The Entire History of Football Tactics

When you think of football tactics from the last 20 years, these are the visuals that probably comes to your mind. However, what if we rewind the clock to nearly 170 years? Now look at these.

It was an era when formations used to look like rugby, and every player in the system seems to be like strikers. And these strikers rarely passed the ball and just dribbled straight to score the goal. So, how did we then get from that to this?

This is the story of the most influential evolution in football history. A nearly 200 years history that brought various unknown and weird tactics that still affects our modern game. From the chaotic kick-and-run to ultra-defensive park-the-bus, from the iconic pyramid to the inspirational WMs, and from that revolutionary total football to the more artistic tiki-taka.

So, how did all these evolution took place? And what exactly were these historic tactics that I'm talking about? So, let's dive into the beautiful story of our beautiful game.

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A big thanks to Be Your Best for sponsoring this video. To truly understand why old tactics used to look like these, first we need to know the rules of football during that era. At that time, any player in front of the ball carrier was considered offside and couldn't receive a pass.

This meant that no forward passes were allowed and the ball could only be played sideways or backward. As a result, teams adopted formations like these, where they formed a horizontal chain of players. And the ball carrier's main task was to dribble as far as possible and use his strength and skills to score.

And if he gets stopped, he'd simply kick the ball forward for a teammate to chase. So at this point, passing the ball was not a thing in football and was more like an individual war with rough tackles coming from all sides. But in 1872, something unusual happened.

It was the year when the first ever international match was played between England and Scotland. Where England set up in their normal 1-1-8 formation, which was all about individual brilliance. However, Scotland took a more defensive approach during that time.

And using this, they actually started passing the ball amongst themselves and move as a cohesive unit. This surprised everyone, including their own fans. As for the first time, the ball is being moved systematically across the pitch, rather than simply being booted up and down.

And this unusual scene slowly gave rise to the art of passing and teamwork over raw individualism. And to complement this, things started to change with the introduction of the first offside rule. And this new rule allowed players to receive forward passes as long as there were three opponents, and this includes the goalkeeper as well.

This boosted the importance of passing even more, and teams began to invent more balanced system that focused on midfield control. So the older system then evolved into a pyramid, where one of the forward dropped into the midfield and acted as a multi-skilled all-rounder. Who not only deliver creative passes, but also score goals like a forward as well as defend when necessary.

So due to the flexible midfield, this gave much needed freedom to the forwards to fully focus on scoring goals, while both defenders could concentrate on protecting the goal. As when we look at the previous systems, every player was required to perform all tasks, which drained their energies and resulted in frequent goalless games. However, over time, due to the static positioning of the forwards and defenders, the pyramid became too predictable and rigid.

So someone has to come up with more flexible solution, and this is where this man Jimmy Hogan stepped in and came with the idea. That just like midfielders, why not make the forwards flexible, and make them do up and down movements. As a result, instead of being in a rigid position, he allowed forwards to roam around the pitch and target the spaces between the opposition's shape.

This made the pyramid more flexible and unpredictable, as it forces the opposition's defenders to get out of their zonal positions and leave out space behind for others to target. So taking inspiration from him, many legendary teams like Austria's Wunder Team and Hungary's Golden Team achieved greatest success in global stages. And as more teams began dominating games through passing and leveraging the attacking overload of the pyramid, unfortunately, there was less evolvement happening in the defensive tactics.

So rules were really needed to make the game more balanced and equal. As a result, in 1925, the new offside rule allowed the players to be onside as long as only two opposition were in front of him. This rule hugely impacted the game and things started to change really fast.

Suddenly, older systems were looking like an open gateway to concede, and teams were in a hurry to adopt more balanced shape defensively. So back in England, in order to counter this new rule, Arsenal's coach Herbert Chapman reshaped the old pyramid, where he moved his two deeper defenders wider and transformed his center mid into a third center back, who can also join the midfield when needed. Much like how Pep used John Stones in Man City.

So when you connect these deeper players with a line, it forms a M-like shape. However, with the multi-skilled all-rounder now turned as a defender, there was a lack of creativity in the midfield. So to solve this out of the five attackers, Chapman also pulled his two inside forwards deeper into the midfield and turned them into the main playmakers.

This gave rise to the WM formation, a shape that introduced the early prototype of modern number 10s and double pivots. And when you closely look at this, it provides a perfect balance with five attackers and five defenders. And when you play this against a pyramid, the four midfielders creates a box-like pattern and easily outnumbers their three-man midfielders.

And even Pep Guardiola adopted some aspects of this by using inverted fullbacks or advancing center backs within his 4-3-3. This helped him to utilize the box midfield advantage while still having width from the wingers. And as a result, from the mid-20s till the early 50s, the WM started to gain popularity around the world as a new blueprint to counter the offside rule.

And looking at its popularity, new variations started to emerge in order to tackle its dominant midfield box. So in the 30s, Italian coach Vittorio Pozzo came up with an idea to why not reverse the M of the WM system and eventually create a WW shape. And when you compare this shape with the WM, it overloads the midline and can tackle its box midfield.

And interestingly, when you again look at this shape clearly, it closely resembles to the modern day 4-3-3 structure, but with older positions. So at this point, the WMs and WWs started to widespread throughout the football landscape. And by the 1950s, more and more teams started to give equal importance to the defensive side of the game, which eventually led to one more midfielder joining the defense and giving birth to the back four.

And with a strong defensive shape, it then evolved into the iconic 4-2-4 system. And this same system was the highlighting part of Brazil's insane domination in the World Cups from the 50s to the 70s. And when you observe this shape closely, the presence of a strong back four allowed the forwards to turn their full attention to hammering the oppositions without worrying about the defense.

And the two center mids were like the additional supporters, who can step up to create a six-man attack or drop deep to form a six-man defense. This provided a perfect balance on both the areas. However, in doing so, it often left this particular side empty.

So to counter this emptiness, taking inspiration from Jimmy Hogan's fluid positionings, Brazil's 4-2-4 was more like an asymmetric structure where a lot of positional rotations were happening. For instance, at any moment, one player could drop deep to draw defenders out, while another made a forward run to exploit the vacated space. So these random rotations and interchanges made it nearly impossible for opposition defenses to predict their movements.

And as a result, this unpredictability made Brazil almost unstoppable during that era, who destroyed every opposition on their way to winning the World Cup. With professional systems becoming standard across many teams, there were still semi-professional clubs that lacked the structured training and tactical depth to play against these tactics. And one such club was Swiss side Servette, which was looking for a more defensive system.

So their manager Karl Rappen came up with an interesting idea, where instead of a traditional back four, he pulled his one center back deeper, while one forward also dropped deep as a third midfielder, eventually creating an unusual one-triple-three shape. And that last player acted as a so-called spare defender for Karl. For example, when the ball was played to one side and the center back shifted right to cover the fullback, it may freeze up the central striker as an open receiver.

So this spare man would then step up into the vacated position to provide security. This is just like applying a safety chain on a door. So with the presence of an extra defender, combined with compact three lines, could frustrate the attack-minded teams to break them down.

And as a result, Karl achieved great results with his club and was later appointed as a national coach of Switzerland, where he replicated this success on the international stage. And after seeing its success, the style became extremely popular among their southern neighbors, Italy. where they even named it as Catenaccio, meaning the door chain.

And that spare man was then known as the libero, or the sweeper, who not only filled defensive gaps but also initiated counter-attacks with precise passes from deep. However, instead of sticking to the 1-3-3 shape, the Italians refined it by adding one more midfielder to the back line and eventually create a 1-4-2-3 or a 1-4-3-2 system. And now with five players at the back, Italian Catenaccio provided a numerical superiority over the widely used 4-2-4.

Also, the deep positioning of the system naturally attracted almost all the opposition's players forward, leaving huge spaces behind them to exploit with long balls. And as a result, by the late 50s and 60s, Catenaccio became one of the most effective tactical systems. While it may be less entertaining to the eye, but it did the job of defeating the top attacking systems of its time.

Italian defences are, they're known for their defending, you know. Wow, it could be, they're horrible to play against, honestly. However, from the early 70s, suddenly the trend shifted back toward attacking football, as it was the rise of one of the most influential tactics in football history.

Many believe Johan Cruyff was the creator of total football, but it was actually his Ajax coach, Reines Michels, who brought this style into attention in the 70s. And when you look at the formation, just like Carl Rappens Catenaccio, it began as a 1-3-3 shape. However, instead of a rigid sweeper, Reines allowed this player to step into midfield during attacks, eventually forming a 3-4-3 shape.

Also at this point, positional rotations were still limited, with only specific players interchanging to create spaces. But Reines took Jimmy Hogan's fluid principles to a whole new level, where he allowed for a complete positional rotation within his system. So now any player can move into any positions, as long as the basic structure is maintained.

This made the system almost impossible to predict for the oppositions, and consistently created spaces within their structure. Also while attacking, they made their shape as big as possible to spread throughout the pitch. With the purpose was to stretch oppositions shape as well, and force them to defend broader areas, resulting in opening up passing lanes to exploit.

And on the other hand, while defending they did the opposite, the shape turned as small as possible until it reached the 25-meter line vertically. So this forced the oppositions to attack with the ball within this limited space. So from the 70s till the 90s, attacking football made a huge comeback.

However even with this, surprisingly the games were still low scoring and less exciting, just because of the old offside rule. As defensive lines would quickly push their second defender forward to neutralize attacks. So in order to solve this issue in 1990, the new offside rule stated that a player can also remain onside even against one defenders, as long as he remain level with the second last defender at the moment the ball is released by their teammate.

This was not the case earlier, as the attacker required to be entirely behind two defenders to stay onside. So this change gave a huge advantage to the attacking players, who can now trick the opposition's defense by timing their runs perfectly to stay level with the back line. Also now having a sweeper at the back, turned into an opportunity for attackers to exploit and stay onside.

So by the mid 90s, many teams started playing a flat back four and brought more attackers into the midfield, eventually creating a 4-4-2 structure. And when you closely look at this, it provides a perfect balance of covering both the flanks and the central areas effectively, which allowed teams to cover almost every part of the pitch. Also during defense, it can morph into an eight-man double wall and can covers all the defensive zones by providing at least two players in each areas.

So this makes incredibly difficult for any oppositions to break through this. And due to this, the 4-4-2 is still being used by almost all the top sides when they're out of possession. Also one of the other variation of this was developed by Sir Alex Ferguson.

When he recognized with the double pivots have to do the defensive job as well, there was really a lack of central playmaker to support the forwards and provide central creativity. So to achieve this, Sir Alex pulled one of the two forwards slightly deeper to act as a link between the forward and midfield. And when you closely observe this variation, it was clearly going to evolve into a modern 4-2-3-1 structure.

So by the early 2000s, with the 4-4-2 started to gain popularity around the world, one more variation popped up in Italy's Milan. Where Carlo Ancelotti recognized one more major weakness of this system, as when you again observe this shape, apart from giving protection from the wider areas, with only two players in the center, it really struggled against a narrow midfield three. Also due to its flatness and limited number of lines, it became difficult to maintain close proximity with each other all the time and can result in leaving spaces between the lines for the oppositions to target.

So to solve these issues, the diamond had to arrive. So as a result, So Ancelotti tweaked the horizontal pivot into vertical direction, with the top one becoming the central playmaker, and instead of having wide midfielders, he called them to invert centrally. This gave rise to the 4-4-2 diamond.

So now with a midfield of four and more defined vertical lines, the diamond effectively addressed the major issues of the 4-4-2 system and helped Ancelotti dominate the early 2000s with AC Milan by reaching multiple Champions League finals. Also the same diamond midfield later helped him secure the recent Champions League with Real Madrid. However, when you closely observe the diamond as a critic, there was definitely an elephant in the room.

So Ancelotti further modified the diamond into a Christmas tree, where he pulled one of the two forward into the number 10 position and spread the midfielder slightly wider to provide better coverage of the flanks. And when you observe this with a creative lens, it visually resembled a tree-like shape. So this provided him with some width from the outer midfielders while strengthening the midfield even further with five players.

And with such a strong midfield, the team not only controlled the central zones, but also created numerous triangular passing options that made it easier to launch counterattacks. However, the reason this formation hasn't been widely adopted in modern times actually lies in its limitations. As the lack of attacking numbers and proper width up front, it makes it difficult to stretch the opposition's defense.

As a result, it places more pressure on the strikers and the number 10s to break through defensive overloads and deliver goals. Speaking about overloads, around the same time, a rising Portuguese manager was about to introduce a tactical system. A system that would remind you of the old England and Scotland shape, but with an upside down angle.

So this is the time to get into a bus. They didn't play football, they just defend, defend, defend. And as we say now in my country, they brought the bus and they left the bus in front of the ball.

This was Jose Mourinho, who once criticized Spurs for parking the bus against his team. But ironically, the same coach later became the poster boy of this style when he famously won titles using it. So by parking the bus typically means all the 11 players in the system essentially takes the role of defenders.

Where there may be a lot of players, essentially takes the role of defenders. Where their main goal is to make the area as small as possible and always position themselves zonally. As a result, it gave almost no space for the oppositions to break through and significantly reduce their scoring probability.

So even if you park the bus, be careful with these three guys, be careful. Can we have a double-decker bus? Also, Mourinho instruct his players to not win the ball back intentionally and instead let the opposition hold possession.

As the reason was if they win the ball and started a counter-attack, the opposition could try to counter-press them and again regain possession. And now with that compact shape is being spread out, the oppositions can easily find spaces to score. So the focus was to never lose their positional discipline and maintain the defensive structure at all costs.

However, instead of playing this regularly, Mourinho typically used this tactic when protecting a narrow lead or playing in a difficult away leg. And thanks to his strict defensive setup, Mourinho led Inter to an incredible treble in the 2009 and 10 season, where he defeated the unbeatable Barcelona in the process to the Champions League trophy. When people say we park the bus, but it's not true.

We park the plane, not the bus, the plane. Also simultaneously, something interesting was happening. The popular 4-4-2 system, which was almost used by 50% of the clubs until 2009, suddenly took a sharp decline to only 12% by 2012.

This is the rise of 4-3-3 in Tiki Taka. By the 2010s, there was a significant surge in wingers who weren't traditional crossers, but instead played as forwards who cut inside to score directly. So this trend transformed the role of wide midfielders into that of the inside forward or wingers.

And in order to provide balance, teams began to favor two central mid alongside a single pivot, or applied a number 10 in front of the double pivots. And one of that first formation became an integral part of the famous Tiki Taka football of Barcelona. A system which was originally adapted from total football, eventually evolved from Johan Cruyff, Louis van Gaal, Frank Ricard, and ultimately to Pep Guardiola.

And when you think of Tiki Taka, the first thing comes to the mind is the constant passings among players. However, in reality, Tiki Taka wasn't just about endless passing. It was also making constant predefined movement that gave those passes.

. . passes a clear purpose.

And to ensure this, Pep used to divide the pitch into multiple zones where he made a rule that only two players could occupy the same vertical line and three players could share a horizontal line. And to fix this concept into his players' mind, he went as far as painting Barcelona's training pitch with these zones, where he tried to make his players practice constantly until their movements and positional play became natural. As a result, when they constantly move into these zones, it creates multiple passing options for the ball carrier to play forward passes and manipulate the opposition's shape at every given time.

However, with every system comes with weaknesses. And one of the reasons why Tikitaka is not widely used by most teams was the demand for technically skilled and intelligent players who could thrive in this style. And fortunately for Pep, at that same time, Barcelona's La Masia Academy produced a generation of world-class talents which was perfectly suited for this system.

Also, without perfect training and experience, Tikitaka can easily get predictable and boring. At the same time, it can be vulnerable against high-pressing systems and lose possession in dangerous zones. Speaking about high-pressing systems, by the mid-2010s, advancements in fitness technologies and training methods significantly elevated players' physical capabilities.

Football became faster, more intense, and physically demanding. So now it's time to head to Germany, where the popularity of heavy metal football was just beginning. While most teams at this point applied high pressure to regain the ball and maintain long possessions, heavy metal is the complete opposite of Tikitaka, which just don't care about keeping possession.

As the name suggests, it's a type of music that is in your face, extremely brutal, yet exciting. Where after losing the ball, they immediately apply high press on the oppositions to win the ball back, and after winning, instead of passing it around, they immediately start rapid counterattacks with the aim of only scoring. The purpose was when the opposition just regained the ball from you and is trying to counterattack, this is the most vulnerable state for them, as they aren't transitioned into their attacking shape so the ball carrier is still looking for passing options.

So the sooner a team tends to press and try to win the ball back, the better is the opportunity for them to counterattack with more numbers and score immediately. However, with more players pressing the ball carrier, it leaves large gaps behind the press, making the team vulnerable to counterattacks if the press is broken. So to counter such risk, some teams use a lighter variation of heavy metal, where only one or two players press the ball carrier, while the rest cover potential passing options.

So at this point, by the mid-2010s, along with heavy metal, there was also a revival of a system from Italy that evolved into something far more attacking and entertaining than before. This is the trend of back threes. When you look at the old Catanaccio system with its spare defender at the back, it was more of a defensive tactics.

But now that spare man has evolved into a ball-playing defender, while the fullbacks have moved higher to become a hybrid of both winger and fullbacks, this transformed the Catanaccio into a more balanced 3-5-2 shape, which was originally developed by Argentina coach Carlos Ballardo in the 80s. However, in the recent times, it was Antonio Conte who achieved great success with the system in both Serie A and Premier League, as unlike previous system, with three proper defenders, the fullbacks are free to advance forward to act like wingers, and due to the width being provided by them, the midfielders and strikers can fully focus in dominating the central areas by creating overloads. Also while defending, it can easily shift into a compact 5-3-2, so the modern version of Catanaccio not only stabilizes the defenses, but also turns teams into dangerous attacking units, with every zone of the pitch occupied by players.

But what if we add total football into this, and take two extreme levels? This was exactly what Sheffield United's Chris Wilder and Inter's Inzaghi did. As in their variations, along with the forwards and midfielders rotating with each other, it's not uncommon to see the three centerbacks push forward into midfield or even into strikers' positions, so this extra feature made it extremely difficult for the oppositions to play against and confuses their structured markings.

However, just like the 4-4-2, it has the same weakness, as you will observe the center mids often functions as a box-to-box players, who has to keep the balance between attack and defense. As a result, there is a lack of dedicated central playmaker, who can connect the two sides and provide creativity. So this issue eventually led one of the forward and midfielder turned into two narrow playmakers, creating a new variation of 3-5-2.

This change provided the much needed central connection between the midfield and attack, and allowed the double pivots to focus entirely on defending and forming a solid second wall before the backline. Also due to the flexibility of these two playmakers, they can also drop deep and dominate the midfield battle with a four-man box shape. However, when defending counterattacks, there can be moments where the playmakers will struggle to track back quickly enough.

This can leave the double pivots exposed and easily get outnumbered by the opposition. So these two positions, and the wingbacks, really requires to have exceptional stamina and work rate to constantly move up and down the channels with precision timing. However, even with its complexities, thanks to the successful implementations by teams like Leverkusen and Sporting, the 3-4-3 and its variations have seen a surge in popularity in recent years.

So at this point when we take a step back and look at the evolution of tactics as a whole, it clearly went from an ultra-attacking style at the start, and then suddenly turned defensive in the middle and has now understood the importance of having balance between the two. And eventually looking in the future, formations and positions may become less important. As with the advancement of training and VR technologies, players will likely have the ability to play in any positions and adapt within the game.

Just like we've seen the rise of the false 9, newer concepts like false 10s and even the false defenders are emerging. And additionally, with the rise of social media and video analysis, managers can able to keep their tactics fully private, and they'll need to have multiple systems in their bag against oppositions. So by the looks of it, it's really going to be an exciting future for football.

Also, I'd love to know your thoughts on which of these tactics do you think has had the greatest influence on modern football. And speaking about tactics, one approach that's really becoming popular is that of Inzaghi's Inter Milan. It's a system where centre-backs actually step up into attacking roles, while midfielders drop deeper to defend.

So let's check out this video to understand. Finally, if I missed highlighting any key tactics in the process, I truly apologize, and I promise to cover them in my future videos. So thank you so much, guys, for watching.