Ever since the time of football giants like Yohan Cruyff, European pitches were fields of dreams for both players and tactician coaches.
However, the famous Dutchman’s coaching ideals have persisted even in today’s football, and lots of modern-day coaches like Pep Guardiola have soaked in his knowledge and tactics.
That’s the beauty of football — a single-season boom of Xabi Alonso coaching Bayer Leverkusen allowed the team to win their first-ever Bundesliga title, and all that in times when rich clubs are getting more and more difficult to defeat.
So, what do European tactics bring us this season? Stay tuned to find out.
European Football — The Birthplace of Modern-Day Tactics
Before we get deeper into the main European football tactics 2024, we need to first consider the past innovations.
After all, lots of the modern-day football philosophy originates from the 1960s, 1970s, and more recent times.
Of course, styles have changed, and the midfield is now more relevant than ever before, and all that change calls for different tactics.
However, these are some of the strategies that European coaches have used even back in the day:
- Dynamic position changes (invented by Cruyff)
- Focusing on possession
- Wider full-back coverage
- Skilled center-backs starting the attacks
Of course, all these elements were very rare at the time, and rare coaches like Cruyff were able to implement them and make their teams winning machines.
Today, the entire concept of positional play and modern-day football has changed, and that’s why we’ll discuss the main changes.
Key Tactics to Focus on in 2024
It doesn’t take being a coach for proper football tactical analysis, but you need some more insights other than regular fan-related stuff.
So, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to bring you the main tactics and strategies that coaches around Europe might put their focus on in 2024:
Positional Play Never Gets Old
Pep Guardiola is a true successor to Cruyff in terms of enforcing positional play, as you can see by four consecutive titles at Manchester City.
He’s also the inventor of other innovative football strategies like the famous “Tiki-taka” in Barca, and he transitioned some of those tactics in Manchester City.
Positional play is based on having great technicians and players comfortable with the ball in their feet at the back.
It focuses on building play from the defense lines and having high-skilled midfielders passing through the lines as fullbacks join in on the action to create more passing opportunities.
The main benefit of this method is breaking zone-type defenses and going around them.
Following Bologna’s Example — Relationism at Work
If you watched Bologna grab the UCL spot in Serie A last year, you’ve certainly noticed some patterns in coach Motta’s tactics.
These include the basic ideas of relationism where multiple players occupy the same pitch zones in an attempt to gain an advantage in numbers.
A direct consequence of having several players in the same zones is having multiple passing “triangles” as a testament to innovative football strategies based on passing and ball control.
Box Midfield Strategy
Coaches like Mikel Arteta and Jurgen Klopp use the box midfield strategy to maximize their positional play and ball possession in the midfield zone.
Playing like this causes lots of opportunities to breach the opponent’s defence through ball possession and position inversion.
So, these teams are also interested in online bettors using Spina Zonke login and other betting platforms to find suitable goal-scoring props.
Realistically, it’s one of the best ways of creating lots of chances per game, and it depends on having highly skilled and technical fullbacks, as well as second strikers that go back towards the midfield to create numerical advantages.
The Xabi Alonso Effect
The title-winning run of Bayer Leverkusen is perhaps the biggest upset in the big leagues ever since Leicester won the EPL in 2015 under Claudio Ranieri.
Sure, their team seems very compatible, but a lot of the credit goes to coach Xabi Alonso for implementing the 325/235 tactics.
It’s not something that you’d expect among European clubs tactics, since it leaves the defense open in lots of cases, but higher fullback positioning leads to serious advantage up front during the buildup phase.
As a result, fullbacks like Grimaldo scored lots of goals and assisted on lots of occasions, proving that this method works.
Football tactics like these are not only interesting to football fans but also to bettors who are more likely to hit a win by understanding the game and tactics than by exploring online slots and other fixed-outcome games.
Final Thoughts
Well, there you have it — we’ve given you a quick guide on the main football tactics to keep an eye out for in 2024, as well as coaches and teams that are most likely to use them.
Of course, football is an ever-evolving sport, so it’s only a matter of time before defensive minds among coaches find a solution for all the offensive-minded strategies.
Still, they proved to be very effective so far, so we see no reason to leave them out in reviews like this, and we’ll likely still be seeing coaches like Klopp, Guardiola, and Alonso using them for a while.
