Tuchel's Gigantic Pressing Trap (and how to coach it)
Today’s newsletter is going to analyse Tuchel’s pressing structure at Chelsea, through coaching theory, video examples and actual examples of how it’s can be implemented.
The analysis sphere on the internet (looking at you, football twitter) is necessary, definitely an agora (n Pandev) to learn to communicate impressions and observations.
However, coaching can’t build fortresses and shoot on sight (“don’t ask questions, we’ve always done it that way”) whilst analysis builds crystal citadels that look superb, like a Babel Tower of 30-tweet indigestible buzzword heavy threads; but that would crumble at the first “piss off and let us play” from an actual football player.
A bridge there needs to be between the two.
None of coaching or analysis are destined for gatekeeping, especially not as football’s the most popular sport on earth (for a reason). Wanna write entire essays, fine, everyone’s doing his thing. But can’t possibly expect (or complain at lack of) attention that it would necessarily warrant. Time is the only constraint coaches can’t cheat or bypass.
For all the talk of “I have a very clear idea of my playing philosophy”, I wish there was more discussions around the way to implement it through coaching and I suppose, more experience sharing of the obstacles to overcome and various bear traps.
Topical, considering this entire article revolves around pressing traps.
Game model, come again, what’s that?
*Rest* assured I know what I’m talking about
A Gigantic Pressing Trap
Very sustainable task sharing in midfield
Play through the pressing wave
How to coach Tuchel’s Gigantic Pressing Trap?
Quick word on the training process
Quick word on the training mediums = practices
Intertwining Tactical / Physical input
Implementation with a physical conditioning angle
Implementation with a tactical angle
Tactical training practice building 101
Game model, come again, what’s that?
In order to share, implement and train the way the team is expected to play, there's a framework that is the "universal game model" which is a theorietical modelisation of the game (here's a non comprehensive version for understanding purposes).
It is symmetrical, meaning that if the possession team (green) is at the "retain the ball" stage, it means that the other one is "getting organised".
This is the universal inner dynamic of the sport in itself.
There's no preference involved as for the framework in itself.
(or reason to claim someone "invented" anything in there)
Team in possession = attacking team
Team without the ball = defensive team
Anything in between is called = transition
(attack to defence, defence to attack).
Forget buzzwords like "playing philosophy", and don't listen to the "well achkually" brigade claiming a team can attack without the ball, or defend with it.
If you attack properly, then players are positioned to defend
If you defend properly, everyone involved is reachable on (attacking) transition
If you don't these things well, watch this space
*Rest* assured I know what I’m talking about
"Rest defence" is merely playing the sport correctly, "defensive possession" is misleading schrödinger-cat tactics gibberish to avoid saying a team is doing fuck all with the ball at that point. It's not that deep.
Teams refusing to attack playable space are refusing to progress the ball, therefore are attacking slowly (possibly as a way to run the clock down).
That (symetrical) framework scales down from team level, group, to individual level.
This is the universal coaching terminology Tuchel refers to here:
In terms of coaching points whithin each coaching practice: what do you say to 1 player, 2-4 players and then the whole team
In terms of complexity: individual practice is less complex than group practice than obviously team practice.
More parts = more interactions between parts, hence the varying degree of "complexity"
Also, it's paramount to distinguish that general frame model framework from any geographical locations on the pitch, that are merely a coincidence rather than a causation.
What matters is the balance of power (displayed by the schematics) to understand what moment of the game it is:
in other words: how many people behind the ball for each team, and how do they behave. Is the ball carried closed down.
Doesn't matter if that's Fàbregas on the edge of the opposition's box playing the final pass, or say David Luiz bailing out Maurizio Sarri’s Sarriball with a long punt for Pedro over the top from his own half.
The "geographical location" is obviously very different.
The moment is the same, it's the "find imbalance" moment.
Because David Luiz isn’t closed down.
More on that later, but space doesn't produce actions, players do.
This is both an obvious and key statement to understand football for what it is, a complex system.
Anytime you see a “game model” viz with thirds on the pitch to say “this is build up” this is whatever, you can give it a miss. Look at what state each team is (how many players behind the ball, is the ball carrier closed down). This is the truth. The rest is plastering a framework as if “simplish” meant “easier to understand”. When it’s watered down (or off the mark), it precisely loses substance.
A Gigantic Pressing Trap
In order to get the ball back teams are (supposed to) set(ting) up what are called "pressing traps"
Just like lions hunt in the wild, there's a task sharing that has some directing the "prey" into an area where it's going to be trapped, and others tasked to crunch it (only if it's a low sugar, gluten-free antelope).
At individual level, it's about angled runs to "screen" potential receivers
At group level, it's about 2-3 players "swarming" the ball carrier to restrict his options but the one(s) you want him to play so that one player intercepts, or plays/wins the duel.
At team level, it's about staying connected so that in case the play filters through the initial trap, there's "covering" mechanism (essentially, another pressing trap. Or a foul).
Lampard’s Chelsea (who “inherited” a squad, because he took a team over with a transfer ban) had to do with whatever a midfield that midfield was.
Sarri, Tuchel etc… had millions to spend so couldn’t seriously be considered as “inheriting a squad” (considering the input they had on signing or not signing players in key positions).
Thing is, Chelsea was getting bad at retaining the ball, connecting midfield and attack and defending counters. That led to Lampard’s demise.
Tuchel analysed that his midfield two required screening in front of them with the presence of to #10s.
However, the challenge with most central formations (such as 4321 or 4-diamond-2, 3421) is to try to prevent the opponent to play the ball directly down the sides to play around the "lone" wing back.
When the whole team is behind the ball, it's up to coaches to decide if and how (and where) they'd like to press, or simply re-organise deeper.
High press is a choice, not an obligation.
Tuchel asked his team to press when the ball was lost in final third (unlike say, Benitez who always set his teams to engage deeper once they were all behind the ball).
However, once one or two players (or more) are bypassed, this is not a matter of choice anymore, but simply the inner dynamics of the game (nobody "gegenpresses" a turnover in his own half, that's simply correct defending so that team mates can get back behind, numerical balance to be restored and the team in capabability to close down moving forward.
Tuchel showed originality with a mixture of angles to show teams inside:
so that Kanté or Kovacic could jump on opposition's midfielders receiving a poor pass back to goal
And if the opponents could play it wide, then Alonso and Rüdiger would jump on markers (Alonso possibly on fullbacks, and Rüdiger "becoming" a situational left back)
And generally, whenever the opponent could play through Chelsea's first "wave" of pressing, wide central defenders Rüdiger, Chalobah or Azpilicueta would track anyone dropping off the front line to prevent him to turn.
Very sustainable task sharing in midfield
Albeit it has to be noted that the task sharing in midfield was probably going to be a challenge over time, daring to suggest it would stretch certain players to their limit.
This is a short retrospective of the three consecutive seasons.
Play through the pressing wave
The same question about sustainability also applied for the high press sequences to pack one side that might have benefitted from someone doing Fernandinho things in base midfield, such as enforcing Josep Guardiola's "6 second" rule.
In other words, having the team's 6, on 6 fouls by the 60th minute. Hashtag counterpressing. It's a foul.
But it made paramount to have everyone involved, either with sheer athletic ability to run, reading and positioning, or both combined.
It is maybe the thing that Chelsea was coming up short with in 2021/22, a declining ability to retain the ball and deal with transitions.
How to coach Tuchel’s Gigantic Pressing Trap?
A couple of examples of training practices.
Of course, clubs don’t lift the lid on core game model implementation practices.
But usually, unless you go skiing when the season’s going on, the practices done at the highest level aren’t anways quantum physics. It’s relatively standard practices, but done with better players than semi pro teams.
Quick word on the training process:
Core pillars of training can be split in different categories
Agility: quick range of movements, change of direction 0-2 seconds
Speed: move the body in the shortest amount of time
Power: the ability to hold a posture, on the move (this is basically strength x speed)
Strength: ability to hold a posture and overcome resistance
Endurance: ability to run for prolonged time (from 30s to Ramires)
Football teams and players need a mixture of all this to be able to compete in a football game.
It's not exactly an "endurance" sport, it's much more start and stop with 0-5'-15' second efforts interspersed with 45s-2 minutes where players don't do much.
Being *agile/quick/powerful/strong/endurant* helps, but moreover it is the ability to repeat actions (= recover quickly between two actions) that matter in football, rather than being the absolute best in each category.
Quick word on the training mediums = practices
Just like TV is the medium to convey a message, there’s three categories of practices that modern training revolves around, that are supposed to be delivered in that order (after the warm up). The terminology differs depending on the country / national curriculum, but is fairly standardized otherwise
GAME: even numbers of players who score points.
SITUATION: uneven number of players in a zoomed-in part of the field
EXERCISE: unopposed practice to rehearse the move
In 1. you rely on a “target” team and a “sparring team” to create and identify a “game problem”
The “target team” needs to play the game without constraints (other than the laws of the game). No touch restrictions etc
The sparring team needs to be incentivized to adopt a specific behaviour so that it creates a problem for the other team to solve.
In 2. you’re reducing the game to the meaningful 4v3 players that need to solve the problem, by repeating the same “chunk of play” and read the situation to make the right decision.
In 3. but especially defensively, has easing the conscience purpose, usually the boring 11v0 with the coach ball in hand “if the ball is there, what happens”.
Some say it’s the utmost useless practice, bordering on collective hypnose.
I’d say doing it for 3-6 minutes just to make sure every run is done properly in situ can be a decent time filler, booster or whatever. Can’t always be iconoclastic about litteraly everything in football (but also can’t expect fundamentally useless stuff to deliver miracles either).
Intertwining Tactical / Physical input
This bond is very important, ideally you’d want to work on everything altogether (it’s possible).
But tactical work will require some level of intervention to adjust live (but playing time is important, sessions aren’t PhD lectures, there’s enough time to provide feedback in 2mn between 6’ sequences or between sessions via meetings or video).
That’s why there’s conditioning practices to develop the body’s capacity to repeat the actions. Namely, strength and power oriented ones.
Implementation with a conditioning angle
This is from Tuchel’s training sessions at Chelsea
This one is a medium intensity possession game that kickstarts the engine early in the week (and keeps players switched on)
This one has “bouncers” outside, the key feature is the amount of sides. So that players can be incentivized to ask with the back to the nearest touchline if possible (otherwise if they’re closed down, it’s better to shield and lay back, or prepare to roll the defender on the half turn)
This one is aimed at developping strength (that helps player stay dynamic when they close down opponents, with quadriceps flexed).
It is true that strength can be developped in the gym but it requires equipment (that clubs have).
The advantage to do it on the pitch is that it allows to work with the cardio as well as strengthening deeper muscles that are sometimes difficult to reach specifically on a machine.
The practice is clearly designed / engineered to reach the desired effect, and quantify the load (players all get x numbers of 45” chunks)
This one is more centred on power, it’s ranked as “heavy” because there’s 5 players chasing the ball against 10 in a reasonably large surface.
It’s engineered so that the team in possession doesn’t score directly, and has to play 6 passes before scoring (so that there’s enough significant time for the target defensive team to close down and develop their power).
It’s hard(er) to cheat in that, one can always pretend to be the crippled seagull at the back of the flock but other seagulls aren’t that thick. Seagulls are very clever (some are even said to have data driven processes).
Just like there’s carrying jobs in football, some seagulls also know the drill to skirt their responsibilities. Closing down is an art, just as is mis-timing shorter steps on purpose to inadvertendly come up one yard short. A reminder that football is about managing the enforcement of what’s asked, rather than coming up with didactic PhD lectures (that player only have time for if it works for them)
Implementation with a tactical angle
This is a suggestion of a training practice (situation) to work on one of the plays seen previously. It is slightly COMPLEX (lots of possible interactions), maybe more than a textbook “situation” (purely 3v2, 4v3).
There’s a lot of ramifications in the decision making “algorithm” (a big word):
“if (sparring) attacker does this, then I want the (target) defender to to this or that”. This is litteraly how a coach implements his game model (if he knows what he wants in the first place obviously).
However, it is not a COMPLICATED practice, pretty much a low hanging fruit for coaches and players.
The balance is pretty even in terms of numbers of players and there’s no huge inbalance and demanding decision making. A complicated practice would be, how do you defend 3v6 with half a pitch behind you.
The important stake is to keep tactical situations football-realistic: where, who without undermining the laws of the game: teams need to score, and can’t do so if they’re offside.
So, in the bin goes your garbage “stop ball on the full width” (it’s not ultimate frisbee ffs), “play stops when the ball is recovered” (only applies to the target team), “shoot anyway, we’ll call offside later”.
The rules need to be set from the get go: top level is about details, footballers are legitimately picky as much as they’re fierce competitors.
Can’t beat around the bush and improvise rules live (throw ins, corners, play restart and penalties)
It goes without saying that teams are meant to be positioned in realistic positions (analysed future opponent, frequent tactical match up in the league etc…)
In order to “anchor” the desired behaviours, the play restarts from the same location; example the free kick Holgate (RCB) takes.
There’s only one transition allowed, which is when the blue (target) team win the ball back (which is the aim of the practice), then they need to score.
Green try to score, and defend the transition if they give it away. However, if they win it back again, the play stops again.
The art of coaching is to navigate and manage the momentum, nobody’s going to give the coach ice cream if he coaches it like a overzealous custom officer. The more the desired behaviour sink in, the more the flow of the game can be unleashed. At the start you wouldn’t play corners or free kicks in instance, and stpp when “green” get the ball back. Towards the end of the practice can be freer, just like a music or color gradient, by allowing one or maybe two more transitions.
If something a bit chaotic occurs (like a quick throw in, defender beating 5 to score, quick free kick, keep in mind that 20 seconds isn’t going to ruin the entire “philosophy/project/process” whatever).
However, if the play is dead dead, no point playing a free kick, or a throw in if the flow is gone for more than 20-30s
Usually, you’d want to work on 6-8 minutes chunks, possibly 2 to 4 times which allows plenty of time to provide (nailed on, not tactical twitter threads) feedback in the 2 maximum 3 minutes in between.
It’s a 9v8 practice, but what helps to generates the desired behaviours are the pitch design features and point scoring.
The target team works on relations between the front 3, CMs and wingbacks in order to implement the press. If they score, that’s 2pts (= invites to press harder, and because they’re one man down)
The CB (and sparring forward) are just there to loop the loop and make it fun.
We (Tuchel or whoever drills it) want the two 10s to press from out to in, but if we simply tell them to do, the sparring team ain’t dumb, they’re going to split and go straight through the middle, players are going to go like “gaffer wtf”, wave arms and say '“the session is fucking shit, no wonder we can’t win on weekends” with varying sound volume and target audience (nearest player, or everyone to hear).
Two options:
Get the neck in (the turtle neck - convenient for tacticoaches) and pretend you didn’t hear the foul mouthed trip advisor review. Also works with training jackets, zip it to the top, what did he say? cArRy oN!
Put a subliminal incentize to make desired behaviours happening more often:
In order to incentize the sparring team to try to progress down the flanks where a 3421 is *theorerically* vulnerable; ie: down the sides because unlike “standard” 433/4411 etc… there’s no-one in direct contact with the fullbacks;
if they score by playing through one of the triangles (flat cones and possibly poles) then it’s 2pts.
Tuchel’s front three was supposed to be fluid in and out of possession, with a combination of astute pressing angles to show teams in areas where other options were both screened and pressed from behind.
These are the “game model implementation algorithm” features Tuchel wants:
The decision making is based on cues in the environment, ie what happens, what you need to look at and what “I” want you to do (based on my game model)
Ball goes from RCB to CCB: I want “Callum Hudson Odoi” to screen from out to in to prevent the pass back there
Ball with the GK acting as “extra possession hub”: I want “Werner” to continue pressing from out to in, but Havertz needs to fill in to screen the DM. (Lukaku was definitely NOT UNwilling to do so, but attacking midfielder Havertz might do that more naturally).
Ball goes to the CM back to goal (DINNER’S R E A D Y): I want “Kovacic” to jump on the CM and prevent him to turn
Hudson-Odoi is legitimately out of position because he was asked to close from out to in.
Ball goes from CM to RCB with our 10 out of position: “I” want Kovacic to continue pressing, but with a “palm tree” run (call it how you want, hook run, show him, drag him by the arm, provide him the y = ax² + bx + c, doesn’t matter, just get the message across).
The point isn’t for Kovacic to screen the pass back inside (in which case he’d run in a “U” but Everton would just recycle back and the pressing trap currently being built with the previous pressing runs goes up in smoke and the team would have to start over again).
No, Kovacic’s role here is to invite Holgate to throw Everton’s ball into the lion (I chose the monster)’s mouth
The art of drilling pressing runs (and beating pressing runs) is to bait the opponent into playing difficult passes, but being still able to cut it.
Players like Silva, Fàbregas, Iniesta would wait until the last minute to toe poke a pass. Sickening stuff for the team trying to get the ball back.
Holgate connects with the other CM (André “Hair in the Wind” Gomes, what exactly would you say you do in midfield, again?) who’s interchanged (as Allan tried to go against the flow earlier by drifting towards the West Stand).
Then Tuchel wants the other CM to create numbers ball side and intervene.
Jorginho is a fine little player, but this is the kind of situation that would be an obstacle in the development of that team over time (as seen on the Tchouaméni/Tammy mock video earlier).
Where a Fernandinho, Youssouf Fofana, Kanté etc… can sprint, win the ball back and keep up in dynamism.
Of course, then it’s wing back vs wingback, Alex Iwobi vs Marcos Alonso.
And if the sparring team plays through, then they’re directly in position to score and conclude the sequence.
Tactical training practice building 101
The thinking to build a tactical session practice isn’t rocket science.
Nobody’s going to offer you a medal for coming up with a blueprint to send a rocket to Mars (sort your 43 billion website falling apart first).
Go from the game situation, to recreate and incentize desired behaviours using subliminal design features (but never direct orders or instructions, that are going to be picked up by the opponent as well). Point scoring, zones, shapes.
Keeping in mind the “target team” is there to play, identify a problem and come up with solutions to adress and overcome it. They’ve identified a problem during the “game” sequence before in the session. (that would be broadly the same pitch design with the same triangles, and teams of 6v6 in instance where players would self-organise to “own” the idea of closing from out to in)
The problem and solutions are both identified, then the situation is about putting it in practice and context with players in match position.
The “sparring team” is invited to behave one way or another.
Free extra cookie on this queue, none on this one. Players aren’t stupid, let them think they’re genius for queing on the free cookie row, that’s confidence boosting (more than “I played at Barcelona in 1997 you’re such an useless lot” - wording might differ, original energy doesn’t).
If the sparring team still feels entitled to play dumb dumb and try to progress where Chelsea have 2 10s and 2 CMs ready to two foot them (without the two points and free cookie), it’s always possible to tease them one way or another for not liking winning, chocolate and whatnot
At lower level (or age groups) it’s good to have everyone experience being part of the target and sparring team in turns.
And to keep players on edge at the top level, avoid at all costs to play starters vs the rest of the world (or do remind everyone to wear shinpads).
Use sequences (and prepare lineups in advance) to mix up who you deem backup defenders (in your thinking of the moment), with starting attackers.
Or left side/right side.
It’s not a happy mess if your building blocks are duos, trios (and not whole bunches of “please win me games” vs “you’ll start a game over my dead body” that guess what, players tend to grasp).
Again, no point going by the book and burn statues, if the main man’s the main man (“the LeBron of Soccer” ESPN tweet still gives me PTSD), it’s going to be unsettling (for everyone) if he’s not more or less the centre of the training practice (target) team.
2-4 sequences of 6-8 minutes, plenty of time to test associations (and re-watch on tape afterwards).
As long as players wonder if they’re the odd one out with the wrong team (with “the starters” or “the reserves”) there’s a good chance they’ll put extra focus and input to perform during the training session.
Intro kills me 😂😂😂