What is Positional Play in football?

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Tactical Analysis: The Theory of Positional Play in Football Explained and Illustrated and how it has changed over time including some case studies
It is important to note that tactics is for players and NOT just for coaches alone.

What is Positional Play
Positional play is a tactical term that refers to a certain philosophy some coaches in football practice. By definition, it is a style of play that focuses on creating and exploiting space and superiorities by manipulating the opposition team’s movement and positioning.

Positional play in other words is called tiki-taka as it is widely used today.

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Positional play can be illustrated in two forms which are;
Positioning of players: This tactic requires that a team adopting it steers the opposition.
Numerical Advantages: A team adopting this kind of positional play attacks and defend on the go.
For a team to be successful while adopting this tactic, they need to have;

Inverted fullbacks
Inverted wingers
Offensive fullbacks
Positional play requires that players should have an almost automatic sense for where to be and when in relation to where the play is, where the ball is and where their teammates are.

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Positional play is usually made perfect either through rotational or zonal positioning.

Combining these two positioning strategies give you more superiority on the pitch.

However, there are three types of Superiority on the pitch namely; numerical, qualitative and positional superiority.

Types of Superiority in a Positional Play Football Tactic
Numerical Superiority
Tactically, numerical superiority is all about having more of your players in one part of the field than your opposition, allowing you to pass the ball around and pass them.