The Entire History of Football Tactics

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Football tactics have come a long way in the last 170 years. From chaotic kick-and-run styles to the structured formations we see today, the evolution of the game has been shaped by some truly fascinating tactical revolutions.

In this video, we take a deep dive into the history of football tactics—from the early striker-heavy systems to the rise of Total Football, Tiki-Taka, Gegenpressing, and even the infamous ‘park the bus’ approach.

How did we get from the WM formation to Pep Guardiola’s positional play or Klopp’s high-pressing system? Let’s explore the tactics that changed the game forever!

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00:00 Introduction to football tactics evolution
02:15 Early football rules and formations
05:20 The revolutionary WM & WW formations
07:31 The rise of back 4
08:50 Development of Catenaccio
10:55 The Craziness of Total Football
12:52 The 4-4-2 & its Weird variations
16:40 Lets Park the Bus
18:48 Rise of Tiki-taka & 4-3-3
21:05 The Heavy Metal Madness
22:47 Revival of three at the back
25:31 Future of football tactics

#tactics #football #soccer #premierleague #tikitaka #footballtactics #pepguardiola

[apa]

i will never forget the first Liverpool game with Klopp. it was Spurs away. everytime the ball went out of play for a while in the second half, Liverpool players rushed to the bench for water lol

[Reorganiser]

Fantastic video, but as a german I need to add that Klopp wasn't the initiator of intense, more agressive football. There's actually a clip from 1998 of Ralf Rangnick explaining a ball oriented press. As far as football tactics, he's probably germany's most influential figure in the 21st century, and people like Klopp, Flick or Nagelsmann in particular took on his ideas to create their own styles

[schaffner-]

Klopp was neither the inventor nor the primary driving force for the pressing from Germany.

Rangnick was talking about pressing on German TV over 5 years before Klopp retired as a player and became a coach.

Rangnick wasn't the only one, but for sure the most important one.

[gror]

Banger of a video! My favourite part of today's football tactics is the blend between Total Football, a dash of possession football and the pragmatism of back 3 systems. I am talking here about how Sheffield United and Inter played, and while you would expect to perform at the highest level, Sheffield's overlapping center backs really took the Premier League by surprise in a super successful first season back after gaining promotion! Yes it did not last because they have not evolved beyond that philosophy and teams knew that to expect but it was a major win for football overall!

[slowtyper]

there is a book called Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics. I recommend you guys that like to deep down to tactical history

[ImmortaL]

I liked the video, but you forgot a crucial change that happened alongside the latest iteration of the offside rule in the early 90s - the adoption of the backpass rule.

Football was way more defensive in the 80s than you made it out to be, especially in Italy. Teams were abusing the backpass and virtually made the game unplayable, which necessitated change. The game we know today really started after those two tweaks.

[MydeenBeevi-gg]

The tiki taka intro,
The bgm
Pure goose bumps

[josl]

The initial invnetor of "Heavy Metal" (high pressing) football was Ralph Rangnick. Schalke 04 played this style of football under his watch. Also Ernst Happel perfected "Total Football". He was the one who invented the 4-3-3. He also adopted some ideas from his footballing career under the"Wunderteam" manager Hugo Meisl. However Happel's tactical idea is the predecessor of Guardiolas Tiki Taka.

[brokentoes]

4-4-2 wasn't invented in the 90s, it was invented in the 50s/60s and was popular from the 60s onwards (not the mid-2000s as you claim). Good video but some misrepresentation of history regarding one of the most consistently popular formations.

[jamiesimms]

Jimmy Hogan really created a lot of all of modern football and it was mainly perfected by total football, which had the perfect balance of attack and defence, but has not always been fashionable, since it's not so easy for every team to create. Developmental and cultural issues also affects teams being able to create total football.

However, it has had many variations, which keep getting developed. Total football emphasises pressing when not in possession.

Something that's worth mentioning, is the player's relationship to the whereabouts of the ball, weather in or out of possession. The main focus in German football historically was players having a role, for English football, it's primarily concern was players covering areas of the pitch, in other countries, being around the ball was a player's first job, also some countries loved attacking more, while Italian football, mostly wanted to stop attacks and not concede. Total football addressed and addresses all of the above, along with all of it's variations.

Jimmy Hogan is probably the most influential, if there is such a thing, along with Rinus Michel's. Managers and coaches who are popular and famous have an influence on people. Arigo Sacci probably had the perfect blend when he was at AC Milan, especially for teams and players to see the effectiveness of alternations of total football, which seemed to be a template for people to follow. Going beyond total football, the one manger who I would consider as someone who showed what creative and beautiful football could be, was Tele Santana, his 1982 Brazilian side was truly inspirational.
People influence each other though and things seem to always go in cycles and old tactics and strategies get renewed. Teams will always try and be better than the rest and what ever other factors come into place, play a huge role in how things play out.

[EdgarRoock]

2:29 I don't think it meant forward passes were not allowed. It just meant the other players had to be behind the player passing the ball. So the player could make a cross forward and their teammates sprinted after it.

[SmileypandaYT]

This is genuinly one of the best videos I've ever watched, great job, love from the Netherlands❤

[lukagoalvic]

The visual presentation and the idea of this video are amazing. There are also interesting bits about the beginning of football tactics.
But I think your characterization of the football from the 90s til now focuses more on the most successful and popular coaches and their specific formations but not on the most influential coaches and the most important tactical concepts.

I think the most influential tactic in modern football is the ball oriented defending where you should have referenced Sacchi and then move to modern pressing systems where Rangnick might be important. The whole era of ball oriented defending I think is the main factor why coaches like Guardiola, De Zerbi, Alonso etc had to develop new strategies in possession (positional play, overloading one side to isolate the winger, inviting pressure to escape it, build up with +1) but are also the reason why a lot of teams switched to a more vertical style because they did not want to lose the ball to the opponents pressing.

Secondly the recent comeback of man oriented defending as an answer to the new in-possession tactics, maybe with Gasperini (probably the most influential coach in Italy in the last 10 years) as an example is definitely missing.

All in all I feel you focus too much on formations and popular coaches instead of the real history of tactics in this video.

[baboled]

As an italian that's a great video, but there's no way you quoted Inzaghi and not Sacchi's Milan or The italian roaming 10 (Maradona, Zico, Socrates....)

[mokhatla]

Probably the best YouTube video I've seen in years.

[Ascendify]

Yesss you came back finally with a bangerrr

[federicodeganis]

I think you are missing AC Milan in Arrigo Sacchi era, with Gullit-VanBasten-Rijkaard and a strong defence with systematic offside, high pressure and pre-determined schemes

[gabrielmartins]

I would love to see a video of you talking about the Copa Libertadores 2024 final.

Botafogo played a whole 100 minutes match with 10 players due to a red card in the first seconds of the match.

They did some very interesting tactics to overcome this accident and won the game with a 3-1 against Atletico MG!

One of the best games that I've ever watched.

[samwansbone]

Only just found your channel, I knew that football tactics were very interesting to say the least in the 50s but I was blown away by how different they were even not so long ago. Will be interesting to see what tactics look like in 20-30 years time

[martinf]

In the mid 80s a 3-5-2 was also played by the danish nationalteam with one libero and 2 man-marking defenders in the back making the outside midfielders cover the entire length of the pitch😊