Modelos
FAL Playbook · A Football Agent Lab series
Modelos
Game models, dissected — phase by phase.
About the series
Every coach has a model — a way of seeing the game, ordering the eleven players, choosing what to attack and what to defend. Modelos takes that model, in the coach's own words, and maps it onto the four phases: organized attack, negative transition, organized defense, positive transition.
Each episode follows the same structure: primary source (the coach speaks), four-phase mapping, original tactical diagrams, and a critical read of what is detailed — and what is missing. Not opinion. Not punditry. Dissection.
Episodes
02 · ongoingIt looks like possession — the engine is pressure.
At first glance, João Prates's game model looks like a possession team. Look beneath it, though, and the real engine lies elsewhere: the ball is circulated to draw out the press, and the phase he works hardest on is defense. That is why this model has held up on no-budget teams, across four countries.
Open the flank, send seven on the diagonal.
A South-American coach lays out his game model in eleven minutes. The attack is detailed down to a 25-metre block and a seven-on-three split — and one phase is never mentioned at all.