose relationism, the tilt and defensive diagonal ultimately results in our rest defenders being at the side of the ball and not behind it. Positionalists can read their team vertically where we can read ours diagonally to close the space.
Recently Kristóf Bakos created an interesting theoretical framework of a 'moving game paradigm', he says in his X post that while positionalism vs relationism primarily focuses on the scale of spatial distribution and rationality, moving vs standing game is what truly distinguishes them. Exploring the difference between collective behaviours of a dynamic attacking organisation (or disorganisation) and on the contrary a rigid one as well as how differing behaviours influence the spectrum between control and threat in the possession phase.
Ultimately relationism and positionalism are alternatives to one idea, not possession or ball retention but instead the greater idea of protagonism. This moving game template is an efficient way of measuring difference in wide areas of a teams attacking progression, between pre defined positional movements such as half space runs and structure specific actions used to generate a systematic superiority in comparison to more transient and self emergent actions like an Escadinha or a toco y me voy-tabela that are found naturally in wide overloads/tilt. These two behaviours can be distinguished philosophically or aesthetically, but both share the same pursuit of assimilating a footballing idea where its participants play from shared intention, fluency and making decisions from either social or tactical cues from the affordances and possibilities in the environment.
I see 'game model' thrown around a lot in discourse recently, what importance does a game model have if they're all identical from one coach to the next? A coach imports an 'optimal structure' and prepares his team to generate systematic advantages both in and out of possession. Ask yourself how much variation is there in structures or 'principles' in football today? 2-3-5, 3-2-5, 3-1-6 and 4-2-2-2 (narrow and wide variations) in the possession phase and hybrid/man to man pressing in the defensive phase before falling back into a more passive- trigger (systematic) orientated 5-4-1/4-4-2 block. This model of football is so easy to construct let alone analyse collective movements/functions, its tedious and undermines the phenomenon of individual brilliance. There is no tactical diversity, just tactical conformity.
Years ago Martin Rafelt wrote an article for Spielver titled 'How Guardiola and the 3223 solved the defending meta- I would say this accurately pinpoints the moment structuralism prevailed in positional football in the universal spread of global structures. Every structure and player rotation that we've become accustomed to throughout the last few seasons, everything that analysts from The Athletic thought were 'revolutionary' and innovative, was done by City in 2018, it's all been done before. As Morpheus says in said film, the matrix is everywhere- thus imposed structure and globalisation interwoven into our society and ultimately how we see and speak about football.
Man City are the master copy of all positional teams, they had success in the most watched league, their influence naturally spread, analysts wanted to understand why it was so efficent and coaches worldwide wanted to imitate them. That's not to say in 2016/17 City were the only ones adopting more rigid structures, Antonio Conte's Chelsea arguably introduced the idea of half space attackers and the fixed line of 5 to English football, Hazard and Willian/Pedro operating inside whilst Marcos Alonso and Victor Moses stretching the defence to create spaces behind the FB to attack.
Conte had a big influence in showing coaches how the 3-2-5 could be coached efficiently with shadow play and 10v0 exercises which have since become standard and universal practise in all professional clubs using a positional game model. This is incorporated with a periodisation model that 'builds up to matches with acquisition days' (Matchday plus 1 or 2 etc), training is not spontaneous it is planned with several overarching factors in mind with assimilating the structure as its ultimate priority. You could see Conte's over reliance on structural automations at Tottenham, where teams eventually found ways of neutralising his build up forcing Tottenham to unsuccessfully play over or around rather than through, creating predictable scenarios and turnovers.
Conte's side also helped standardise the use of dynamic structures or transitional structures, it has now became standard practise to have different structures for different moments of the game- whether you was in possession or out of possession. A 3-2-5 in attack would become a 5-4-1 or 5-3-2 in defence, or a 4-2-4 in build up could transition to a 3-2-5 as the team gained ground on the pitch and pinned the opponent back. In 2017 the idea of players shuttling back and forth between structures was revolutionary, a team like Chelsea could commit all 10 outfield players to a deep defensive block and then all 10 players in the opposition half with 5 pinned on the defensive line- now the phrase we defend and attack with 11 is ingrained into every coaches 'game model'.
Mauricio Pochettino's Tottenham were also an intriguing side that aided the development of modern positionalism with dynamic structures, they often moved between their lopsided 4-2-3-1 to a 3-4-2-1/3-3-1-3 with Dier dropping between the CB's allowing Walker and Rose to operate higher up as the front 4 stayed narrow to play from more functional movement with Dembele operating between thirds. However, I'd argue Tottenham's dynamism was a result of Pochettino's influence from South America and La Salida Lavolpiana- popularised by former Mexico manager Ricardo La Volpe.
Jorge Sampaoli's Sevilla (who's assistant manager was a certain Juanma Lillo) also had a crucial role in this globalisation, you can see in footage from that season how important zone occupation was in his 3-1-6 that produced scintillating and comical football in equal measure. Some players like Steven Nzonzi, a prime example of a 'system player', thrived in this environment where he was the initiator of every attacking move, whereas a talent like Ganso was frozen out for interpreting the game outside of Sampaoli's vision- or as I'd call it for not colouring in between the lines. Thomas Tuchel's Dortmund are also a credible mention as one of the trailblazers of 'franchise positionalism'.
Football somehow changed overnight from this point forward, positional play and the influence from Pep's Barcelona and 'the dream team' was a gradual development within the game over decades, causing a culture clash at both the professional and youth level. But with the arrival of these structures the games top coaches responded with imitation and that trickled down the pyramid. We no longer call it a 'dutch model; or 'la masia model' but a global model, this is what those at the top of the game want, homogenised and globalised practise, for football to look the same everywhere, universal in both terminology and theory. This profoundly affects our attitudes to the game beyond tactics but to psychology, skill acquisition, human relations and the player- space dynamic, if no alternative can flourish how do we break out of this rigid and colour blind way of thinking?
Even as I'm writing this I'm watching Milan vs Roma (yes I'm aware Dybala scored a good goal) and see the away side in a geometrically perfect structure passing side to side at San Siro on the half way line to try find a gap in the opponent, I'm sick of it. It nags me that the only way we view penetration is through passing through blocks, it doesn't excite me. I want my defender to make a give and go like Bologna did under Motta, I want players to scoop passes, diagonal insertions to disorientate defensive marking, playing into tactical traffic, I want them playing into chaos and not avoiding it.
Do you notice how no teams now can play through pressure? They can't afford to in the current climate of risk aversion. A few seasons ago when the De Zerbi 4222 became vogue and the goal kick rule changed to allow CB's to enter the area during build up, teams stopped building through wide patterns and creating positional diamonds- for up back and throughs to get up the pitch in favour of playing through the middle and baiting the opponent out by committing 8 players back to force more aggressive pressure and create the opportunity for a structure splitting combination in as little as 4 passes. Teams then got more aggressive and compact, the rise of hybrid pressing meant teams weren't finding affordances inside so now teams play over or around whilst still stretching the pitch horizontally and vertically.
As we know now these structures have become common practise, a team defends and attacks using multiple structures- Unai Emery's Villarreal who would defend and attack in several structures in one game at times depending on which 'third' the ball was in- influencing collective behaviour and structure. Teams no longer were ultra aggressive nor ultra passive, football tactics became moderate, simply occupying a cautious level on the tactical equilibrium where risk aversion was disguised as 'progressive football' by building up with universal structures and implementing movements that generate systematic superiority- when a FB moving inside or a winger operating in the half space which suddenly makes an average team 'tactically intriguing'.
Homogenisation will always exist to some degree in the paradigm of tactics, if a method is successful people will naturally look to understand the secret to its success to get ahead of the curve. The early 90s marked a decisive turning point in European tactics, you could credit Arrigo Sacchi with birthing this idea of structuralism wholesale, similar to the positional revolution of today Sacchi's Milan completed changed the way teams defended overnight, every federation adopted their theoretical approach and became the subject of coaching manuals, courses and even cassette tapes. Within just a few short years defending with automations and triggers became common practise throughout all Europe, man marking and the 'libero' had disappeared into the abyss.
Sacchi introduced the concept of scripting movements exclusively in relation to the ball, your teammate, the space and the opponent. As Jamie Hamilton says in his article 'the positionalist;- Sacchi did not invent positionalism, here we must remember that as an influential Positionalism was to Sacchi's success, it had been in the game earlier than Sacchi. Positional football can be traced back to the push and run of Arthur Rowe's Tottenham in the 1950s, the Hungarian national team, or Pozzo's Torino or Chapman's Arsenal before that. Positionalism invented itself, however id argue personally that Sacchi was the one who propelled structuralism and automation to European football. As the Italian's say- there are two time periods in Europe, a before Sacchi and an after Sacchi.
Pep's Barcelona changed the landscape about the way people thought about football, it caught the imagination of an entire generation of aspiring analysts and coaches, but his city was more influential because it was seen as a more efficient way of attacking and managing the balance between control and threat. The idea of defending with the ball was initially proposed by his Barca team, as well as concepts like overload to isolate and creation of systematic superiorities in horizontal sectors across the pitch- 4v3 in the middle band for instance. However the emergence of these globalised structures and positional movements gave other coaches a pre defined template and automations to follow in order to assimilate positional football in a relatively sport space of time, fast food positionalism.
Are there any outliers in this current age? There are several teams I've enjoyed watching over the last few years, one particularly that i'd like to highlight for the rarity of the 'system' is Real Sociedad under Alguacil. La Real adopted a 442 diamond, something we see quite less of in the modern game, they were still a positional team and would often get their wider midfielders to occupy the half spaces where they could turn whilst the 2 ST's pinned back the defence. They also had clear automations in their first phase of build up, one of the 8's peeling wide to receive from the FB behind the line of pressure- almost like a Parelela. However watching their front 5 play- the likes of Sorloth, Larson, Kubo, David Silva and at times Oyarzabal who returned from injury, attacking play felt much more functional, intuitive and fluid than other teams.
The diamond is the most notable of 'classic formations' that has fallen out of the game, its good to go back and watch both Milan teams at the end of the last decade who were both phenomenally successful, the diamond was the perfect base for marying functional talent and adventurers with more cautious players with a tenacious work ethic willing to eat up spaces on the pitch. For every Kaka and Pato there was Ambrosini and Gattuso, for every Snijder there is a Cambiasso. Even further back to the 90s with more obscure teams like Suaudeau's Nantes- where Makélélé played on the right of their diamond and not in the pivot position, as well as Ardiles' Tottenham with the roaring attack of Klinsmann, Sherringham, Barnaby and Anderton.
Players were free to explore possibilities beyond the team organisation, create dynamic and telepathic relationships with their local teammate, true intention is hidden and can open up several affordances. When football is played like this it is culturally significant, it invites us to see into a lucid world where we are reminded that emotion is more pure than logic, the pendulum between control and threat swings aggressively, the game longs for the protagonist- someone to step up and harness the hopes and dreams of every man, woman and child watching. The collective is appreciated win football, but the individual is always the one who resonates with us and creates a legacy.
Why does relationism resonate so much with Brazilian culture? From a young age they play not from coaching exposure but from shared intention of possibilities. The coach in Europe is too important, he is the painter, he is the director, the strategist and conductor, in functionalism these are assigned to those on the pitch- those who live the game, these functions are the catalyst for the player led actions and excellence that lives within its ecosystem. Operating in the abnormal feels euphoric, a dance that is shared through emotion and soul in the rhymes and rhythms, rather than an intricate, choreographic mechanisation of conformity.
This way of thinking doesn't resonate or represent the western world, everything is business like and automated, results driven, we've been conditioned to separate emotion from logic and this is seen in football. In countries like Brazil and Argentina there's an identity, a meaning and a shared purpose, cunningness and self expression is not only appreciated but cherished, unlike us they grow up infatuated with the ball- your relationship with the ball is the only thing that matters, you diversify how you treat it based on the quality of the pitch, the opponent, your teammates and what you feel in the moment. Football is order and adventure, as Luis Menotti once said.
As Josef Bozsik asks in his article, what is a nation? When we speak about national culture, we can't say that everyone and everything shares the same feelings and behaviours, but there is a common understanding around institutions, culture, art and language that have been constructed over generations. As Bozsik adds this creates cultural representation and the phenomenon of identity, a nation is an ''imagined community'' sharing experiences under common institutions and in a common language.
Speaking as an Englishman we can't talk about culture from Yorkshire and London as if they are the same thing, they don't grow up the same, customs, music and language is very different, 2024 London and the rest of the country have very little in common. London is too globalised as a city to represent English culture, the same with Berlin with German culture and Paris with French. Is this holding us back or is it a strength? It's often spoke about by people of my generation, growing up as a second generation Italian immigrant, I'm always told that England has no culture, I disagree fundamentally- its the fact that our culture and what has become of 'Greater London' (a melting pot of infinite cultures) is too different for us to correctly define a national identity.
This extends to football, British footballers were typically very technical coupled with grit, determination and resilience that was a key characteristic that served us well in empire and conquest, associated with being tenacious and fearless, willing to dare, try something special, create magic from nothing. What is an England player? The FA clearly doesn't know. Perhaps our society with several cultures is a contradiction of the tactical norms of geometric symmetries and complex collective systems, we could propose a football that is artistic, dynamic and flexible but we don't harness this and choose uniformity.
For me the biggest problem we have in producing talent is that the academy has too much influence on what their players can and cannot do. Essentially, we gate keep players in the academy like zoo animals and ostracise them from their peers and can't interact in their communities, they can't play street football, play other sports or learn other discipline. Everything has to be under the watch of the academy, young players are seen as an asset and not a form of life.
If Glenn Hoddle was French he'd have 100 caps, the famous Platini quote, even though we never appreciated the likes of Hoddle, Cunningham and Waddle (never played in the national team and ironically all 3 went to play for top European teams) at least they were being produced, young players coming through now are so systematic all they do is pass sideways, break lines when they are told to, they can't dribble, offer a give and go, if a double 6 player made his Premier League debut at 18 and went for a run in midfield or abandoned his 'zone' in the coaches Eurocentric 3-2-5 you'd never see him in the starting XI again. That's what we do to young talent.
We don't have to follow this globalised model, you might be misunderstood reading my work, as much as i propose an anti positional narrative and speak out against the machine of tactical and coaching content, my dissatisfaction and disillusion has little to do with positionalism itself but what the positional game has become. I am nostalgic for football before structuralism, the best team I ever saw was Maurizio Sarri's Napoli- there was something about that team that captivated me, I had never seen such a clean version of football before, playing in tight areas of the pitch and still finding an escape, rapid ball movement, players coming together on the left flank with Hamsik and Insigne's counter movements draws defenders whilst Mertens and Callejon lurked in the darkness. I had simply never seen anything quite like it.
Even watching those clips back now you'd never think it was scripted, Sarri's training methods and reliance on automatons are well documented, yet this translated to some of the most expressive and culturally important football I've ever seen. I believe that's why Diniz and Fluminense resonated with me so much, it was a departure from what I had been conditioned to like, we didn't wake up to this radical shift until recently- they had pulled the wool over our eyes so we couldn't see it happening, we can't see the alternative reality, we can't see what football could look like.
If you look at that Sarri's Napoli and Flu under Diniz, the actions themselves don't look too dissimilar at all, yet both coaches occupy contrasting ends of the spectrum between functional and positional attack. I see two teams that play from shared intention and fluency, the players come to interact with each other and the ball, the ball zone is their primary reference facilitating in the intrinsic exchanges we see on the touchline that dizzy defenders with either a corta luz or tabela escadinha or fluid movement 3v1 triangle, Sarri's triangulation being less spontaneous than those of Diniz. Like with every other coach, Sarri's most recent teams have moved towards the standing game on Bakos' spectrum, his Lazio players' occupied zones and waited for the ball to arrive at them, they were more systematic and rigid than Napoli or Empoli ever were, they became a team that played from triggers and not from raw emotion.
In football we must have courage and freedom to create, if we are creating we are always learning, we should allow players the licence to be interpretive, this is the only way we can create an evolution in the way the world perceives the game. Football is a means for changing our lives, its our life force, our lives revolve around it- it effects our relationships with other people, where we live, how we communicate, how we deal with adversity and heartbreak and how we express ourselves and how receptive we are to emotion. How can people remove this from analysis? Football can never be systematic or be decided by who controls which part of the pitch, we have to feel connected with it.
As a coach i have to create an environment to allow my players to be able to enjoy the game in a more poetic way, to return them to their childhood, because in reality those who play football are the children inside of us. Nobody learned to play as an adult, unfortunately the adults are more exposed to the players than they are to other kids, coaching exposure in this model has stifled a generation of players from the youth category to the professional ambit. If we kill the child inside, the play doesn't happen. Football needs personalities to preserve not just as a form of entertainment but as something for the child inside of us to dream about.
Bozsik quotes Buaraque who explains ''There is a work ethic, just as there is adventure ethic''. Those who go out into the world or an abnormal environment and seek conquest, they thrive in the instability, the turbulence and ebbs and flows of the teams current, they reject institutional formality and harness a playful childlike wisdom. You assert yourself through your talent, something specifically unique only you can offer, on the pitch you are an explorer of affordances.
Normally at the end of an article like this you either propose a solution to the big issue or you recap your ramblings, I don't want to do either. You can ask someone to explain how and why they feel a certain way about something, why it particularly resonates with them and why they are drawn to it like a moth to a flame, but you'll find it comes from a profound place. An academy coach who engages with my content (occasionally) on X once wrote- ''I am obsessed with football, you are obsessed only with positionalism vs relationism". Perhaps this struck me a little, when you have a passion project like mine it's easy for your judgement to be clouded, I often think are these sentiments solely about football or is it a deeper reflection of how I feel as a person or about society?
The answer, I am still figuring that out, as I said in the beginning the football industry doesn't like critical thinkers, those who challenge the status quo and the work of those who have led the revolution, if it was up to these guys then all innovation would stop and we'd exist in this state of limbo for eternity. For a while I've been certain that there's more to football than what i've been seeing, the narrative and discourse surrounding this debate is constantly developing and gaining interest, being on X to see that and contribute to this change is truly incredible. I want to kick out against an industry that has only rejected me and my ideas, I want to kick down the barriers and obstacles they put in front of me and explain colours to those who have only been taught to see only black and white. All empires fall, eventually, that day might be closer than we think.
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