Football tactics are complex chains of reasoning. Football tactics have a chaos theory element. Football tactics must always return to certain key tenets of space and movement. Very bright people are employed to stare at this seeking the tiniest margins of influence. But sometimes you do wonder about the obvious things.
For example, the great innovation of the past 15 years has been the way teams attack “between the lines”, as embodied by inside-forwards, false 9s and their many shades. We remember the story of Pep Guardiola’s late-night phone call to Lionel Messi back in May 2009, babbling about switching his role to “the Messi zone”.
