Pressing is an interesting area in football and tactics as a whole. It’s a grey area still waiting to be further explored although some managers have already experimented, gained results and are somewhat satisfied with the overall outcome. English football fans might not care about pressing because in fact, pressing is modern tactics stuff and English football is far behind in terms of tactical trends that have overwhelmed football these days. Direct football, a proper forward, lining up teams in 4-4-2 fashion and hoofing the ball towards the main striker has long been associated with English football, and sadly still is. We are in a different tactical dispensation. The days of false nines, inverted wingers, playing three defenders, possession football and now pressing. We are in an important era, and it’s quintessential that we get a good grasp of the ever changing trends in football. In basic terms, pressing is a DEFENSIVE TACTIC which is employed to recover the ball from the opposition when possession is “turned over” to the opposition. It’s a way of getting back the ball. There are many different forms of pressing but I’ll talk about the 4 most popular ones which are: 1. Six Second Rule 2. Disjointed pressing. 3. Gegenpressing 4. Unconditional pressing If I’m in a good mood, I’ll add the “broken press” system. SIX SECOND RULE: Okay, so Barcelona lose the ball to the opposition in Guardiola era. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 seconds, Barca have the ball back and have resumed their intricate geometric short passing and movement rhythm popularly known as “tiki taka”. That summarises the six second rule. As I have intimated on so many football platforms, Pep Guardiola has revolutionised football in so many ways and one of his many brilliant ideas include the six second rule. The general idea of this rule is that, Barcelona make the field (or space) look BIGGER when they HAVE THE BALL by passing it around and then make it look SMALLER when they do not have the ball by closing down opposing players in 2s and 3s. Most of the time, the player that loses the ball leads the chase to get the ball back. So let’ say it’s El Classico. Xavi loses the ball in central midfield and Modric has the ball now. Xavi, Iniesta (and) Busquets attack Modric and try to get the ball off of the Croatian midfielder. The seminal question here now is, what happens if Barca are not able to get the ball back within 6 seconds? They fall back into what looks like a 4-4-2ish formation and then wait for the opponent to make a mistake or a 50-50 chance, for example, a loose pass, a long ball, a slightly over hit pass, and then they start to press again. Barca try as much as possible to press high up the field such that then they get the ball, the distance to the opposition goal is much much shorter than the distance to their own goal. This explains why Guardiola was so so successful with Barcelona from 2008/2009 season till his very last season. And since Barca had great goalscorers, they scored lots of goals too and created loads of chances as well. Let me give you an idea of how intense the pressing was. Any time Barca regained possession of the ball via pressing (in this case the 6 second rule), the distance between the last Barca defender and the most forward Barca attacker was around 35 yards. Now, the full length of a pitch is between 90 and 120 yards depending on the stadium. This should give you some idea of how intense the pressing is. Some words from Guardiola that I want you to ponder over: We play in the other teams half as much as possible because I get worried when the ball is in my half, he says. Were a horrible team without the ball so I want us to get it back as soon as possible and Id rather give away fouls and the ball in their half than ours. DISJOINTED PRESSING: I’ll make this one short because it is common and very easy to understand. In disjointed pressing, one player harries down opposition players in order to get the ball back. This is very common in England. When he doesn’t get the ball or the ball moves out of his area, another pressing takes on the role of pressing. It’s not very effective, to say the least, but at least, it’s worth trying. GEGENPRESSING: Mind you, it’s one word: Gegenpressing. Another name for this is counterpressing. It’s two-in-one; both defensive and attacking. This kind of pressing is normally associated with Jurgen Klopp’s Borussia Dortmund. In this situation, Dortmund players attack the opposition player with the ball in droves and then when they win the ball off of them, they advance at lightening pace towards the opposition goal in counter attacking fashion. In compendium, win the ball off the opposition, and then start a counter attack. The main difference between the six second rule AND Gegenpressing is that, whilst the 6 second rule is concerned with winning back possession, Gegenpressing has a two pronged mission; to get the ball (even if it takes more than 6 seconds) and then start a counter attack. Kloppo describes Gegenpressing as “the best playmaker in the world”. Interesting. UNCONDITIONAL PRESSING: Last but not the least, unconditional pressing. Ah, that one. It’s a bit popular. Most teams use it. As the name implies, the team without the ball “presses” with the sole aim of getting back the ball, that’s all. They don’t press because of a particular reason. In the 6 second rule, Barca press because they want to get the ball back and possess it. In Gegenpressing, the team try to get the ball off the opponent and then counter attack. In unconditional pressing, the team presses as part of its tactic by simply harrying down opposition players. It’s not really because of a certain reason or condition. Teams that press unconditionally? This is very easy to know by now. Atletico Madrid, primarily. And then you can throw in the great Real Madrid as well. Surely, I’m in a good mood so let me add a last one. There is also the “broken press” which Jose Mourinho employed during his time in Iberia, mostly in Clasicos. In the broken press, only the forwards (Ronaldo, Benzema, Di Maria, Ozil) press by chasing down Barca defenders in order to win the ball off of them. After the ball leaves the defensive half, Madrid players stopped pressing and rather covered. It made perfect sense because Barcelona prefer to “pass out from the back” and so when Madrid attackers swarmed them, they would be forced into making mistakes and then capitalise on that. It will be fondly remembered that Karim Benzema and Angel Di Maria both scored goals on the back of some good broken press Hope you’ve learnt something good from this piece. Drop your comments, questions, suggestions and let’s see how it goes. Don’t press me too much tho.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 19:12:35 +0000
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