The porous high-press? An experimental approach investigating tactical behaviours from two pressing strategies in football.

The aim of this study was to analyse footballers' tactical behaviours from their position data, as an effect of two contrasting pressing strategies, high-press defending and deep-defending, using a trial-based experimental approach. Sixty-nine youth footballers participated in this 11 versus 11 study, performing 72 trials of attack versus defence, in a counterbalanced crossover study design. Players' position data were captured using a local positioning system, and processed to calculate measures of inter-team distance, trial duration, distance to nearest opponent, dispersion, team length, team width, team shape, space control gain, inter-line distance, and individual area. This was augmented by the notational analyses of passes. The findings showed that using a high-press defending strategy leads to: closer inter-team distance; larger dispersion, due to a longer team length; and larger inter-line distances between defenders, midfielders, and forwards. The resulting effects on the attacking team include reduced ball possession time; larger individual areas for attacking midfielders and forwards; longer team length; and more penetrative passes performed. Some differences in marking behaviour were also observed. Consequently, the study recommends that high-press defending be used sparingly due to these trade-offs.