JOGO FUNCIONAL

A lot of analysis has started shifting to a model of understanding player synergies and how it influences small space behaviours and tendencies. On X we see a lot of interest in pieces dissecting these group dynamics using 3v3's on the wing or in the half spaces to better understand these emergent actions, player behaviours and how players make connections with each other. I believe coaching focus will take a similar course, we will put our microscope to the behaviours and nuances of smaller groups and coach into them to find a less game model centric advantage.  Coaches will start to understand functionalism and player profiling better and how each player can be complimented by certain functions and tendencies. Thats not to say these haven't always been present in coaching, but in the positional age of 'structure first' we are less attuned to these behaviours. We should analyse them on a smaller scale to better understand the associations and synergies that are present...

"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' resonate...

  For many years we've become accustomed to seeing pictures like this, a team in possession of the ball pinning the opponent back in their half with 5 players positioned horizontally in front of the line of defence. The players are spaced rationally in geometrically equal distances from each other and occupy the same zones in the structure. Football tactics became homogenous, globalised and boring.  We could be entering an age where it is no longer necessary for an 'optimal' attacking structure, some might argue that it was never necessary. As the lines between defence and midfield get smaller and smaller, players need to find solutions in the toughest tactical landscape the game has ever been in, whether we see a radical shift in the way teams organise themselves in the attacking phase is yet to be seen. In this article I'm going to discuss how tactical content and data has influenced our way of seeing football and if the next tactical shift in Europe is a mutation of ...