Monday, 01.06.2026
Which ideology will shape the football of the future? The 2026 Champions League final was supposed to provide answers to this question. After all, FC Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain had reached the final, two teams whose playing philosophies could hardly seem more different at first glance.
N.E.C. Nijmegen kon dit seizoen vanwege hun relationistische patronen en hun oplossingsstrategieën tegen mandekkingen met verticale positiewisselingen van hun centrale verdedigers op zich attent maken. Op de voorlaatste zondag ontmoetten zich in Rotterdam voor de Nederlandse bekerfinale AZ Alkmaar en het verrassende team van Nederland, N.E.C. Nijmegen. AZ won na een doelpunt uit een standaardsituatie in de eerste helft en goed uitgespeelde counters in de tweede helft uiteindelijk duidelijk met 5:1. Als kenner van de Nederlandse voetbalwereld heeft HH zich met de wedstrijd beziggehouden en beide teams nader onder de loep genomen.
A few thoughts and reflections on the analysis bubble.
The Norwegians impress against two top European teams and draw attention to themselves. We take a look at the two matches.
Mjällby AIF are Swedish champions. For the first time in their history, the small fishing village of 1,300 inhabitants has managed to outperform the competition from the bigger cities, helped by an exceptional brand of attacking football.
A solid start was masked by an overly passive 5-4-1 and ultimately ended in a 5-1 defeat for Dino Toppmöller and Eintracht Frankfurt.
Eintracht Frankfurt won their opening Champions League matchday with a 5-1 victory over Galatasaray Istanbul. After about ten minutes, Frankfurt were trailing 0-1, but thanks in part to adjusted pressing, they were able to turn the game around. What follows is an aspect analysis of Frankfurt’s attacking press against the Istanbul side’s build-up play.
Conversion rate has statistically been proven to be one of the best indicators for predicting a team’s success (Souza et al., 2019). All the more astonishing, then, that the underlying influencing factors are still largely unknown to most, leaving chance conversion for many as something of a black box. This analysis aims to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of goalscoring situations.
England wins the U21 European Championship final against Germany 3-2. After just 20 minutes, England leads 2-0. This aspect analysis focuses on the reasons behind the German attacking press’s lack of access to England’s build-up play.
Over the last years, one of the main concepts regularly mentioned on this website – but so far rarely explained – is the one about Diagonality. Whether in the theory articles about the blind side, the discussion about relational football or 2014’s classic about The Half-Spaces, diagonality either played an implicit or a very explicit role. Yet, there hasn’t been a real deep dive into this topic – until now. The Fools of Spielverlagerung proudly present: An Article about an angle. Diagonality is here.
Collaborative article by Addis Worku, Martin Rafelt, René Marić, George Jones & Judah Davies
