Tactical Theory: Diagonality

von JD am 12.06.2025 in den Kategorien Tactical Theory mit 0 Kommentaren

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

So, what’s it all about now?

 “Play forward”, “think forward” or “play vertical” have been main coaching concepts in the last years and, probably, since the beginning of any type of playing football together. The logic is so simple that it feels embarrassing to explain: If you can, play towards the goal, so you can score. Progress if you can, if you will, and with varying differences of the definition of the latter. Some teams will be more patient (looking at you, Pep scholars), others will try to laser it through (looking at you, Jesse Marsch) and some will bridge any obstacles (usually called “opponents”) not bypassing them, but by going above them (looking at you, Reep scholars).

Very often the perceived risk of losing the ball on the ground or with a shorter, slower passing game is thought to be mitigated by counterpressing or “fighting for the second ball”. Arguably, it’s a philosophy of “rather they lose it there than we lose it here”. Sometimes the difference between these two seemingly polar opposites of a more transition attacking game and a more possession attacking game was contrasted by playing more horizontally or playing more vertically. Obviously, these distinctions are as usual without a real theoretical fundament with it being only a proxy of subjective observation. Of course, every team would like to score and for every team that probability usually rises by progressing the ball towards the goal which is in the middle of the pitch. There are varying degrees of how to achieve that (read: infinite) but there is a core concept which can be advantageous in any decision of how a team, coach or player wants to play. 

Diagonality: (Assume) The best of both worlds

On a fundamental level, diagonality aims to connect two aspects: The (assumed) progression of a vertical pass and the (assumed) safety of a horizontal pass. Why did we add the word “assumed” in brackets? First of all, a horizontal pass can sometimes either prepare or directly progress more than a vertical pass. A vertical pass on the wing wins less amount of spaces than a horizontal pass from the wing to the center does. Secondly, while most teams do try to get “behind the ball” defensively, so a horizontal pass might be safer usually, it still has the risk of being intercepted or being a passing trigger. Also, because of the horizontal connection of two players, carrying the additional risk of receiver and passer to be exposed, whereas the vertical pass has the advantage of the team losing the ball usually being able to defend forwards in the transition.

A diagonal pass assumes to mix the two advantages and negate the disadvantages: Progress with less risk, control with the chance to react. Additionally, there are additional advantages on the level of perception and on execution. First, imagine yourself being a defender. You have to anticipate the action on the ball to decide your actions and coordinate it with your teammates. Usually, you are blocking the path of the ball to the goal and/or to an opponent or you are covering a teammate doing so. A horizontal pass stays in front of you; your eyes and your body both follow the ball synchronously, both in terms of physical movement and perception. A vertical pass moves towards you and naturally engages you towards it with it, frequently, being the right decision (with some direct passing combinations trying to divert that) most of the time.

A diagonal pass by the opposition asks more questions. Your body has to turn and your eyes don’t focus into your peripheral vision, but they have to intake a lot of information in your previous blind spots. How do you turn, how do you accelerate? Do you even follow the pass or do you retreat vertically for a possible action into your back? The danger lies that your decision might have to come prior to your information. This is also partly why scanning but also coaching between players is so important: Gathering information early enough to make a decision and do the right action.

On the other hand, imagine yourself in the attacking players’ heads, whether passer or receiver. Your body language usually gives away at least part of your action quite early. Moment and speed of your action might negate that, as can disguising your intention or deceiving with your movement do. Due to the aforementioned aspects, a diagonal pass at least has some elements of that in it: it accelerates the game, and it disguises its intention and makes it harder for the defender and in turn makes it easier for the passer.

Similarly, the receiver of a diagonal pass usually has a simpler task at hand than when receiving horizontally or vertically. Let’s use our cheat code, that fancy superpower of imagination, again. If you really receive the supposed ideal pass in the ideal situation – in the middle of the pitch vertical through the middle of the pitch – it’s not as easy as you’d think before you imagine yourself in this situation to turn and then have the best possible shot (or any follow-up action) towards goal. Turn around yourself? Turn towards the side? How many touches do you need? Can you turn without using any redundant touch?

Compare this to the situation where you are receiving diagonally from a diagonal pass. The ball is in your field of vision as is your preferred direction of the follow-up action. Your body position will usually already be in a position to progress as your coordination of receiving with one foot to then either directly go with the other foot or use any form of deception to go twice with the same foot, depending on situation. Even a purely horizontal pass brings a few issues that a diagonal doesn’t.

Obviously, we don’t have the issue of turning on a dime around yourself anymore as we had in the example with the vertical connection. Still, a horizontal pass, depending on the situation and speed, might force you to a direction. Stop it, and you are at the risk at being pressured and exposed (stopping a vertical ball is usually an action protecting the ball). Don’t stop it and let it run past you, and you are chasing it, usually away from the pitch. Give it a direction and you are giving the defending team a cue – which is not necessarily a problem but can become one if you don’t keep your options open after your first touch. If you want to progress, you have to change direction which in turns makes it harder to accomplish it.  In a diagonal situation, you have a bit more leeway in these aspects. Now, let’s move diagonally from this topic to more specific aspects.

Diagonality in and from the center

Obviously, these situations frequently assume a given, somewhat random situation on the pitch. As we did in the Half Space article, we can categorize the pitch into zones – zones, which de facto don’t exist but also do have a reason to be used as a tool for simplification and explanation because of the goal-oriented nature of the game. Mostly, teams plan to control the middle of the pitch. Defensively, this has been done since a looong time and many have mastered the art of it. Offensively, it’s still not as clear because of the inherent insecurity of having the ball at the feet instead of the hand, but teams have become massively better in the last twenty years with, perhaps, the peak – relative to contemporary defending – being Barcelona with Guardiola or, rather, with Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta and Messi. If the first idea is to control and progress from and through the middle, how does diagonality come into play?

The center is more than a small strip; it’s a position on the pitch where the alignment of progression towards goal is fairly direct and straight. Diagonality is used to find the little gaps in the usually very closed middle. This happens with the passing and the reception and the carrying. This can look, loosely simplified, like this:

1a) Unlock the center by having a slightly diagonal position on the ball to dent the next line of the defending team or

1b) unlock the center by having a diagonal angle to find the little gap between players even when they are not dented

2a) separate from the opposition diagonally to be able to show for a pass and receive with multiple options towards the middle

2b) separate from the opposition vertically or horizontally so you can progress upon reception diagonally past the opponent into space

3a) carry diagonally to keep options along your line of progression open to continue centrally towards goal

3b) carry horizontally or vertically to keep diagonal options out of the line of pressure alive

That Barcelona team was unique in that sense – and, perhaps, stayed that dominant in our collective memories because of that – due to the fact that they could control the ball and the game within the opposition shape and relieve pressure while staying centrally. Even the best teams in recent history, who are able to control the game, progress the ball, escape pressure, are usually forced to do that by going to the side or in behind (or playing with less possession). Barcelona’s quality centrally, these little diagonal angles and zig-zag connections, the short passes mixed with the insanely amount of tiny spaces and short time-windows to receive, carry, pass, is what made them unique. From there, diagonality was used to break opposition but also escape pressure and disturb and disorganize any pressing scheme without actually moving out of the opposing shape. Basically, the concept of finding the open space was led ad absurdum by any little gap centrally already being enough of open space. Every touch adjusted the ball a few degrees, re-opening a passing lane that had closed a heartbeat earlier which was filled pausa by pausa.

Besides these little diagonal angles and diagonal touches, whichever intention they had and whatever form they took, it was also the diagonality of their thinking which allowed this seemingly unstoppable dominance to happen. Barcelona would break diagonally but over a short space, stop the continuation of that diagonal action towards the wing to move back diagonally within the center, very often leading to center-halfspace-center or similar combinations. Add the diagonality of Messi from the right half space and Iniesta from the left half space and, besides the pure individual and coaching quality of this team, a proper Goliath was created from all these little Davids who were circulating not only diagonally the ball, but also carouselling around each other to escape marking schemes. Messi and Iniesta cut in from opposite half-spaces, creating a pinwheel of diagonal dribbles that dislocated any man-oriented press, while Xavi and Busquets mainly gave the platform for short releases without having – when not needed or useful – to leave the center.

These diagonal actions, movements and connections within the center are key to keep control of the core, even until today. The moment you lose it – and the control is very fragile in the modern high compactness, high intensity middle – you will lose the space of maximum routes to goal and be forced to go out, away or behind the block you are trying to crack open. Also, every diagonal action in the center opens automatically two lanes – the continuation and the interruption of the path it’s taken. On the wing, you will always have to choose either or. A ball coming from the inside to the outside will not allow a continuation – you have to stop it or move inside with it. A ball coming from the outside to the inside mostly only allows the continuation, even with a hesitation before. Controlling the ball in the central areas allows the two paths of the next action to be alive as a natural progression of the action happening: You can keep the course of the ball or you can go against it without leaving the path to the goal.

This is the true power of diagonality in the center which has become not extinct, but rarely possible in modern football. The half spaces are usually more doors for the wings to get inside instead of walls for the center to bounce back in. Central control is necessary for purposeful possession game; diagonal manipulation makes it sufficient and threatening: Having very early and very accurate activity and connections when opening and filling passing lanes while having receptions of the ball in tight spaces while keeping the two lanes of attack paths alive, the right decisions of passing moment and speed while having accurate one and two touch decisions are key to enable this control. Teams like Leverkusen under Alonso or other teams using a 4-2 or a 3-2 shape are trying to simulate this effect outside of the opposing shape with diagonal breaks out and then diagonally in again, but it lacks the consistency of control mixed with threat of the diagonality in the heart of the opposing defending shape.

Moving diagonally away from the center of Barcelona’s Past and Football’s Today, let’s pick up on the point made in the last few sentences – what to do when control in the center fails.

Diagonality in and from the wing

When the intention to control and progress through the center breaks down on the level of application, then teams as aforementioned usually revert to recycling the ball backwards and / or then, more often than not, wide. If the attempt through the middle and / or the speed of circulation has been done well enough, this is not a problem at all. The wings are spaces which usually enable simple progression: The middle will be closed, which not only opens passes on the wing, but also passes through the wing without the opposing team being able to defend with numbers early. In basketball, there is the concept of “collapsing” onto a player – and anyone who has seen Messi or Yamal drifting through an open center in an attacking transition knows how that looks.

The mentality of running back in “oh shit oh shit oh shit” emergency mode usually does wonders for the quickness and eagerness of defenders in front of the ball. This collapse is actually harder to create on the wing than in the center in organized defending / attacking phases. Why? In the center, when it’s a full-on oh shit moment, theoretically all the ten outfield players can run towards the one central opponent on the ball in full sprint with a fairly realistic chance of that decision being between okay and very useful. All the players have fairly realistic distances to cover in order to get pressure on the ball, too. The amount of accumulated cover-shadows closing done that fast will also help prevent any easy escapes. Compare this to a possible collapse on the wing: How realistic is the far side defender to join into the duel in time? How realistic is the central player running over the ball side defender to support compared to wide players in central defending situations?

This already gives a legitimate argument – besides the counterprevention one – to not evade the wings in attacking but actually to embrace them with the right conditions set before. Danger from the wing opens up the middle, too. From the wing, there is also a fairly clear chain of communication on how to go diagonally towards goal – and partly the reason why there is such a huge focus on wide wingers in nowadays football. If there is a fullback or wingback on the side, that diagonality might be hard to achieve. Obivously, countermovements, 1-2s and crosses can create situations to get into the box – potentially also very successful connections like the infamous Sosa-Kalajdzic or Kostic-whoever-Frankfurt-played-CF ones in the Bundesliga or even Elanga-Wood in the Premier League this season. Still, it rarely creates constant dangers from positional attacks. A winger receiving the ball out wide already has an intrinsic diagonal progression value instead of the more linear fullback/wingback type of player receiving out there.

Besides the chance to dribble inside, both from the usual wrong footer but also a sheer dribbling ability perspective, there is an individual element to it. Everything that is not positioned in the last line will mostly allow the opposition defender to keep a diagonal angle to start the press – actually, let’s expand on this.

Little Distraction: Diagonal Defending

That sweet, sweet half-space spot

(This section is copied and updated from the original section in the Half Space article.)

Adding the half-spaces between the center and wings results in a different view of the strategic and tactical peculiarities of the game: the fields of view are one aspect. In a central position, with both teams standing right in front of the goal, the fields of view are both vertical like a straight-ahead cone. For positions in the half-spaces, however, the fields of view are not vertical, but diagonally tiled towards goal. A player in the half-space has as many options as the central player, but doesn’t have to turn away from the center and play to the side, instead maintaining a diagonal, goal-facing view of the field in his passing game. The half-space player retains all the central options yet keeps his body open to the pitch, eliminating the awkward half-turns that plague true wingers. “Wrong-footed” or inverted players especially benefit: the demanding actions (dribble, through-ball, shot) now fall to their preferred foot, while the easy set-up touches (receive, wall-pass, lay-off) stay on the weaker side.

This technical aspect interacts strongly with the field of view of the player as the visual field is composed of the foveal and peripheral vision. In contrast to the foveal vision, in which the eye’s sight line is aligned exactly with a targeted object to take advantage of the maximum central vision, peripheral vision provides rough, blurred, and distorted visual impressions outside of a solid fixation point. In principle, the object in question is “seen by” the peripheral vision. The sight field has a horizontal binocular (binocular) expansion of about 180-200 °; and vertically about 130 °. Only around 2-3° of the central vision is high-acuity. Dense central traffic receives the high-acuity stare; everything else is monitored peripherally for threats or opportunities. The center will usually be the most dense parts of the pitch and possible actions with the periphery being used for the less ideal but usually easier actions to be done. In the half-space, a player’s fovea fixes on the prime danger zone—goal, penalty spot, cut-back corridor—while his periphery sweeps the less critical zones. Little visual bandwidth is wasted on the dead space between the back of the half space and the touch-line, and only if the half-space receiver has positioned himself closed towards the side for a pass from the wing must he rotate towards goal.

Additionally, as we know, and especially in the aforementioned situation, the field of vision can be increased significantly through moving the eye muscles (by saccades to enhance the range of vision and the usual “shoulder glance”). The glance field refers to the area that a standing man can grasp without moving his feet. With these glances of micro-saccades and habitual shoulder checks a rapid eye flick expands horizontal coverage toward ~270°, and a neck and torso twist completes a 360° scan.

But every extra movement costs milliseconds – the half-space minimizes those rotations in the most dangerous channel of the pitch. The view of the goal and the positioning of the half-spaces creates a special effect. If we imagine a player can look effectively up to 50 meters forward from the center of the field (because after all, the field ends at some point), slide it into the half-space so he can focus his attention on the goal or the spaces near the goal and that same look now captures additional lateral depth, multiplying actionable passing lanes without any extra body work.

Let’s use our imagination for this again: More perceived space means more—and higher-value—options. Better perception → clearer decisions → the ability to pierce both defensive lines (horizontal and vertical) in one stroke. The attack keeps its tempo and direction without upping raw execution speed. Why and how? If a player looks diagonally from the half-space towards goal (or from the spaces near the goal or the wing), he sees a lot more space and thus has, in theory, not only more options, but also significantly more space to work with which in turn makes either the success ratio or the value of these actions increases. This will lead to an improved perception which leads to improve decision making which leads to the chance to break two defensive lines, the horizontal and the vertical one, at once, preserve the dynamic of the attack and increase the speed of the attack without having to increase the speed of the execution itself.

At the same time, the amount of space he doesn’t see is smaller. With this the exposure to surprises also lessens. Because the player is in the half-space and (usually) has a diagonal field of view towards the goal or to the open field, he has less distance from the sideline and is facing away from it. Thus, there is little danger that he will be pressed from behind or come under great pressure. Occupying the half-space leaves only leaves the distance to the touchline behind the player’s back shoulder as space of where supporting defenders can join, cutting the angles from which he can be pressed at the onset of action. Defenders must choose between rushing from inside (risking an easy outward escape while maintaining progress) or from the wing (risking a wall-pass inside after a third man combination, for instance). The ball-carrier therefore enjoys both more options and less exposure. Coaches’ Voice notes that this sweet spot is why elite playmakers – Kevin De Bruyne, Martin Ødegaard, Jamal Musiala – drift into half-spaces instead of hugging the paint.

The range of the diagonal pass works against the opponent’s movements much better than banal verticality. This is because the ball can go further and faster in addition to the nature of the more stable dynamics when the ball arrives at its destination. A diagonal ball travels farther and faster than a one-touch vertical while still landing on a forward-facing teammate—stability on receipt, dynamism on arrival. Short overloads appear sooner than they do near the sideline, and long switches feel less risky: the added meters stem from angle, not from distance. This also allows for a greater range from the diagonal passing game as short overloads appear faster than they do on the touchline with less distance to skip towards the goal and passes becoming longer effectively without becoming riskier as longer passes tend to do usually.

In addition, the half-space is not so close to the touchline that it can be used itself against the player, as is often the case with a winger. The half-space is thus the ideal intersection of “I have enough space” and “what I can’t see doesn’t matter anyway”. This of course is not to be taken literally or overvalued. It is merely a clarification of the basic theoretical things in an ideal situation, which may not always happen in the game. One must therefore consider and evaluate these aspects depending on the situation; against some teams the wings may be the best means of attack as explained before.

Instead of inventing new zones to further detail the possible tools we can use in training and games, let’s focus more on the action that fill any zone or, rather, space on the pitch.

Diagonality in the dribble

Before we move on, let us just clarify one thing: Space is only a consequence of positions on the pitch. Space is the distance between players, the players and their tasks are the starting point. All the prior chapters about the different zones are just a tool for application of space which in itself is a consequence of positions and the laws of the game. We should always be wary of the measurement becoming an objective in itself.

Space is relevant only as a means to achieve the objective: Score (or prevent scoring). To score, progression is needed (usually). When having the ball, you control the ball and try to progress through space. When not having the ball, you control the space and try to progress through ball recovery. In order to progress, you can either keep the ball or get rid of it towards a teammate. Naturally, as seen in child’s play, people tend to prefer keeping the ball at the start. There are two possible reasons for that: because it’s easier to move the ball half a meter than twenty and because it’s easier to see the space surrounding you than the far space. Perhaps it’s also easier to us to explain dribbling first, which is why it comes before the pass.

When dribbling, diagonality is an underrated aspect of it. Obviously, diagonality from a dribble has already been mentioned when discussing wingers and wing zones in this article. Defending diagonally enables to follow the run down the line and prevent the dribble inside. Yet, when dribbling diagonally you will face different scenarios in the starting scenario:

• Frontally in front
• Frontally in behind
• Sideways (to touchline)
• Diagonally

And for all of these situations there are an infinite amount of details like player qualities, attacking or defending support, speed of actions, distance to the opposition upon receiving, … yet, these are the four most general scenarios. There are some other options (sideways from touchline, for instance) that are also clear distinctions in the same framework but practically redundant as the principles are covered within these four situations.

Long time ago, on the German version of Spielverlagerung, there was a distinction of dribbling successfully by beating the opposition with and without ball manipulation and by attacking space with and without ball manipulation. Busquets was obviously not attacking space as N’Golo Kanté or Luka Modrić were, but both were successfully dribbling and in the same way different than a Ronaldinho and a Neymar (who was beating the opposition with ball manipulation) or a Messi and a Robben (attacking space with ball manipulation). While this topic would need its own theoretical discourse, the reasoning behind was to differentiate different types of how to use the ball in the way to get itself past or at least away from the opposition. In a way, what you always want to create is a diagonal advantage or, rather, a diagonal angle superior to the opposition.

What does this mean? If your marker is frontally in front of you, you want to be able to get past him towards goal – which means you will go diagonal onto one of his sides. The weight on his feet, your speed advantage and just the de-centering of his hips will be the usual tools to achieve the objective. If the defender stays frontally and drops, then a pass should open up sooner or later or at least progress is already being made by committing towards the defender. If the defender presses forward frontally, then a drop of the shoulder and the right diagonal dribble will get the attacker past him.

If the defender is frontally in behind, then the pursuit has to become a screen – either use the pass, its direction and speed to diagonally flick it over the opponent and accelerate past his shoulder or take a diagonal touch away from him, before cutting inside as a reaction to the pursuit. Either the body and the arm (think Lukaku) or the little accelerations (think Coman) create the separation needed for that.

On the sideways press, it’s mostly about taking the first touch either in front or in the back of the presser. This can be an explosive first touch diagonally into space from a stand still situation (often created when stopping the ball) or using quick two touches with one or even two feet (think the CR7 chop). On a decision level, you usually try to invert the traffic – the deception goes to the traffic (presser + his cover), the actual intended action goes into space. In a way, you can argue that it’s about deceive to receive or receive to deceive (as a heuristic for the players).

The last situation is the one where the defender and attacker are already diagonally positioned to each other. This one is the most “equal” situation in a way but in the end, it’s quite similar to facing an opposition frontally. You will try to get past one of his shoulders with the obvious difference that there is a shoulder you prefer and because of human anatomy both shoulders will be a bit clearer defended. Compared to the frontal position, a diagonal one enables to sprint quicker into the space you offer and to prevent the invasion of the space you want to close earlier. This stance is the most taught in football, especially in zonal marking setups. As an attacker, it’s mostly about exploiting the defender’s open gate – and if the opponent is perfectly positioned, he will usually trade-off a bit of activity of the start. Committing with the right speed of the ball will change the situation every time with the reaction of the opponent being a constant dance of doing the right execution to keep the perfect situation alive. A step too much opens a space or loses the advantage. A step too late loses the chase downwards. A step too early loses the stop inside.

As heard in the attacking seminars of Martin Rafelt, the hypothesis is that the attacking player in a 1v1 situation controls more degrees of freedom with the obvious disadvantage of losing milliseconds because of carrying the ball. There are some universal anchors which define how much is lost or gained in these milliseconds to make use of the degrees:

• The pitch geography matters: The position defines the threat and the defending behavior (distance to goal) but also the angles you have (as seen in the aforementioned paragraphs on the different zones)
• The positions define the first touch, the first touch sets the angle
• The chance to accelerate and decelerate defines the moment and the direction
• The rhythm and its diamentrality defines the speed
• Sell a lie, disguise and deceive, to open space to progress

The diagonal-diagonal in touches is also key in applying all of these things. No matter which of the dribble situations mentioned, successful ones are often predated by a diagonal-diagonal touch. The elastic or flip-flap is an outside diagonal touch and an inside diagonal touch, the Robben or Lamine Yamal inside dribble often works because of a diagonal touch backwards with an immediate flick diagonally inside to evade the foot of the opponent whilst progressing inside, a Croqueta works best by diagonally going inside with one foot to the other before diagonally going past the opposition with that foot.

Diagonality in the pass

Diagonal passes are the main accelerators of attacking play; where as dribbles are mostly the main advantage creators of it. It was already explained that they try to combine the best of both worlds – the safety of a horizontal pass with the progression of a vertical one. They accelerate because they slice lines in two ways, thus force rotational movement in defending, and create time-advantage for the receiver by doing so. A similar categorization like before in the dribbles can be done. To put it very simple, a pass can be either played diagonally outside to inside or diagonally inside to outside. The value of the actions improves if the end of the action is inside the half-spaces and it again improves if the start of the action is inside the half-space and the middle. Simply put: Passing from the center to the wing is less dangerous and useful than going from half-space to half-space with both actions being an inside to an outside pass. Obviously, the target is more important than the origin, but the end of pass carries the intrinsic value of its start within with some margin.

Why is there such a difference between inside to outside and outside to inside? Again, due to the structure of this article, we have it mentioned before. A diagonal pass from the outside to the inside is obviously better than an outside-outside pass and, arguably, than an inside-inside pass (i.e. vertical ones), but compared between each other the outside-inside pass has the additional constraint and challenge of having to turn inside. A good early body position helps with receiving it already on the half turn, but it is less likely and easy to do so, especially on short distances, than the inside to outside one – which usually means further distance from the goal but a reception towards it.

Ideally, just like we did with the zones and the dribbles, we expand the categorizations just slightly more. Keep the umbrella of “the pass has to be diagonal” but add inside-inside for passes coming from the inside and staying inside – as in the Barcelona 2011 ones where the wing zone is not activated in either. Adding this third layer as a coaching tool might help to prime the perception of these actions stronger for combinations inside the shape with diagonal angles to enable diagonal passes and receptions.

Obviously, diagonal passes won’t always be able to break both lines – the horizontal and the vertical one of the opposition. Also, in contemporary football tactics, the lines are dying out, at least in the high press – if you play man to man or with highly staggered pressing systems (looking at you, 3-2-3-2 and 4-D-2) –, then the lines are at least blurred, to say the least. If the diagonal pass does not break both lines, it has at least to break one line or allow the receiver to break the other line – if you want to progress, that is. The last category, outside to outside, is mainly an escape or a simple progression to a player that already has an advantage (winger against fullback or other rare mismatches or, to put it in Seirullo terms: Qualitative Superiority).

Besides the spatial aspect of the diagonal passing, there is also a temporal one. Intrinsically, a diagonal pass from a slow circulation will accelerate the play whereas a diagonal pass from a fast circulation will decelerate play – both positively if it’s a progressive one (and not a diagonal back pass which we will shortly explain next). Why should that be the case? In this scenario, it’s not pure theory but more a case of the contemporary football. If you are forced to play fast, then a diagonal pass will usually result into skipping the press and leading to a situation of space for the receiver. If you are forced to play slow and then find the diagonal progress you will naturally accelerate the play and, hopefully, your quality can keep up with the ensuing tempo due to the collapsing defense.

What does a diagonal pass backwards instead of the progressive ones mentioned so far accumulate to? Compared to a horizontal one, you might also lose the safety players for the defending transition but you do gain the visual and motor advantage of looking in front of you and being able to take both lanes – continuation to go back (and lure the opponent out to open space while testing their coordination) even further or interruption to go forward in the right moment of this path. Still, it’s different than a progressive diagonal one as you are not adding the two advantages of vertical and horizontal passing.

Diagonality in the movement

The third way to progress is, indirectly, with movement itself. A run behind the backline diagonally to goal might be more valuable if perfectly timed than the same action done with a dribble even if less spectacular and less demanding of individual qualities, arguably. A well-timed diagonal run in behind can outperform a flashy dribble: it travels faster (no ball friction), requires no initial duel, and reduces the window for recovery tackles before the shot. Basically, because the ball is not involved at the start, the player will be faster and the chance for the opposition to catch up before a shot less.

Thus, getting past an opposition with the ball is not too dissimilar than getting past an opposition without the ball, only the degrees of dependency of your teammates vary. If you can dribble in the tightest of spaces against the best of defenders by yourself, you can make the difference. If you are as fast as Usain Bolt with the feeling for deep runs of Ollie Watkins (then you are Erling Haaland), you still at least depend on someone passing the ball to you. Still, it is a special quality to have when you can progress without the ball too which is sometimes underrated in coaching, especially on lower and younger levels.

Diagonality matters because it disturbs the defense on two axes at once. Similar to a pass, a diagonal movement usually disturbs the opposition horizontally and vertically. Defending a player moving actively in front of you but only sideways usually just means to follow his movement and keep him in your field of vision. Is that player in your field of vision already and tries to attack vertically, the run is coming towards you and – depending on distance – you can again just follow the movement and keep the distance big enough to take out the intention of the run without having to turn too late.

It’s only when the player is sideways to you where a vertical run can be a challenge if you are not positioned on the half turn – and usually this only happens in the last line due to the offside line forcing the defenders to allow the opposition a horizontal starting point for a vertical run. Horizontal movements are more dangerous when they are connected to rotations or leaving the zone of the assigned defender without the defending team being prepared for that.

The nightmare scenario is when the attacker starts wide of vision in the periphery or blindside and then strongly cuts diagonally. The defender must swivel, track depth, and sense the offside line simultaneously. Diagonal runs do exactly that: they ask both positional questions at the same moment as they ask the individual about his communication and decision-making capacities. Diagonality is different to horizontality and verticality as it asks you two questions at the same time and will nearly always force a change of function –whether in man to man or zonal defending.

Defenders prefer binary cues: ball or man, inside or outside. Diagonal movement forces them to decide between following you inward (opening the wing) or passing you off (risking miscommunication). Also, a diagonal attacker can appear to “arrive sooner” than predicted.  The human brain systematically misjudges time-to-collision at oblique angles; a runner arriving from 30–60° seems to “appear” a step sooner than predicted, degrading the defender’s interception timing. Because of this the defender has to perceive a longer pass and perceive more outside of his visual focus. Statistical analysis has shown that a diagonal sprint to receive in the box creates more goals than a vertical sprint – why should it be different with passing and dribbling in the phase of creating scoring chances?

Even talking about execution and thus biomechanics, there are clear advantages to diagonal movements. Turning hips to respect a diagonal runner often exposes the defender’s blind side in the follow-up action while delaying their recovery speed for the first action as they are being forced into a lateral-then-backpedal sequence which loses speed compared to a straight sprint. Change-of-direction research shows that sharper angles at higher entry speeds spike knee-valgus loads; defenders forced into a lateral-then-pivot sequence pay a 0.12–0.18 s penalty over 10 m versus a straight chase—enough for an unpressured shot. By that logic, a diagonal movement from the attacker is giving him a natural spring for the next action (pass, shot, or further acceleration) which is the reason why top-level coaches are so overly keen on teaching defenders to never stay frontal in their body position and adjust their footwork consistently.

In the last three chapters, there was mostly the relation of the actions of a (attacking) player to the implications for the (defending) opponent. At times, we already did mention how it interacts with the teammates, yet there is so much more to add in that regards and its, perhaps, the fastest growing research field of football theory and football practice right now.

Diagonality in the connections

As much as possession football is a game of positions, it’s also a game of angles. A long time ago, a little study group within Spielverlagerung has tried to move from absolute to relative terminology. Positions became distances, moments became timing, directions became angles, and speed became velocity. It might seem like an unnecessary drill for the brain or a strange thought experiment, but the intention was to move further into the interactions of players instead of just talking about their individual actions isolated – basically, relating back to the 11v11 even when doing analysis of players or theoretical aspects of teams.

Whilst there is nothing (yet) to showcase from it in terms of a finished product, there are some aspects which have become recognizable on the modern football landscape. Whether it’s found within the Relationalism analysis work of Jamie Hamilton and partners or just some intriguing tactical novelties like Inzaghi’s Inter and their rotations, it does prime the eye to promising solutions building the future of football. Historically, the Brazilian football school of thought in the 50’s had created the 4-2-4 stemming from the Hungarian coach’s Kürschner’s WM (3-2-2-3) formation being tilted diagonal and this slash leading to the 4-2-4 of the 1958 World Cup winning side. Stack two diagonals and you get a staircase (escadinha). The Argentinians on the other hand perhaps had less diagonality expressed on paper, but the La Nuestra, which was popularized by the legendary River Plate of the 40’s and comes from Racing Club’s title-winning sides of 1917-19, emphasized always a diagonal layering, changes of positions in the front five (or, rather, the central three), the Gambeta dribble, the option to always bounce it with one touch and coaching points like “Dos y uno” to create triangles (and a #10) and a position for a pass and lay-off for a specific kind of 1-2 within the run of a dribbling attacking player.

Now, these concepts and connections still are mainly depending on the players. Barely any Guardiola team has again reached the movement of Messi, Iniesta, Xavi and Busquets in the middle – even if Pep probably has improved from being the best in the world to being the best ever as a coach. Whether it’s Diniz with Fluminense or Inzaghi with Inter, they did try to create different situations with their football to each other but also to the Pep-Guardiola-idea which has taken over the football world by storm without having necessarily players that create these connections by themselves. The diagonality in these connections between all three coaches is similar, though.

A diagonal is the smallest relational unit that already contains two tactical instructions: advance (forward component) and shift (lateral component) – whether with the pass, dribble or movement. Inzaghi’s Inter, for instance, leveraged this to move into a CL final (twice) without having any real 1v1 or wingers on the pitch; which is impressive in itself on this level in modern football. Instead, they use their diagonal-diagonal passing connections (from WB to CM to lure and then to play to the CF, for instance) and their diagonal movement connections (WB becomes a Winger who runs in behind whilst either the CM moves diagonally wide or the CB moves diagonally up with the other always reacting to this movement). This diagonality in their connections created a lot of rotations as a consequence, not as an objective – which is often the reason why these rotations work better on paper than on the pitch against man-to-man marking while Inzaghi is perhaps the coach who won the most games against Gasperini’s man-marking machine from Bergamo.

As already explained, such diagonal connections carry a spatial and a temporal aspect – which puts pressure on the opposing defense no matter which type they choose. Still, the players are the starting point – so the pressure is not only spatial and temporal, it’s also informational. Not just the space the diagonal connections wins is bigger, by definition the space to be defended, prevented, or re-conquered is bigger, too. This cognitive tax not only forces extra head turns, but extra words, extra decisions, extra mistakes… just because of diagonal connections instead of vertical and horizontal ones.

Further developing (coaching) tools and concepts for diagonal connections is surely one of the most intriguing prospects of the evolution. When analysts, coaches and players move from absolute nouns to relative verbs, the fabric of the game is going to change. So far, we are only at the start of this development. Yet, the development has started because and thanks to it being forced to.

Diagonality against the Zonal Meta

A few years ago, when Klopp still had a normal amount of teeth and the Bundesliga was the most intense league in Europe, the midblock and the formations where the starting point of every old Spielverlagerung analysis. The man-marking with a sweeper, which arguably the Bundesliga has kept the longest from the top leagues, had finally gone and was sadly replaced by a 4-4-2 with basically any team. Besides player quality, the success was defined by the compactness and intensity of this 4-4-2 with Klopp’s Dortmund being the best by far in these aspects. When Heynckes destroyed Europe and Guardiola came to not stop on the teams beating the teams which were already dead, the league slowly started to change and adapt. Julian Nagelsmann’s success with Hoffenheim did the rest: The 3-D-3 destroyed a lot of these 4-4-2 formations with ease, no matter how well or hard they tried. From this passive midblock teams which were shifting zonally the Red Bull and Klopp school of thought finally adapted to go into a better, higher, and more intense version, very often as a variation of a 4-Diamond-2 or a 3-4-1-2. Flick’s Bayern with the extreme attacking of the wingers and fullbacks one line higher probably was the best iteration in Germany of it.

Nowadays, led by the Premier League, this type of football is slowly dying out again. The reason for it is, obviously, Pep Guardiola and the insight and progression into his concepts and methods all over this globalized copy-cat football world. Don’t close the space around the ball and there will be a free player on the half turn. Jump to him and the ball is getting in your back, either diagonally or in behind. Shift too much too early and the switch is coming. Do it too late and suffer running around. Trigger one step too late or too slow and you are out. Do it alone and you are not coming back either. Diagonality has forced all these zonal blocks to passivity and loss of pitch control. Any diagonal movement against these types of defends either trigger a role exchange (full-back hands you to center-back, six drops into the lane, etc.) or a collective drop.

A zonal block is built on orthogonal logic: defenders slide sideways or drop vertically to guard pre-assigned lanes, compressing the pitch on two straight axes. This logic has left the game (as long as you have wide players who can attack depth and / or get inside, of course). A new logic has arrived.

Diagonality against the Man To Man Meta

First of all, teams have improved so much in build up that a high press from a zonal system required more communication than ever before. Why is that important? When you press high up and you want to do it early and with speed, then you are barely able to look into your back. You are dependent on the coordination and cooperation of your teammates. But you are also dependent on the lack of this from the opposition in your back.

The reason why that is key is that not only there are movements happening to crush the press (mainly focusing around using either a positional advantage already inside the opposing shape or creating a numerical one outside of it), it’s also sometimes players “have to” defend something that isn’t there anymore; the legendary scene from Fluminense building up against ManCity under pressure could have been solves simply by changing one or two pressing angles or directions at the start. But the key term here is “could” – would it happened like that? And obviously there is a reason why it hasn’t, too.

From there, the football has become more extreme: Instead of merging compactness with intensity, teams now go either or – with the best teams like Arsenal being the masters of both ends of the spectrum. What does that mean? Either the team goes full press, mostly in man-to-man systems, while trying to create compactness again within the sequence, or it accepts inferiority of phases and goes full compactness just in front of their box, while trying to create intensity again within the sequence.

The deep block arguably remains strategically solved and tactically unsolved at the same time – which makes sense because it’s Schrödinger’s deep block that’s (defensively) alive and (offensively) dead simultaneously, as long as you rest-defend the cat. Until reality collapses and Simeone wins La Liga. The high press has evolved into a full man marking orgy for most (successful) high pressing teams.

While De Zerbi’s build up has given options to at least progress or destabilize it, most teams have problems in applying it on that level successfully. This also relates to not just goal kicks but any type of build up from lower positions. The coordination of perception has eased up: When you trigger you don’t really care about your teammates nor do you really care about your team mate who triggers. We have regularly talked about how Zonal and Man Marking are only concepts; in the end it’s about the hierarchy of reference points.

The passive zonal markings of before were only focused on the team mate and thus compactness; before the Sacchi school of thought and its evolutions in Germany and Spain put the ball at the top of the thought chain. The same, although massively undertalked and underanalyzed, has happened to man marking. The silly and donkey-esk running after opponents has gone, the ball has taken the spot at the top – it’s just the perception of the teammates is less relevant than the perception of your opponent now. Instead of defending multiple opponents and thus having to decide between many options now every player defends one player and the decisions are becoming clearer again, even against the modern super-possession-teams/players.

When a defensive system abandons zones and declares, “I’ll take him, you take the next,” it simplifies every duel down to a single decision: stay touch-tight and copy whatever the striker does. The attacker’s job is therefore to upgrade that single-decision problem again into a two-decision problem —precisely what a diagonal run, dribble, or pass achieves as we have mentioned before. Do you stay or do you follow? And what happens if you choose either? Each hand-off is a potential communication glitch; elite against-man-to-man teams like Inter weaponize this uncertainty in cascades—first diagonal run empties space, second exploits it, third reacts to the collapse.

Diagonality will be key in advancing past the man marking meta, too. First of all, from an individual standpoint. To get away from a marker, the aspects we discussed earlier in the diagonality of movement, pass and dribble are important. No matter which defender in the world, he will still have to focus on the ball and the opponent, even if the decision has become easier by taking other opponents and his own teammates out of the equation. The focus on one player has the problem of reactivity (spatial and temporal) and an informational gap. If you perceive the marked player, you can control only for either his position now or his movement after. If the defender is too tight, you will lose the directional speed battle before or after the first touch if the attacker does it diagonally away enough from the defender. If the defender is too far, he can control for the movement but not for the position. The ball will be secured by the attacker and, similar to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, there is always the uncertainty principle in man-marking for (good enough) attackers that can either use the space between them and their marker or the space behind them and their marker. The closer you defend one aspect, the less you defend the other. When players coordinate like this on a team level, then a new defending meta will be needed. Diagonality will surely be key in that one, too.

Diagonal Throw-In: Diagonality against the Transition Meta

Besides in the eternal fight between attacking and defending, there is diagonality also in the transition on both directions. In this micro-war between the possession flips the probably two clearest or at least most well-known concepts are the diagonal drop from the far side (to cover the middle and prevent progression on the counter towards goal) and the diagonal escape (to escape the counterpress and break the momentum of the opponent to regain the ball, transforming it into a double edged sword for the own counter).

The counterpress and the counter itself also lend themselves to diagonality. A counterpress coming diagonally will usually force the opposition deep (in, hopefully, undermanned zones) or away (to the touchline) while a counter started diagonally and continued diagonally will usually keep more options alive to finish from the center through the center or through the wings. The field of vision stays intact to attack the goal and a last diagonal to get in behind the last line often enables a just-quick-enough finish. Some of the Real Madrid counters from Mourinho’s time would look like a diagonal escape, a diagonal pass into the back of the counterpress and then a full-speed commitment before there is a diagonal-diagonal finish, often squaring it for a tap in after finding a player just on the last line getting past with a diagonal one-touch control or pass.

The Fight Against Diagonality: Prevent And Defend (Or Die)

Obviously, the opposite is true too: To further push diagonality as a concept, there has to be the question of what will challenge and try to solve it. Diagonality is more than a passing angle, it’s a structural logic. They break horizonal symmetry and vertical compactness, through which they disorient both man-marking and zonal coverage. In a way, they either weaponize diagonality against the natural movement of a single player or against the natural movement of a unit. In order to find a solution to restrict the danger diagonality poses, it’s either on the evolution of existing concepts to cope with it on the highest level through improved and sophisticated solutions or it’s about the evolution of new concepts to fight against it.

To keep doing what they are doing now but go with the flow of evolution, teams have to be able to always find diagonality in their defending structure – half turn positions, small step accelerations, pre-oriented body shape, even diagonal coaching and communication lines, perhaps diagonal shifting additions. Geometry is neutral, but intelligence isn’t. The reception windows on the blindside have to be extremely small and the tasks of each player, either the one coming from the passer or the one coming towards the receiver, have to be clear. Diagonality would additionally force zonal marking teams to have more lines in order to cut off the diagonal connections. Everything flat is vulnerable; everything staggered has a chance to survive. If you can’t cut off the first diagonal, then at least freeze the receiver and put pressure on him because you are staggered against the follow-up action. Additionally, concepts like a diagonal jump and a shift in behind, like an L movement instead of the usual straight jumps and triangles or V formations, could help to cope with it. Far side jumping is the new near side jumping.

Defending in layers instead of lines might be a key concept for this adaptation. Tuchel’s hybrid marking scheme in the CL final against ManCity was a small step towards these intelligent (de-)formations.

For man marking schemes, there is the chance to evolve by rotating around the marker of the receiver and passer – cover from there to add additional layers exactly in the preferred diagonals and force them to either turnovers or at least horizontality and more traditional jumps from the defenders again, while keeping the pressure and the goalkeeper together highly active and simultaneous. Man marking creates clarity for the sake of it, but if it becomes a goal in itself then it also becomes a prey. Utilizing the cover shadow more in man to man schemes and adding little handover or handoff windows when possible is another evolution of the already existing. Just like the L-shift of the Zonal Marking update: Don’t be afraid to rotate against the diagonal.

In the end, new concepts or even new paradigms will stem from a simple fact: are the defending ideas ready to evolve towards the diagonal logic or at least an anti-diagonal logic themselves? How much will natural habits and trade-offs change to adapt and assimilate diagonality and its counterpoisons?

Question: Diagonal system of control

Before we finish this article, there is just a little food for thought in the shortest possible manner. Did you know that there is a clear predominant system, a diagonal one, even for the referees? Obviously, everyone watching football has seen it and knows it, but how consciously have you ever thought about it? There are statistics that, the nearer the referee and the assistant referee are to the coaching benches, the higher the probability for a whistle, yellow or red card becomes. How many coaches have possibly thought about using this to get a player sent off or to tweak their attack and their preference of which winger to find?

Summary: Diagonality As A Way Of Life

To wrap up this travelling circus full of lines and distances, we would like to state how funny it is to wrote about a geometrical direction – and arguably one that could have been divided infinitely or into 12 categories in this article, too. Writing an ode to an angle is delightfully absurd, even for our wacky standards. Still, the history of the theory articles on the English and German Spielverlagerung has been positive and thriving on the occasional perceived silliness; as the evolution of some of the ideas has shown later this was not in vain. Pressing resistance, rest-attacks, “false” everythings, including goalkeepers, …each started as a footnote and matured into textbook staples.It sems sometimes what begins as eccentric banter ripens into tactical concepts. Diagonality remains the largest, most influential concept in that ecosystem never given a full-dress treatment beyond it. It’s the song with the most lyrics without a solo-album – so far. That omission alone justified this collaborative deep-dive.

But diagonality is found outside of football, too. Military maneuvers use with armies flanking on diagonals, chess tactics have bishops marching over the chessboard, urban planning has the Broadway slashing the city, with other examples in data science, music theory or visual compositions in film and video mixing (some of) the advantages of diagonality into it. Heck, even nature itself has some diagonal secrets holding for us (just look at the DNA spirals, the twisting vines and the folding proteins).

Yet, while diagonal means to be neither horizontal nor vertical, it is more than that. Sure, a diagonal is defined by joining non-adjacent points with a straight line and thus being the longest straight line in a rectangle, but Diagonality is more a condition or world view. In its full conclusion, Diagonality is a logic that privileges diagonals above all else and elevates the oblique above the orthodox – which is the reason why we kept on calling the concept and with it the article Diagonality. In the end, practically, Diagonality is a cultivated bias against straight-line orthodoxy.

Diagonality is a preference but also the priming to purposefully have a bias against what has been done so far. Even in Psychology, diagonal thinking could be introduced as an enrichment to the typical lateral thinking definition of creativity. “Taking the diagonal” often means shortcutting across a grid or bureaucracy—an oblique strategy that bypasses orthodoxy, just as in the game of football. Diagonal (thinking) structures often unlock duality as they sit halfway between axes, mixing dimensions, exposing hidden symmetry (or asymmetry). Spotting the diagonal can reveal the “latent basis” of a system which again can lead to – in the game of football – finding the spot that hurts the opposing team the most if reached.

That does not brand yesterday’s tacticians as fossils. Paradigms thrive until their own symmetry smothers them; every robust structure attracts the hack that topples it. Linear thinking can be quite useful, too. Quite the opposite: As we have seen in the meta-parts towards the end, most inventions are interventions and it’s the flow of evolution that not only force them but also makes them possible: You can’t solve man-marking if no one does it, right? And behind every foolproof system is a lineage of fools who made it necessary. Our journey is just becoming a part of the fools that made progress needed or possible. We’re simply volunteering for the next wave of useful fools, pushing edges so future coaches can normalize them.

Slice it diagonally, horizontally or vertically, in the end the game is about the players: Their tasks and their ability to solve them

To conclude, the old ideas are not dying out, they are merely being enriched. Some vertical passes will still carry the game forward and give us breathtaking Steil-Klatsch-Steil’s or counters. Some horizontal shifts will again open up the space and give us oxygen to breath. Truth stays with some axioms: Horizontal keeps you safe; vertical gets you killed or crowned. Still, the same axiom says that diagonal lets you decide while still in motion. By wiring the team in forward-sideward diagonal links, coaches create a self-healing network that multiplies passing lanes, stretches defensive shape, accelerates transitions, and even powers the press in reverse. The geometry is simple; its compound, game-long advantages are anything but. Of course, reality rarely grants textbook chessboards on the pitch, but there is value in imagining it. Hopefully, we jesters did so.