Europe’s Most Intense & Highest Pressing Teams

[Dr. StrangeHate]

Interesting points:
1) I am surprised how pronounced the difference between the rest and City, Liverpool and Bayern is.
2) It's clear which philosophy is on top in football. (Intense High Pressing)
3) Leipzig or Mönchengladbach (Marco Rose team) not that high.
4) United are better at it than Real Madrid.

Stolen from Reddit:
Unfortunately I haven't had the time to to play with https://fbref.com/en/ to create graphs such as this.

 

[GenZRed]

I wonder if there will ever come a time when high pressing goes out of fashion same way 4-4-2 has largely done, although it is hard to imagine.

Not like you can really compare tactics to formations, although they are related.

Thanks for sharing that graph OP.

 

[Physiocrat]

Are Leeds on that graphic? I can't find them

 

[Raees]

Was about to post something similar but about the EPL this season thus far...


Be interesting to see what it will look like by the end of the season. Will loss of VVD force Liverpool to drop deeper and not press as high? If Poch comes in halfway then where will United end up in this respect.

 

[Samid]

Are Leeds on that graphic? I can't find them

Top 5 leagues only.

 

[tomaldinho1]

Was about to post something similar but about the EPL this season thus far...


Be interesting to see what it will look like by the end of the season. Will loss of VVD force Liverpool to drop deeper and not press as high? If Poch comes in halfway then where will United end up in this respect.

This one will be more accurate in my opinion because it directly links to the tactics whereas the OP seems like it would be hard to properly calculate. For example, I think most United fans would agree our press is pretty woeful there have been a few games it's worked well but over last season it's not particularly something we did well at. However, we covered a lot of ground and often had individual players pressing which bumps up the stats but is very different to a team like Southampton, Leeds, Mochengladbach etc when they press because they have set zones and triggers rather than just pressing whoever has the ball.

If there was a way to correlate the PPDA & the areas on the pitch where teams regain possession on average, I think it would be a good indicator of which teams are the 'best' at pressing.

 

[RashyForPM]

Yeah, but City, Bayern, Liverpool and PSG are the most well equipped to do it, so it’s no surprise. Can’t really say that tactic reigns supreme as those clubs all have the best players too, so they should win.

Having said that, we should do it more. High pressing has it’s disadvantages like getting caught out via long balls or on the counter, but it can lead to wonderful goals too.

 

[do.ob]

It's worth keeping in mind that these stats are possession adjusted and so it's no surprise that some of the most dominant teams are also doing the best in the diagram. Take Bayern as an example, they maybe the most dominant team in Europe right now, most opponents are forced into a passive approach against them, which means that Bayern can advance the ball into the attacking third with relative ease and great consistency. Which means most turnovers probably happen there and since most teams have to keep a lot of players behind the ball, Bayern are often already set up perfectly to "Gegenpress" and win it back immediately.
Another example would be Dortmund, where Favre is perhaps most commonly criticized for his quite passive approach against the ball and low pressing line. Yet his team scored relatively high on that chart, probably because they are so dominant in possession this season.

Rose and Nagelsmann don't have the squad for such dominance, so they score lower, but I think as an example everyone saw how far the latter's team can dial it up when they played at Old Trafford. Favre's team would never do anything remotely close to that, yet he's scoring much higher on the Y-axis.

 

[JDoe]

It's worth keeping in mind that these stats are possession adjusted and so it's no surprise that some of the most dominant teams are also doing the best in the diagram. Take Bayern as an example, they maybe the most dominant team in Europe right now, most opponents are forced into a passive approach against them, which means that Bayern can advance the ball into the attacking third with relative ease and great consistency. Which means most turnovers probably happen there and since most teams have to keep a lot of players behind the ball, Bayern are often already set up perfectly to "Gegenpress" and win it back immediately.
Another example would be Dortmund, where Favre is perhaps most commonly criticized for his quite passive approach against the ball and low pressing line. Yet his team scored relatively high on that chart, probably because they are so dominant in possession this season.

Rose and Nagelsmann don't have the squad for such dominance, so they score lower, but I think as an example everyone saw how far the latter's team can dial it up when they played at Old Trafford. Favre's team would never do anything remotely close to that, yet he's scoring much higher on the Y-axis.

Agree with everything said here. The true outliers in the graph based on squad quality is IMO Madrid (little pressing, but did well enough in La Liga). Southampton has also been a very high pressing team despite of their rather lackluster squad and especially when viewing the other post about PPDA. Status quo for the current top teams seems to be to press well when out of, and to be press resistant when in possession as much as possible.

 

[Berbaclass]

We're behind Schalke

 

[DickDastardly]

Very interesting read....

Modern football is becoming like modern team fps shooters, meta teams, meta tactics.

So far, it's really easy to see - you press high and intense - you win more games.

Anybody who doesn't follow the simple rule gets left behind.

I wonder if anyone will find a tactic that beats this - aka, the new meta.

 

[Blackwidow]

I even think the graph of the first post is misleading as it includes the time prior to the change from Kovac to Flick. After that the pressing got a lot more intense and the pressing got even higher.

 

[Skills]

We’re always looking to improve the team and squad,” he said. “But I think we’re very, very solid at the back. Sometimes, you might be exposed behind you when pressing as high as we’ve done. We decided we’re going to be a high-pressing team, when we can. If you don’t take risks, you won’t improve. Once in a while, it’s been that they’ve found some space behind us but I’ve not been concerned about it."

 

[do.ob]

We’re always looking to improve the team and squad,” he said. “But I think we’re very, very solid at the back. Sometimes, you might be exposed behind you when pressing as high as we’ve done. We decided we’re going to be a high-pressing team, when we can. If you don’t take risks, you won’t improve. Once in a while, it’s been that they’ve found some space behind us but I’ve not been concerned about it."

Coincidence?