JOGO FUNCIONAL

If you've followed my account for a while you would have noticed my fascination with diagonality, a concept which is at the heart of a lot of my work. For a while I've been sharing clips and commenting on teams putting this concept into practice, occasionally sharing ideas on how to train this as well. The word itself is becoming more used in discourse but, like most terminology, can get misinterpreted or reduced. When Coach of PSG's U18 team, former Italian International and recent ex Juventus coach Thiago Motta once famously said- ''I don't see formations vertically, I see them horizontally. We play a 2-7-2*'' *the goalkeeper acts as part of the midfield 7.  For many years I didn't quite understand what Motta was referring to, that is a pretentious way of articulating something rather simplistic like verticality. What did Motta mean with these comments? Could it be that he was referring to diagonality?  I wanted to write something that speaks to th...

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...

Visit my X page - Jogo Funcional   The debate between Relationism and Positionalism has again provoked an intriguing response on X and continues to be pushed further into discourse. This season, Malmo and Racing Santander have been trailblazers in leading this not so quiet revolution, as the influence of Brazilian functionalism disrupts Positional plays grip on European football. Their work has been courageous, captivating and inspiring, with each week that passes the discourse flourishes.  Further debates have started to emerge in the shadows, is football in Europe too homogenous? Do we need a broader conversation around moving and standing game? Is tactical analysis reductionist? Another area of football that I love speaking about is pedagogy, the method and practise of teaching football. I feel that there are fundamental issues that need to be addressed in regards to coach education and how all coaches in Europe are being produced in exactly the same way, not to mention tha...