Obviously recent discussions are mainly about the dominance of positional play and set-pieces, especially in the PL, which is a totally rational end point of the processes that happened in the past decades.

First, in this accelerated and highly money oriented world the main objective is to: WIN. Even if there are various strategies to win, due to the globalization & free spreading of the information, and also due to past success, one dominated = Positional Play

Positional Play is optimal for several reasons: -reduces complexity -reduces variability -easy to learn & teach -› therefore helps to stabilize performance - improves chances to win.

Coaches are under severe pressure by owners, board, sporting director, fans, media, results must come immediately. There are several personality traits in which most coaches have in common: -strong EGO -narcissism to a certain extent -strong belief in their philosophy & methods

As of these traits + the pressure of winning, coaches will select methods in which they feel to be in control. The effect is similar to flying v driving. Flying is safer, yet since we are not in control our tension level is higher, compared to driving, where we are in "control".

The advantage of positional play is, especially if you as a coach apply it for several years is that it usually creates similar type of match dynamics, where simply by experience you can basically learn the best ways of manipulating a match to your favor.

This will lead to matches where you can be even more in control of what’s happening on the pitch.

Let’s be real - if you are under pressure to win, one of the last things you will do is to put your ‘perceived control’ (I will come back to this) out of your hands into the players’ hands. This is simply not how most professional coaches work.

Simply just be the effectivity it has spread around the world. We see the same strategies, movements, matches in different levels & age groups, coaches speak almost the same universal language (inviting the press & finding the free-man etc.), players make similar decisions.

This already starts at the youngest age groups, in pedagogy. Today’s trend is a more verbal focused & explicit way of teaching, where children are encouraged to speak and express themselves. Although by being more explicit, we already influence their knowledge about the game.

Today’s children simply has much more knowledge (also because it’s accessible), which although decreases their level of freedom, since even in quick decisions we tend to be more conscious, which are affected by explicit and not implicit knowledge.

As a results even if improvisation happens, it stays within a specific framework.

If we are at pedagogy - today’s trend to raise children is also different than before, which is natural as it changes through generations.

Now everything is based on children, they have more “decisional freedom”, although parents want to have more influence on every situation that could happen with their children. Resembles to football, no?

Coaches giving players the “fake sense” of having freedom, whilst by putting them into specific positions, even if their actual decision is free, the situations they get in are highly controlled. Such as with many things, society has a heavy imprint on football.

With the heavy positional play focus, player characteristics also had to change.

The value of off ball movements, positioning to find free spaces, discipline and positional awareness increased, whilst actual on ball skills were mostly focused on being as quick and effective with maximum 2 touches as possible.

This increased the tempo of matches, but created less and less dribblers.

This is the model of how most of the best teams look like: -325 or 316 with the ball -flexible FBs -8s-10s with high positional awareness -inverted wingers

As I wrote in a tweet before - “modern” positional attacks are much more about creating pressure than creating chances. It’s about being effective by creating a match picture in which minute by minute you strangle the opponent in various ways (pressing, transitions, set-pieces).

Also in terms of finishing positional attacks every team does the same. Have 3 or 4 players wide to combinate, have a good box presence, then attack the deep defense with a cross to the far-post. Easy. You don’t enjoy it? That’s just an extra, priority is to win.

By circulating constantly you force the defense deeper, basically you create a match where they are defending deep, that’s why the narrative of “teams parking the bus” doesn’t make sense, as exactly this is the purpose.

This mass production and uniformity happens in other areas of life.

Cars start to look the same as a Tesla (wheel + giant touchscreen with no interior design). Cafés looks the same because of Instagram (what you get likes for), flats look the same because of AirBnB, everyone watches the same series because of Netflix.

AI controlled social media platforms give you contents which are the most liked ones, often the least interesting and special ones. Algorithmic consumption basically homogenized the taste itself.

Content is much less about actual entertainment. One example of this is ‘Game of Thrones’ where the series had to finish it (most likely with a worse ending) before the actual last book is published, because the Show Must Go On, right?

Back to football - as always with every strategy, the criptonite will sooner or later arrive, which is man-marking.

Positional play could be effective in the past decade because of mostly zonal oriented defenses, where the free-man and spaces were there, you just had to find it with good planning.

Solutions even in the positional framework are emerging, as I call it into a flexible positional direction, where you can make rotations, movements, but all must be oriented towards specific spaces which still must be occupied.

Arsenal does it really well to mix their shape from the back to build in 2-3/3-2/4-1, PSG mixes their midfield with the false 9 but eventually ending up in a 325/316, Bayern has nice combinations, but always start from a 334/3322.

There could be positional tweaks as always (lately probably the most with a usage of false 9 or even double false 9) but in general against man-marking a positional approach will not give a consistent only partial success.

The problem with these are that coaches usually neglect the importance of the quality and characteristics of the players. You can copy & paste everything, yet with different players the outcome and success will be different as well.

Discussions in the past decade where much more about strategy, match plans, structure, coaches rather then players itself. Players became simple products, like the ones you take off from the shelves whilst shopping.

We simply forgot that the game belongs to the players and not the opposite. Players are the ones to make everything happen. As we phrased it in a Spielverlagerung article, they are the Protagonists Of The Game.

This is where a different direction comes in. A direction where “perceived control” is different, not obsessive with controlling every decision, where chaos is not a negative term, but something which has to be embraced as a natural part of the game.

Instead of pushing players characteristics to the specific needs of the “modern game”, why not allow them to be themselves? A coach still has a role in this, but in a very different way, much more as a silent observer, as a guide.

I will use a painting metaphor here: instead of forcing them to paint the same picture every time with slightly better technique, placement of objects (like in positional play), allow them to paint whatever they feel to be painted in a way they would like to.

By giving them freedom they will be able to evolve their individual toolbox to solve situations, which is independent of the current trends, let is be zonal or man-marking.

Obviously the spread of man-to-man marking now will increase the need of players who especially in the centre are able to solve these situations = those who are able to dribble and go with the ball.

As Martin Rafelt wrote, touch limits in general are much more about to optimize a worse player’s skillset, since good players don’t need touch limit as their touches will be better which will lead to better actions.

Of course this direction has its ups and downs, there is no solution which is perfect. It will not solve the game itself, but will decrease uniformity. A game which is more human, and less robot.

Understandably this direction in itself sounds like a cartoon in this current football world. Although I believe there is a good balance in this.

A perfect example was how Xabi Alonso approached taking over Leverkusen. In the beginning they were more rigid -› to start making results - results will lead to more time, where a more flexible way could be introduced.

They still had a positional framework, but did it with very small distances, which led to better connections between the players.

To finish with a message - in our last home match with the national team, the fans created a Tifo with this message: “Let the grund (street) be ours again!”

If we want to be entertained again by football, give the game back to where it belongs: to the players.