Tactical Theory: Pressing in La Liga

If you had to guess which of Europe’s top five leagues had the most pressing in their games, you would be forgiven for guessing the Bundesliga, the home of gegenpressing, where Jurgen Klopp’s influence can still be seen across a plethora of games every week. The Bundesliga averages an 11.23 PPDA (that’s Passes Per Defensive Action), which ranks it as the third most intense pressing league out of the top five.

What about the Premier League then? The league has always sold itself on its end-to-end football where intensity is one of the key attributes of any premier league team. Again, in reality not quite so. The Premier League’s 11.67 PPDA ranks it fourth amongst the top five. 

Ligue 1 finds itself at the bottom of the pile with a PPDA of 11.82, whereas the top two are compiled by Serie A at number two with a PPDA of 10.83, but La Liga trumps them all with a PPDA of 9.9. 

It might not surprise many of you to hear that La Liga’s PPDA suggests this league has a high pressing intensity, but for it to be the number one league, and well clear of those league’s we traditionally associate with an intense style of play, certainly raises an eyebrow at least.

This tactical analysis and tactical theory piece will look at why the statistics paint this picture, and will give a brief analysis of some of the basic pressing tactics being used by the league’s three most intense pressing sides: Eibar, Sevilla, and Getafe.

Statistical overview

When you take a quick look at the pressing statistics of all of Europe’s teams in the top five leagues, it is suddenly very clear why La Liga has the highest pressing intensity out of these leagues. We know that their average PPDA is 9.9, and from Spain alone, Atletico Madrid, Granada, Athletic Club de Bilbao, Real Sociedad, Barcelona, Osasuna, Eibar, Sevilla, and Getafe, all have a PPDA under 10. That is nine teams from a total of 20 competing in La Liga. Compared to the third, fourth, and fifth ranking leagues in this metric, it makes surprising reading. Only two teams in Ligue 1 average a PPDA under 10, only five from the Premier League, and only six from the Bundesliga.

Another reason for La Liga being a statistical outlier in this metric can be seen when you look at the teams across Europe that press with low intensity.

If we were to take the twenty teams from across the top five leagues with the lowest pressing intensity, not a single team would come from Spain, with four coming from Germany, five each from Italy and England, and six coming from France.

Generally speaking, the majority of the league has at least a relatively intense press, and it is these teams with low pressing intensity that are bringing their league’s respective PPDA average down.

Nevertheless, it is clear to see that there is a pattern emerging in La Liga, and it is now time to look at the elite pressing teams from the Spanish league.

Pressing in Spain

There are plenty of similarities between the three teams I am going to look at, even though there are differences in their styles, and formations. Obviously the aim with any press is to win the ball-back at some point. This could be because a team feels it is particularly dangerous when winning the ball in higher areas, or because they want to prevent the opposition attack as early as possible. But every press isn’t revolved around winning the ball in these areas (although you won’t find too many teams that would be disappointed to win back possession within 30 yards of goal!). Teams will set traps to force the opposition into wider areas, and in these areas can close down a player’s passing options, and win the ball-back there, or a team may wish to frustrate an opposing side that like to build-up from the back, shutting off any forward passing options and ensuring the opposition are forced to either play the ball long, or make a mistake trying to play past the press. 

Whichever way you look at it teams will press to impose themselves on the opposition and prevent them from being able to successfully carry out their game plan. Getafe, Sevilla, and Eibar, all have elements of the goals mentioned above in their pressing systems with each side having more emphasis on certain goals, however. 

Before I look at any of these teams in detail, it is important to stress that all of these teams do elements of the tactics I am going to discuss, however, I am just choosing to focus on one aspect per team. They share similar principles with their pressing efforts and something that can be seen with every team is that they are flexible in their approach to pressing, as long as they can fulfil their pressing aims.

Eibar  blocking central play and nullifying the pivot

Eibar play a 4-4-2 formation, but are pretty fluid within this structure when out of possession. Although we will generally see them press with a front two, it is not unusual to see one of the wide midfielders step up to create a front three, like below.

Eibar are very aggressive with their press and want to win the ball in higher areas to halt the opposition attack at the source, and counter quickly. If they can’t win it back they will force the opposition to have to play long, and seek to regain possession that way.

Most of the time we will see their centre-forwards pressing the opposition centre-backs, their wingers pressing the opposition full-backs, and their full-backs pressing the opposition wingers.