@ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

[Coach]

Laterality, the art of moving the opponent from side to side, like the hips of a Ottoman belly dancer. The endpoint, hypnosis. The aggressive press has been key arsenal on the battlefield and rather surprisingly, the ability to play through it, has been absent throughout. How the extra man at the back has translated to concession of possession and poor ball retention, defies all reason.

Rather than an invitation to populate the midfield and author overloads, the third man at the back has been deployed with defence in mind. What Loew did to Germany borders on high treason. Three is every bit the magic number being denied it’s hat and wand. Let not the flogging of Ukraine bind Gareth blindly to the back four. A return to the three, brings the trophy home.

[txj]

Laterality, the art of moving the opponent from side to side, like the hips of a Ottoman belly dancer. The endpoint, hypnosis. The aggressive press has been key arsenal on the battlefield and rather surprisingly, the ability to play through it, has been absent throughout. How the extra man at the back has translated to concession of possession and poor ball retention, defies all reason.

Rather than an invitation to populate the midfield and author overloads, the third man at the back has been deployed with defence in mind. What Loew did to Germany borders on high treason. Three is every bit the magic number being denied it’s hat and wand. Let not the flogging of Ukraine bind Gareth blindly to the back four. A return to the three, brings the trophy home.

Laterality is the first platform for new passing lanes, and the road to perfidy for the geggenpress!

Its not about side to side movement of the ball. It's about constantly resetting the platform for the passing game.

[txj]

TXJ,

Let me take a stab to see if I understand what you are getting at. By lateral movement, are you referring to side play and then suddenly switching inside to strike or are you referring to wing play? In any case, England tactically and systematically, may be better than the Danes. England has abandoned their traditional helter skelter style of play and adopted the Brazilian 1960s style, play it slow, draw the opponent and strike when there is a pocket of space to do so. England are doing this because their central three, Rice, the Yorkshire Pirlo, and Mason Mount, have the wherewithal covering the central area, and the Captain Kane, who has since the tournament began, found mostly in the midfield as a false nine. Interesting for me is how England scored their first goal against Ukraine. That was an interesting old school, Brazil of 1970 versus Italy, their fourth goal.

Lateral movement here is the ability to constantly reset the base of the passing game and therefore stretch the press to the point that the center cannot hold.

Southgate has used his squad expertly. But the football still lags behind a bit, helped in part by the ineptitude around him, re Herr Loew.

The next games should be interesting...

[Coach]

@Tx, Nagelsmann's 3-2-4-1, is the young trailblazer suffering from Pepitis?

[txj]

@Tx, Nagelsmann's 3-2-4-1, is the young trailblazer suffering from Pepitis?

Sometimes it pays to be simple..

[txj]

Cholo Simeone after the CL game today:

"It's nice to see City play, the patience they have to play. In the same way that they talked about being patient at half-time, waiting for their moment, we also waited for it. With different weapons, we were both looking for the same thing".
[/quote]



Interestingly, this is where I depart from European football.

The idea of 'waiting for their moment'...

A reductionist approach, where the focus of the game is in minimizing errors and tactics about the moment in which the ball turns over...

[txj]

"Often, people with a large vocabulary are very intelligent, and they manage to praise you with disrespect," Simeone said. "But those of us who maybe have a smaller vocabulary, we're not so stupid.

Atleti finally get a dose of their own medicine..

[Coach]

For all the world’s pretty little passes, Herr Eintracht stuffs his frankfurter all the way in. Battered.

[Coach]

The truest of journeys takes one back to its start and yet a beginning all new. Fully recovered from the Hollywoodesque, quasi-tactical AfCON and well relapsed back into audience of the clashing titans positional and anti-positional play, Football, what a game.

Having traversed the two ends of the spectrum, from one end of the cosmos to the other like an Uberless extraterrestrial, the cosmic dust and tales from the outer limits breathes life back into this most delightful of discourses. Where to begin?

Where Eagles soar: a treatise on the tactical considerations requisite to spreading of the eagle's wings? Closing the gap: A critique on the tactic and strategy of AfCON?, The fall of the house of Bayern?, Why City wont win the league (contentious)?Ancelotti's anti-positionalism, the Magic of Girona? So many matters for debate, yet perhaps the most apt starting point, given the fall of Queens and rise of Kings since the last post, 4-4-2: The return of the King.

As Democritus adroitly conferred, 'nothing exists except atoms and space...'. Electrons busily course their orbits, circle upon circle upon circle. Cyclicity, natures natural code. Any point in the circle assigned the beginning, is the end, is the beginning once more. And thus that once passed comes back anew. In a world that seems far more removed from the social mediatropolis of now and its litter of Gen Zedites, all footballdom stood in solemnity, hands holding tight rosary beads, crucifixes and various other religious paraphernalia, hoping for, praying for, miracle at the foot of the king's bed. Silence broken abruptly by the chime of bells, 12 exact, a scatter of birds about the clock tower and a deafening wail heard throughout all the footyverse. 4-4-2, the king is dead.

Body laying in wake, the fractions unfolded like a clenched fist stretching its fingers, each scurrying to seize power. In the game of thrones, 4-3-3s, 4-2-3-1s, 3-4-3s, 3-4-2-1s, rickety old 3-5-2s, silver hair and cataracts, resurfacing like the octogenarian African MP's presidential candidacy. All in pursuit of power.

Though adorned in gold and medallion, as a 3-2-4-1 confided to the box midfield, "deny it to a King? then happy low lie down, uneasy lies the head that wears the crown".

As the crossing of trigger points sparked the press, the capture of possession and swift transitions rich in verticality, posed increasing problems for the 3-2 defensive split. Man City's facing of more shots this season than ever before under Guardiola shows the oxymoron in Restverteidigung. No rest for the rest defence, only insomnia. (Maupay's opening goal vs Man City).

Where comes the question, comes the answer, turning the "Rest" around, flipping the mattress of sorts. The 2-3 defensive setup has paraded itself in some of the EPL's richest regalia and rightly so, the 3 allows for quicker engagement of the counterattack and greater ease in defending laterally. The 2 CBs protect the centre. The rest outside of the "Rest" arrange themselves in a 5 of sorts creating the 2-3-2-3/2-3-5 in the attacking phase.

With space at a premium, space is the battleground for the most coveted of entities, the transition. Whilst possession of the ball allows the holder control, longevity in this regard lessens chaos, allowing the opposition to adopt their defensive shape. Attack vs Defence transpires, a clash of titans that doesn't exclusively favour the more titanic. Thus the importance of transition is made all the apparent. Winning the ball back, being able to transform into the attacking shape with such expedience the opposition cannot revert to their defensive shape in time, creates chaos.

The pressing system is the pluripotent stem cell in what has become a beautiful sport of science. And there, in the point of engagement, the rubicon where infantry meets infantry, where sword meets shield, where the frenzied gallop of the war horse careers into the comotion, there where princes and pretenders fall, there cometh the King once more. From Mancunia to London Town, Germania to Gaul and beyond, an 8 steps up beside the 9, 7s and 11s drop back to flank the 6s (6 and 8). The pressing shape is assembled. Silence falls across the crowd. And then a bow in perfect unison. The 4-4-2 is back. Long live the King.

[txj]

A lot to chew on here, hence the recourse to poetry: How to Eat a Cow.---in stages..

First the term "space at a premium".

In full mimicry of Don Putin: NYET!
Or Mazi Ebubedike: MBA!

Not even Flavour- premium or nothing...

The dimensions of a pitch might be fixed. 105x68m, the championship excepted....

But within said dimensions, space is nothing but a concept.

Its dimensions only limited by the size and/or extent of one's imagination...

You can grow it; or you can shrink it. In linear proportion with the imagination...

We are BIG in Texas, cus we think BIG. And especially, we cut the steak only one way- BIG!

[Coach]

@Tx, if the playing field is of finite dimensions, then there are limitations to space. Tactical deployments further limit availability and thus it’s for the thinking man/woman to conjure configurations to exploit space. One would go as far as saying the greatest thinkers create the illusion of both time and space, bewildering the opposition with an abundance of each. Or so it seems.

The change in pressing structures, return and re-crowning of the King (4-4-2) is, as exponents have inferred, intended to offer occupation and coverage of space. Able bodied for the press and of Dhalsim flexibility to permit swift change into both defensive and attacking formation. Long live the King!

[Coach]

PS: Hull City, MKM Arena, 7696 square metres, largest in all the lands. 0ver 7 and ‘arf thousand square metres of gladiatorial contest. No hiding places. Roof? Hardly, let the elements do their best.

What was that about Texas? Big. Hull City, bigger.

[txj]

"I had in the back of my head that now they had Kim [Min-jae], now [Dayot] Upamecano was getting fit so they had four centre-backs; they could make a back three. Thomas [Tuchel] has played brilliantly with that system so we were ready to control that as well. From the 4-2-3-1 to the 3-4-3 and I think we have controlled well, to find the right moment when to press, when to wait, who could have the ball, who could not have the ball, and defensively for me it was an outstanding performance." - Xabi Alonso

I understand the concept of the press, and of course the counterpress.

But too much of it, as the Spaniards best describe it, is- pierna perdida. Wasted leg...

To borrow from the immortal words of Vernest "Quick" Brown, aka Eddie Murphy in Harlem Nights, "It's not how many people you shoot. It's who you shoot."

Its not so much the formation. They are nothing but numbers...Its how you deploy them.

Its not so much how many you deploy.

The more important question is "où est Joey"?
Hiding in the bushes....

The press is an art form. Yes its an exercise in physicality and athleticism. But in its best expression, its the art of domination of space. And will...

The when; the where; and especially the positioning...
Not every trigger yields a fatal shot...

[txj]

@ coach,

Returning to the "scene of the crime", I offer once again Vernest "Quick" Brown:

"It's not how many people you shoot. It's who you shoot."

[txj]

Last night I saw the best performance of an international side in nearly a decade from Argentina at the appropriately named stadium: The Monumental.

Poor hombres from Copacabana

First they funneled them to one side of the pitch, with all blue and white shirts on that one side; and I mean all. And the caraniras took the bait.

POOR HOMBRES, attracted to the ball like they are to the wobblie-wobblies at the copacabana beach. Then came the switch to the other side- yes as wide and open as, you guessed it- The Pampas!!!

The steak is served is Sir!

Prime

Argentine

Beef!!!!!

[Coach]

@Tx, have been feeding on scraps of extended highlights which show the tip of the pyramid but not its belly and catacombs. Brazil were a midfieldless mess, passengers in their own car. The Albiceleste look solid despite old man Otamendi shoring up the back. They’ll take some beating.

[wiseone]

https://x.com/WeAreTheOverlap/status/19 ... 8938029280

[txj]

Without context, football analysis is hot air from the derriere of a shape altering, rump shifting danfo driver at Ojuelegba bus stop...

'tis not so much who has the touches. but rather what comes next. The game is evolving constantly, which is no news. But the arc of the evolution is tilting ever steadily in the direction the midfielder. In otherwords, the complete player, equipped with the tools to adapt to different scenarios.

In this season's UCL Q/Finals, two dominant midfield models have emerged IMO.

First the relentless physical-technical combo of Arsenal, Bayern, Inter, Villa and Madrid.

Second the high intensity, relentless technical football of PSG and Barca, best exemplified by the two Portuguese wizards, Joao Neves and Vitinha..

The issue is not how many times a Cubarsi touches the ball, but the platform he creates for what is to come, as the build-up develops. It is about the blurring of lines that separate positions and roles.

Yes Van Dijk is positionally a center back, but what is his role definition in each phase of the game? That is the context in which you analyze his touches in a game...

[txj]

In The Zone: Augmented reality analysis – Space and how to conquer it
Tuesday, April 15, 2025

With the help of AR virtual analysis, UEFA Technical Observer Rafa Benítez explains how UEFA Champions League teams work goalscoring wonders in small and large spaces.

https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleagu ... d-how-to-/

[txj]

https://www.sport.es/es/noticias/barca/ ... -118902054

Ralf Rangnick, Laporta's guru: "I mentioned Flick's name and he signed him."
Current coach of the Austrian national team, Ralf Rangnick is a benchmark in German football that Laporta loves and has influenced.

Albert Masnou
June 22, 2025, 8:00 AM
Updated June 22, 2025, 9:23 AM

“I spoke to Ralf Rangnick when I read an interview with him in which he talked about Johan. And he told me about Tuchel, Nagelsmann, Klopp, and Flick. And we came to the conclusion that the most appropriate candidate could be Hansi,” Laporta explained a few months ago. Today, Ralf Rangnick, unknown to Barcelona fans, sits down on this sunny day in early June on the shores of the Mediterranean to reveal the keys to his theories, which so influenced Laporta , in this exclusive interview for SPORT . And in which 'gegenpressing' stands out.

What is it? Who is the father? Why is it important, and how does he use it?

It goes back to when I started coaching Hoffenheim in 2006. At that time, we analyzed the entire football world—past, present, and future—and realized that the greatest opportunity to score a goal comes ten seconds after winning back the ball. This is independent of the level of football or the league level. The greatest opportunity to score a goal comes in those eight to ten seconds after winning back the ball.


AND?

We also discovered that this time frame provides the greatest opportunity to win the ball back. So those two results of our analysis made us think, what? What makes sense? What kind of football can we implement at Hoffenheim? And later, when I started working for Red Bull in 2011, working for both clubs in Salzburg and Leipzig, we decided to create a countdown clock.

The ten seconds after losing the ball are key to recovering it, and the next ten seconds to score a goal... This is Gegenspressing.

Who, according to what Jonathan Soriano (his former player at Red Bull) tells me, was a giant, he presided over all his training sessions and he would get going when he lost the ball...

We had it built because that type of clock didn't exist, and we used it in training. And I remember in 2007, after one of the first training sessions, player Salihovic came to the staff and said, "Who invented that type of exercise? It makes us nervous!" And I said, "This is exactly what it's supposed to do."

What were you looking for?

Modern football coaching is precisely a cognitive exercise to provoke the opponent into doing things they otherwise wouldn't, a tactic we developed to implement in matches. The clock in training was used to put pressure on the players. If they took more than eight seconds, the training session was stopped.

Is it something that lasts over time? Who uses it now?

The opportunity to score a goal is greatest within the first ten seconds. This is clear. After that, the chances decrease drastically. You have to hurry, not waste time, and not play the ball to the goalkeeper. Then the 10 seconds are over. So if you want to score in 10 seconds, you have to hurry and everyone collaborate to win the ball back and then play vertical football to score. If you look at the current Champions League, Kompany's Bayern Munich started using it this season, PSG does it perfectly. In Spain, Barça does it with Flick, and even the Spanish national team is heavily influenced by this idea.

The ideal time is from 17 to 20 years old. At 24, you're no longer eligible for recruitment.
You're also known for discovering young talent. How do you do it? What's the process?

Again, this started in 2007, when we and Hoffenheim had achieved promotion from the third to the second division. I then decided to try to scout, sign, develop, and then, at a later stage, even sell players at a very young age. We called them 'blue chip' players, or you could also call them 'release value' players. So, if you want to develop players with future sale value, you have to identify and develop them at a young age. The sooner the better.

This is ahead of its time...

We would sign players even if they were 15 or 16, and we saw, and still see, something in those players that other clubs don't. The ideal time is between 17 and 20 years old. A 24-year-old is no longer eligible for signing, in our opinion. At 20 or 21, we signed a series of Baez players, Carlos Eduardo, Luis Gustavo... They all became international players. At Red Bull, we were only interested in players of this profile.

How do you find these treasures?

You need a top-notch scouting department, with specialists trained in this field, who know exactly what kind of qualities those players should have, what kind of profile you're looking for. And that brings us back to the style of football. And then, if you want to bring in the best possible players for each position, the scouts have to know: how do we want to play? Do we want to play with three at the back or four at the back? Do we need full-backs or not? What kind of midfielders do we need?

And what was the response?

As I said, to find those types of players, you need to know the profiles of each position. And then, of course, you need experienced scouts who understand what we see in a 16-, 17-, or 18-year-old. We need to imagine how this player might develop over the next two or three years if he plays with the right team, under the right coach. Under these conditions, what can happen to him?

It's a job for specialists...

My son, who has been in Leipzig's scouting department for eight years, told me what they did during COVID. They couldn't see players or meet. What did they do? They started looking back 20 years at promising young players. They identified 36 from all over the world. Even going back to the Ronaldo phenomenon. They saw that it wasn't that complicated to discover modern players like Erling Haaland or even Joshua Kimmich. We could figure out and see, by the time they were 16, what kind of top-flight players they would become. Of course, you need to develop your scouts.

An important part for a club...

For me, a scouting department is the most valuable thing a club can have. But to be honest, what happens at most clubs—too many clubs—is that they change managers every 12 months, eight months, or maybe 16 months. And with each change of manager, they change the style of football.

Barça, a special case
Have you studied the working process at La Masía?

No. To be honest, no. What I know is that they sign players at a very young age and develop them in the style Barcelona wants to play, a technical style of football. I don't know in detail what they're doing there, but they obviously do a lot of things well, right? The benefits are there, with eight or nine youth players in the first team. And the Spanish national team that played against Portugal had nine U-20 players, and they do something similar.

You took third-tier teams like Hoffenheim and brought them to the elite. How do you use these ideas to compete against galactic teams or state-level teams?

Hoffenheim was and still is a small town of 3,000 inhabitants. And when they called me to ask if I could meet with them and if I could imagine coaching Hoffenheim to make it a first-division club, I said I didn't know. We met. And in the end, I said yes, I would do it. And in two years, we had two consecutive promotions. And, in the winter title of our first year in the Bundesliga, we finished ahead of Bayern. And the interesting thing was that after winning the second promotion, we only signed one player, so we played with the second-division team and won the winter championship. In the end, we finished sixth or seventh because we had serious injuries.

A miracle…

I don't think so. We repeated it at Red Bull, Leipzig, and Salzburg. That was three promotions in four years. If I look back now at the things we did there… of course, it was much easier to do it with clubs that didn't have a great football tradition. There were no international players at Hoffenheim, nor at Leipzig or Salzburg. So, no one was there. They asked us, 'Why are you doing these crazy things?' They weren't crazy. In retrospect, I think it was easier for us to do it at clubs that were more or less startups. Now, we have a similar situation with our national team in Austria. If we want to beat Italy, Germany, Croatia, or the Netherlands, who individually probably have better players than us, we have to do something different.

Yuste called me because Joan was looking for a sports director for his candidacy.
Laporta said you were key in signing Flick, that you met in Barcelona. Count those days.

That was four years ago. In 2021. I received a phone call from Rafael Yuste. I didn't know him. He introduced himself and asked if we could meet in Barcelona because they were looking for a sporting director. I said yes. I flew to Barcelona, ​​met with Rafael, met with the candidate Laporta, and we spoke for two days. Obviously, we discussed the parallels we're talking about, given my career and the club's needs. I've already done that at Hoffenheim, Leipzig, and Salzburg.

What did Laporta say?

“That sounds very interesting. And what kind of coaches would you need for that?” he asked me. And I said, well, we need modern coaches who like working with young players, who can develop them, who can deal with them with good leadership skills, who also look after them, who trust and believe in them. If you play almost exclusively with young players, like Barcelona does, you have to trust them, I told Laporta. You have to let them run and play like little young wolves. If you just tell them, ‘Don’t do that’ and don’t take too many risks,’ it won’t work. If you want to play with young players, you have to take some risks, let them play. And obviously, I also mentioned Hansi Flick’s name and maybe one or two other coaches as well. Maybe I also mentioned Klopp. Laporta must have remembered that comment I made about Flick.

Do you keep in touch?

Yes. Yuste keeps in touch with me, sending me WhatsApp messages every two months.

Cruyff's influence on football is enormous and his achievement was to establish a corporate identity at Barça and Ajax that remains.
Laporta said he noticed you because of a comment you made about Cruyff. What influence did Johan have on you?

I wanted to be like him. When I was young, 14 or 15, I played for one of my hometown clubs. I was the team captain. And at that time—that was 1973, 50 years ago—football players wore the numbers 1 to 11. So number 12 was the first player off the bench. I asked my coach at the time if I could play with number 14. And I got it. So I was the only player on my team allowed to wear 14. Johan was, for me, the first modern number ten. He didn't just play with the ball, similar to Günter Netzer or Wolfgang Overath (World Champions with Germany), but he was also able to work and play his role when the other team didn't have possession.

And then he became a coach...

It was clear that after his playing career, he would likely go on to play a vital role in a club, either as a coach or as a sporting director. And, in fact, he was both. His influence on clubs like Ajax and Barcelona was enormous. And what I think was Johan Cruyff's greatest achievement after his playing career was that, at both clubs, this corporate identity endures. Something other clubs don't have...

How do you notice this?

Every time Barça changes coaches, the new one has to be able to follow the same approach. And always, over the last 15, 25, 30 years, they've signed similar players, developed young players from their youth academy, and never brought in the wrong coach. And that was, for me, one of Johan Cruyff's greatest achievements, because he established that with every change of coach, it makes no sense to change the approach to football and the style of football. Unfortunately, there aren't many Johan Cruyffs at clubs these days.

He misses figures like that...

Of course. If we look at two clubs in England, for example, what happened at Chelsea after Thomas Tuchel left? What happened at Manchester United after Sir Alex left? The same thing is happening at some German clubs that are now in the second division. There are leadership issues.

Cruyff didn't just influence you. He also influenced Pep Guardiola. What did Pep leave behind after his time in Germany?

Pep had a significant influence during those three years. Almost all the young coaches wanted to play like Pep's Bayern. Suddenly, they were playing with rondos in training. And I think yes, of course, his impact on Bayern Munich was enormous. He had a huge influence on the development of Munich at the time. He developed young players, like Kimmich, whom I had when he was a kid. He was already special, with a top mentality.

And Xabi Alonso?

What he achieved was incredible. He was one step away from winning every title. And he even finished second this season. He's had a huge influence.

The reverse path is also obvious.

Flick and many others have left their mark in Spain. And before him, it was Heynckes, for example, or Lattek… And so it's no surprise that German coaches are successful, like Hansi. All of this without speaking Catalan or Spanish. The players seem to adore him. They like him, they follow him. And if you can achieve that in a foreign country without speaking a single word of the language, I think it's a good achievement. A great achievement! Of course, discipline is something that a German coach usually brings.

Hansi fits the profile to work with young people who run like wolves and to let them take risks.
What is Flick's greatest achievement?

The greatest achievement is the style that changed the team's approach: high defense, high pressure. I've never seen Barcelona play like that, completely different. Hansi trusts and believes in those young, high-level players he's playing with, with an average age of, I don't know, 23. And yes. And, as I said, Flick trusts and believes in them. He's like a father figure to many of them, and yes, I think he makes quite a few decisions that are relevant for a modern coach. Very similar to Jurgen Klopp or me.

What is a modern coach for you?

For me, it's a service provider for the players. I have to help them become the best, to give the best version of themselves. And in a team sport, that can only happen if you also develop the team. If you're not successful as a team, like the German national team in the last two World Cups, no one emerged as a better winner. Everyone was a loser. In the end, it was because they didn't achieve their goals as a group. And that's why, if you want to be successful in a team sport, you have to develop the team. And if you do that, individual players can benefit from it too.

"This way, Barça and PSG will have no rivals in Europe."
Barcelona and PSG are the two youngest teams in the last Champions League season. What does that tell you?

If I were the owner or sporting director of a club, I would only try to sign and invest in young players. Because no matter how you look at it, it only makes sense. Does it make sense to spend 30, 40, 50 million on a 28- or 30-year-old signing? Not really. Let's calculate it. You sign a 28- or 30-year-old with a five-year contract. You spend 50 million more on the transfer fee, an average of 15 million euros per year multiplied by five. That's 65 million plus the 50 million transfer fee equals 115 million, plus the agents' fees. The whole operation costs you around 130 million.

And the question is...

Why? You'll never get that money back. Besides, if you're unlucky, the player might not even be usable in the last one or two years. You only use a portion of an investment like that in the first three years, at most. It's like placing a bet or going to the casino. I'm betting 130 million on red or white. I know I'm exaggerating a bit, but you get the point.

Bayern would have had to sign Harry Kane at 20.
Tell me some examples…

Bayern should have signed Harry Kane at 20. He scored a ton of goals, won the league title, and had a positive influence on the atmosphere in the dressing room. Yes, they won the German title, which is logical for Bayern, but they didn't win the Cup. They didn't win the Champions League. We'll have to wait and see what happens in the next two years. I'm not saying it wasn't a good signing, but my approach could be different. You have to sign a Harry Kane at 18 or 20, and then keep him as long as you can. That would be my approach. But again, each club has to decide for itself. You have to work to discover these types of players early. I would much rather have a club like the Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain squads.

And so?

What would happen to Barcelona or Paris Saint-Germain in the next two or three years if they can keep their squad together? If so, I don't see any team that can beat them in the coming years.

How will football change in the future?

I think the same thing will probably happen as has happened in the last ten, fifteen years. If you watch football matches today from the late 1990s, 1995, 1998, you always get the impression: "Please press normal speed." They seem like slow-motion matches. It seems like a different ball game. In Germany, it was Klopp and I (Klopp with Dortmund, me with Hoffenheim) who were influential in developing football at a faster pace, with much more intensity, at high speed, with games that were mostly played in just 20 meters.

What will happen from now on?

This will continue to advance along these lines. The best teams will continue to try to find the right solutions to make the right decisions in a limited space and time. And this is cognition. You have to train your players to find and make the right decisions in a limited space and time.

How do you see Lamine's impact on the world of football?

Every century brings you a player like that. At just 17 years old, with this maturity… If you watch him play, it's like he's from a different planet. Incredible, an incredible player.

To enjoy…

Every coach wants a player like that on their team. And the big difference with other top-flight stars is that he also works hard in the pressing. I'm pretty sure that if the coach tells him you have to do this or that, Lamine doesn't have that diva look. Do you know why PSG won the Champions League for the first time after spending so much money?

Tell me...

They've been trying for 10 or 15 years, spending a lot of money. And now the biggest stars are gone. Not Kylian Mbappé, not Messi, not Neymar, and suddenly they win the Champions League. Coincidence? No. It happened like this. An example is Kvaratskhelia , who was 4-0 up, with 20 minutes left in the game, and he was still running 60 meters to win the ball back. I've never seen that with Neymar, Messi, or Mbappé. And that's the strength of the team.

It will be interesting to see what Xabi Alonso does in Madrid: He needs to rebuild the squad with youngsters.
What can someone like Xabi Alonso bring to Real Madrid?

He took the team from the bottom of the table. When he arrived, Leverkusen were 17th in the league. They finished sixth in their first year and won the league in their second. They brought in some interesting new players, but they didn't spend a lot of money to build their new squad. They simply developed those types of players. And he's a typical example of how important the role of the head coach is and his work alongside his scouting department and sporting director, Simon Rolfes. What they achieved was impressive. In their first full year, they won every knockout game except one. But in his first year, what he did as a young coach was incredible. At Real Madrid, I think they need to change some things. They need younger players. They need to rebuild that squad. And so, it will be interesting to see what happens there.

Finally, you were at United. What's going on there?

I think we have to go back to 2013, when Sir Alex left the club. And at the time he was still there, he was the mastermind behind it all. He probably also brought a lot of important people to the club. And the moment he left, some of those people probably left the club as well. And, since then, I think they have a leadership problem. Who's really making the decisions and why are they making them? Are they really the best people for the job? I can only tell you that the six months I was there, it was difficult to say, even for me as head coach. Who were the decision-makers? Who? Who could I talk to? If we wanted to sign new players, it was difficult. There were people, but in the end, it was difficult.

They haven't improved...

And since I left, they've spent 700, 800 million pounds and the team finished fifteenth. They've changed coaches many times and that's it. Now they're sticking with Amorim, who's a very good coach, and if in the end, it doesn't work out, a new coach will come in again, with his new playing system or philosophy, and he'll bring in a few more players... This brings us back to what we talked about at the beginning about Johan Cruyff. There has to be someone who decides on what planning, which coach will fit into the same system?

Magician and father of gegespressing
Formed through Stuttgart's youth ranks, he studied English and Sports Education. His breakthrough came when he coached Ulm to promotion to the second division in 1998. He then held spells with Stuttgart, Hannover, and Schalke, transforming Hoffenheim from a third-division side into a Bundesliga contender (2006-11). Upon his return to Schalke 04, he won the Cup and reached the Champions League semi-finals. He then became sporting director of RB Salzburg and RB Leipzig, both of which earned promotion three times and established themselves as one of the best teams in the country. Under Rangnick, both clubs became synonymous with an attractive gegenpressing style and became breeding grounds for talented coaches and stars like Mané, Haaland, Kimmich, and Upamecano. He is also the father of 'gegenspressing'.

[txj]

https://www.sport.es/es/noticias/barca/ ... -118902054

Ralf Rangnick, Laporta's guru: "I mentioned Flick's name and he signed him."
Current coach of the Austrian national team, Ralf Rangnick is a benchmark in German football that Laporta loves and has influenced.

Albert Masnou
June 22, 2025, 8:00 AM
Updated June 22, 2025, 9:23 AM

“I spoke to Ralf Rangnick when I read an interview with him in which he talked about Johan. And he told me about Tuchel, Nagelsmann, Klopp, and Flick. And we came to the conclusion that the most appropriate candidate could be Hansi,” Laporta explained a few months ago. Today, Ralf Rangnick, unknown to Barcelona fans, sits down on this sunny day in early June on the shores of the Mediterranean to reveal the keys to his theories, which so influenced Laporta , in this exclusive interview for SPORT . And in which 'gegenpressing' stands out.

What is it? Who is the father? Why is it important, and how does he use it?

It goes back to when I started coaching Hoffenheim in 2006. At that time, we analyzed the entire football world—past, present, and future—and realized that the greatest opportunity to score a goal comes ten seconds after winning back the ball. This is independent of the level of football or the league level. The greatest opportunity to score a goal comes in those eight to ten seconds after winning back the ball.


AND?

We also discovered that this time frame provides the greatest opportunity to win the ball back. So those two results of our analysis made us think, what? What makes sense? What kind of football can we implement at Hoffenheim? And later, when I started working for Red Bull in 2011, working for both clubs in Salzburg and Leipzig, we decided to create a countdown clock.

The ten seconds after losing the ball are key to recovering it, and the next ten seconds to score a goal... This is Gegenspressing.

Who, according to what Jonathan Soriano (his former player at Red Bull) tells me, was a giant, he presided over all his training sessions and he would get going when he lost the ball...

We had it built because that type of clock didn't exist, and we used it in training. And I remember in 2007, after one of the first training sessions, player Salihovic came to the staff and said, "Who invented that type of exercise? It makes us nervous!" And I said, "This is exactly what it's supposed to do."

What were you looking for?

Modern football coaching is precisely a cognitive exercise to provoke the opponent into doing things they otherwise wouldn't, a tactic we developed to implement in matches. The clock in training was used to put pressure on the players. If they took more than eight seconds, the training session was stopped.

Is it something that lasts over time? Who uses it now?

The opportunity to score a goal is greatest within the first ten seconds. This is clear. After that, the chances decrease drastically. You have to hurry, not waste time, and not play the ball to the goalkeeper. Then the 10 seconds are over. So if you want to score in 10 seconds, you have to hurry and everyone collaborate to win the ball back and then play vertical football to score. If you look at the current Champions League, Kompany's Bayern Munich started using it this season, PSG does it perfectly. In Spain, Barça does it with Flick, and even the Spanish national team is heavily influenced by this idea.

The ideal time is from 17 to 20 years old. At 24, you're no longer eligible for recruitment.
You're also known for discovering young talent. How do you do it? What's the process?

Again, this started in 2007, when we and Hoffenheim had achieved promotion from the third to the second division. I then decided to try to scout, sign, develop, and then, at a later stage, even sell players at a very young age. We called them 'blue chip' players, or you could also call them 'release value' players. So, if you want to develop players with future sale value, you have to identify and develop them at a young age. The sooner the better.

This is ahead of its time...

We would sign players even if they were 15 or 16, and we saw, and still see, something in those players that other clubs don't. The ideal time is between 17 and 20 years old. A 24-year-old is no longer eligible for signing, in our opinion. At 20 or 21, we signed a series of Baez players, Carlos Eduardo, Luis Gustavo... They all became international players. At Red Bull, we were only interested in players of this profile.

How do you find these treasures?

You need a top-notch scouting department, with specialists trained in this field, who know exactly what kind of qualities those players should have, what kind of profile you're looking for. And that brings us back to the style of football. And then, if you want to bring in the best possible players for each position, the scouts have to know: how do we want to play? Do we want to play with three at the back or four at the back? Do we need full-backs or not? What kind of midfielders do we need?

And what was the response?

As I said, to find those types of players, you need to know the profiles of each position. And then, of course, you need experienced scouts who understand what we see in a 16-, 17-, or 18-year-old. We need to imagine how this player might develop over the next two or three years if he plays with the right team, under the right coach. Under these conditions, what can happen to him?

It's a job for specialists...

My son, who has been in Leipzig's scouting department for eight years, told me what they did during COVID. They couldn't see players or meet. What did they do? They started looking back 20 years at promising young players. They identified 36 from all over the world. Even going back to the Ronaldo phenomenon. They saw that it wasn't that complicated to discover modern players like Erling Haaland or even Joshua Kimmich. We could figure out and see, by the time they were 16, what kind of top-flight players they would become. Of course, you need to develop your scouts.

An important part for a club...

For me, a scouting department is the most valuable thing a club can have. But to be honest, what happens at most clubs—too many clubs—is that they change managers every 12 months, eight months, or maybe 16 months. And with each change of manager, they change the style of football.

Barça, a special case
Have you studied the working process at La Masía?

No. To be honest, no. What I know is that they sign players at a very young age and develop them in the style Barcelona wants to play, a technical style of football. I don't know in detail what they're doing there, but they obviously do a lot of things well, right? The benefits are there, with eight or nine youth players in the first team. And the Spanish national team that played against Portugal had nine U-20 players, and they do something similar.

You took third-tier teams like Hoffenheim and brought them to the elite. How do you use these ideas to compete against galactic teams or state-level teams?

Hoffenheim was and still is a small town of 3,000 inhabitants. And when they called me to ask if I could meet with them and if I could imagine coaching Hoffenheim to make it a first-division club, I said I didn't know. We met. And in the end, I said yes, I would do it. And in two years, we had two consecutive promotions. And, in the winter title of our first year in the Bundesliga, we finished ahead of Bayern. And the interesting thing was that after winning the second promotion, we only signed one player, so we played with the second-division team and won the winter championship. In the end, we finished sixth or seventh because we had serious injuries.

A miracle…

I don't think so. We repeated it at Red Bull, Leipzig, and Salzburg. That was three promotions in four years. If I look back now at the things we did there… of course, it was much easier to do it with clubs that didn't have a great football tradition. There were no international players at Hoffenheim, nor at Leipzig or Salzburg. So, no one was there. They asked us, 'Why are you doing these crazy things?' They weren't crazy. In retrospect, I think it was easier for us to do it at clubs that were more or less startups. Now, we have a similar situation with our national team in Austria. If we want to beat Italy, Germany, Croatia, or the Netherlands, who individually probably have better players than us, we have to do something different.

Yuste called me because Joan was looking for a sports director for his candidacy.
Laporta said you were key in signing Flick, that you met in Barcelona. Count those days.

That was four years ago. In 2021. I received a phone call from Rafael Yuste. I didn't know him. He introduced himself and asked if we could meet in Barcelona because they were looking for a sporting director. I said yes. I flew to Barcelona, ​​met with Rafael, met with the candidate Laporta, and we spoke for two days. Obviously, we discussed the parallels we're talking about, given my career and the club's needs. I've already done that at Hoffenheim, Leipzig, and Salzburg.

What did Laporta say?

“That sounds very interesting. And what kind of coaches would you need for that?” he asked me. And I said, well, we need modern coaches who like working with young players, who can develop them, who can deal with them with good leadership skills, who also look after them, who trust and believe in them. If you play almost exclusively with young players, like Barcelona does, you have to trust them, I told Laporta. You have to let them run and play like little young wolves. If you just tell them, ‘Don’t do that’ and don’t take too many risks,’ it won’t work. If you want to play with young players, you have to take some risks, let them play. And obviously, I also mentioned Hansi Flick’s name and maybe one or two other coaches as well. Maybe I also mentioned Klopp. Laporta must have remembered that comment I made about Flick.

Do you keep in touch?

Yes. Yuste keeps in touch with me, sending me WhatsApp messages every two months.

Cruyff's influence on football is enormous and his achievement was to establish a corporate identity at Barça and Ajax that remains.
Laporta said he noticed you because of a comment you made about Cruyff. What influence did Johan have on you?

I wanted to be like him. When I was young, 14 or 15, I played for one of my hometown clubs. I was the team captain. And at that time—that was 1973, 50 years ago—football players wore the numbers 1 to 11. So number 12 was the first player off the bench. I asked my coach at the time if I could play with number 14. And I got it. So I was the only player on my team allowed to wear 14. Johan was, for me, the first modern number ten. He didn't just play with the ball, similar to Günter Netzer or Wolfgang Overath (World Champions with Germany), but he was also able to work and play his role when the other team didn't have possession.

And then he became a coach...

It was clear that after his playing career, he would likely go on to play a vital role in a club, either as a coach or as a sporting director. And, in fact, he was both. His influence on clubs like Ajax and Barcelona was enormous. And what I think was Johan Cruyff's greatest achievement after his playing career was that, at both clubs, this corporate identity endures. Something other clubs don't have...

How do you notice this?

Every time Barça changes coaches, the new one has to be able to follow the same approach. And always, over the last 15, 25, 30 years, they've signed similar players, developed young players from their youth academy, and never brought in the wrong coach. And that was, for me, one of Johan Cruyff's greatest achievements, because he established that with every change of coach, it makes no sense to change the approach to football and the style of football. Unfortunately, there aren't many Johan Cruyffs at clubs these days.

He misses figures like that...

Of course. If we look at two clubs in England, for example, what happened at Chelsea after Thomas Tuchel left? What happened at Manchester United after Sir Alex left? The same thing is happening at some German clubs that are now in the second division. There are leadership issues.

Cruyff didn't just influence you. He also influenced Pep Guardiola. What did Pep leave behind after his time in Germany?

Pep had a significant influence during those three years. Almost all the young coaches wanted to play like Pep's Bayern. Suddenly, they were playing with rondos in training. And I think yes, of course, his impact on Bayern Munich was enormous. He had a huge influence on the development of Munich at the time. He developed young players, like Kimmich, whom I had when he was a kid. He was already special, with a top mentality.

And Xabi Alonso?

What he achieved was incredible. He was one step away from winning every title. And he even finished second this season. He's had a huge influence.

The reverse path is also obvious.

Flick and many others have left their mark in Spain. And before him, it was Heynckes, for example, or Lattek… And so it's no surprise that German coaches are successful, like Hansi. All of this without speaking Catalan or Spanish. The players seem to adore him. They like him, they follow him. And if you can achieve that in a foreign country without speaking a single word of the language, I think it's a good achievement. A great achievement! Of course, discipline is something that a German coach usually brings.

Hansi fits the profile to work with young people who run like wolves and to let them take risks.
What is Flick's greatest achievement?

The greatest achievement is the style that changed the team's approach: high defense, high pressure. I've never seen Barcelona play like that, completely different. Hansi trusts and believes in those young, high-level players he's playing with, with an average age of, I don't know, 23. And yes. And, as I said, Flick trusts and believes in them. He's like a father figure to many of them, and yes, I think he makes quite a few decisions that are relevant for a modern coach. Very similar to Jurgen Klopp or me.

What is a modern coach for you?

For me, it's a service provider for the players. I have to help them become the best, to give the best version of themselves. And in a team sport, that can only happen if you also develop the team. If you're not successful as a team, like the German national team in the last two World Cups, no one emerged as a better winner. Everyone was a loser. In the end, it was because they didn't achieve their goals as a group. And that's why, if you want to be successful in a team sport, you have to develop the team. And if you do that, individual players can benefit from it too.

"This way, Barça and PSG will have no rivals in Europe."
Barcelona and PSG are the two youngest teams in the last Champions League season. What does that tell you?

If I were the owner or sporting director of a club, I would only try to sign and invest in young players. Because no matter how you look at it, it only makes sense. Does it make sense to spend 30, 40, 50 million on a 28- or 30-year-old signing? Not really. Let's calculate it. You sign a 28- or 30-year-old with a five-year contract. You spend 50 million more on the transfer fee, an average of 15 million euros per year multiplied by five. That's 65 million plus the 50 million transfer fee equals 115 million, plus the agents' fees. The whole operation costs you around 130 million.

And the question is...

Why? You'll never get that money back. Besides, if you're unlucky, the player might not even be usable in the last one or two years. You only use a portion of an investment like that in the first three years, at most. It's like placing a bet or going to the casino. I'm betting 130 million on red or white. I know I'm exaggerating a bit, but you get the point.

Bayern would have had to sign Harry Kane at 20.
Tell me some examples…

Bayern should have signed Harry Kane at 20. He scored a ton of goals, won the league title, and had a positive influence on the atmosphere in the dressing room. Yes, they won the German title, which is logical for Bayern, but they didn't win the Cup. They didn't win the Champions League. We'll have to wait and see what happens in the next two years. I'm not saying it wasn't a good signing, but my approach could be different. You have to sign a Harry Kane at 18 or 20, and then keep him as long as you can. That would be my approach. But again, each club has to decide for itself. You have to work to discover these types of players early. I would much rather have a club like the Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain squads.

And so?

What would happen to Barcelona or Paris Saint-Germain in the next two or three years if they can keep their squad together? If so, I don't see any team that can beat them in the coming years.

How will football change in the future?

I think the same thing will probably happen as has happened in the last ten, fifteen years. If you watch football matches today from the late 1990s, 1995, 1998, you always get the impression: "Please press normal speed." They seem like slow-motion matches. It seems like a different ball game. In Germany, it was Klopp and I (Klopp with Dortmund, me with Hoffenheim) who were influential in developing football at a faster pace, with much more intensity, at high speed, with games that were mostly played in just 20 meters.

What will happen from now on?

This will continue to advance along these lines. The best teams will continue to try to find the right solutions to make the right decisions in a limited space and time. And this is cognition. You have to train your players to find and make the right decisions in a limited space and time.

How do you see Lamine's impact on the world of football?

Every century brings you a player like that. At just 17 years old, with this maturity… If you watch him play, it's like he's from a different planet. Incredible, an incredible player.

To enjoy…

Every coach wants a player like that on their team. And the big difference with other top-flight stars is that he also works hard in the pressing. I'm pretty sure that if the coach tells him you have to do this or that, Lamine doesn't have that diva look. Do you know why PSG won the Champions League for the first time after spending so much money?

Tell me...

They've been trying for 10 or 15 years, spending a lot of money. And now the biggest stars are gone. Not Kylian Mbappé, not Messi, not Neymar, and suddenly they win the Champions League. Coincidence? No. It happened like this. An example is Kvaratskhelia , who was 4-0 up, with 20 minutes left in the game, and he was still running 60 meters to win the ball back. I've never seen that with Neymar, Messi, or Mbappé. And that's the strength of the team.

It will be interesting to see what Xabi Alonso does in Madrid: He needs to rebuild the squad with youngsters.
What can someone like Xabi Alonso bring to Real Madrid?

He took the team from the bottom of the table. When he arrived, Leverkusen were 17th in the league. They finished sixth in their first year and won the league in their second. They brought in some interesting new players, but they didn't spend a lot of money to build their new squad. They simply developed those types of players. And he's a typical example of how important the role of the head coach is and his work alongside his scouting department and sporting director, Simon Rolfes. What they achieved was impressive. In their first full year, they won every knockout game except one. But in his first year, what he did as a young coach was incredible. At Real Madrid, I think they need to change some things. They need younger players. They need to rebuild that squad. And so, it will be interesting to see what happens there.

Finally, you were at United. What's going on there?

I think we have to go back to 2013, when Sir Alex left the club. And at the time he was still there, he was the mastermind behind it all. He probably also brought a lot of important people to the club. And the moment he left, some of those people probably left the club as well. And, since then, I think they have a leadership problem. Who's really making the decisions and why are they making them? Are they really the best people for the job? I can only tell you that the six months I was there, it was difficult to say, even for me as head coach. Who were the decision-makers? Who? Who could I talk to? If we wanted to sign new players, it was difficult. There were people, but in the end, it was difficult.

They haven't improved...

And since I left, they've spent 700, 800 million pounds and the team finished fifteenth. They've changed coaches many times and that's it. Now they're sticking with Amorim, who's a very good coach, and if in the end, it doesn't work out, a new coach will come in again, with his new playing system or philosophy, and he'll bring in a few more players... This brings us back to what we talked about at the beginning about Johan Cruyff. There has to be someone who decides on what planning, which coach will fit into the same system?

Magician and father of gegespressing
Formed through Stuttgart's youth ranks, he studied English and Sports Education. His breakthrough came when he coached Ulm to promotion to the second division in 1998. He then held spells with Stuttgart, Hannover, and Schalke, transforming Hoffenheim from a third-division side into a Bundesliga contender (2006-11). Upon his return to Schalke 04, he won the Cup and reached the Champions League semi-finals. He then became sporting director of RB Salzburg and RB Leipzig, both of which earned promotion three times and established themselves as one of the best teams in the country. Under Rangnick, both clubs became synonymous with an attractive gegenpressing style and became breeding grounds for talented coaches and stars like Mané, Haaland, Kimmich, and Upamecano. He is also the father of 'gegenspressing'.

[Coach]

United were so eager to undermine Rangnick they missed the opportunity to reap any benefit or reward. Ironically, having ridiculed the 4-triple 2, two tens, alien formation, they find themselves in bed with Amorim. The four’s become a three, fullbacks are aliens at wingback and the two tens are here to stay. Even more ironic is, the very same media, prominent in the march of Wreck it Ralf to the gallows, must now indulge Tommy Temper at the helm of the Lion's den. Hilarious.

All that aside, a very interesting piece. Visionary. How could this translate into African football, or perhaps, Nigerian to be more specific?

[txj]

United were so eager to undermine Rangnick they missed the opportunity to reap any benefit or reward. Ironically, having ridiculed the 4-triple 2, two tens, alien formation, they find themselves in bed with Amorim. The four’s become a three, fullbacks are aliens at wingback and the two tens are here to stay. Even more ironic is, the very same media, prominent in the march of Wreck it Ralf to the gallows, must now indulge Tommy Temper at the helm of the Lion's den. Hilarious.

All that aside, a very interesting piece. Visionary. How could this translate into African football, or perhaps, Nigerian to be more specific?

Re Nigeria- difficult to see any sort of impact, lacking in football institutions- re professional football clubs.

The innovations in the continent would be from the Maghreb. Recall that Algerian coach Raaba Saadane was widely sought after the 1978 WC, but opted to remain home.