Manchester City emerged as comfortable victors at Anfield in the club’s first game since being found guilty of breaching Premier League financial regulations. With uncertainty about what the result of ...

Before the World Cup, we had a bit of a chat. We discussed a few things we could work on together. Aspects he wanted to keep improving. And if there is one thing that defines Enzo Fernández, it is his ...

Positional play, also known as juego de posición, is a principle of play in football that many of the world’s top coaches adopt. When a team uses positional play, the players take up positions to ...

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola insists that formations “are nothing more than phone numbers”. The implication is that his players move from their positions so much that the stated formation ...

The first three months were difficult. I had arrived in Scotland to become manager of Hearts, but now I was thinking: “What is this I have got myself into?” It was so hard, I was alone and not being ...

When a team attacks, they commit a number of players forward in an attempt to create and finish the attack. The other players on the team provide support around and underneath the ball. These ...

What are switches of play? Width is an important attacking principle in football, and switches of play help teams to exploit space in the wide areas. With the ball on one side of the pitch, the out-of ...

Marc Guéhi has emerged as one of the best centre-backs in English football. His form for Crystal Palace contributed to a historic FA Cup triumph in 2025, while making him a regular in the England team ...

What is meant by ‘creating overloads’? Creating an overload means gaining a numerical advantage over the opposition in terms of players in a specific area of the pitch – for example a 3v2 or 4v3 in ...

Wing-backs are the wide players in formations that use a back three, such as 3-5-2, 3-4-3 and 3-4-1-2. When defending, the wing-backs drop back either side of the three centre-backs to form a back ...

If a manager is to be defined by the best team they ever coached, then few in history can match Arrigo Sacchi. In four seasons at the helm of AC Milan, between 1987 and 1991, Sacchi led his team to ...

What is a number 10? A number 10 is an attacker who operates in the spaces between central midfield and the front line. They often receive between the opposition’s midfield and defence – a space ...