Out of possession
Pressing
The first defender decides, the rest obey
01
The first defender decides, the rest obey
Pressing fails as a collective long before it fails as a sprint. The usual cause is not fitness and not desire: it is that three players each decided independently that this was the moment.
- The trigger is the backward pass, not the whistle
- Cover arrives from inside, never from behind
- Six seconds, then we reset — we do not chase
02
What to look for
- One player goes and the rest go with them
- The measure is not who wins the ball. It is how long after the first defender commits the second one moves. Half a second is a press; two seconds is a player left alone.
- The angle of the first approach
- Curved, closing one side. A straight run at the ball is an invitation to play round it and every player under sixteen makes it until it is coached out.
- The reset
- After six seconds we stop. Teams that never stop pressing are not brave, they are unmanaged, and they concede in the last twenty minutes.
03
How you know
WorkingRegains happen higher and in clusters, and the second and third defenders are the ones making them.
Not workingOne player is always the one sprinting. If the same name keeps appearing in the pressing numbers, that is not a hard worker, that is a broken collective.
04
Sessions
05