The backwards pass trigger stopped working years ago

Defenders learned to make the pass that once invited a press look harmless, and plenty of pressing sides have not caught up.

The classic pressing trigger is the ball going backwards. Opposition midfielder turns and rolls it to his centre-half, and that is the cue: everybody goes, because the receiver is facing his own goal and has limited options.

It worked for a long time. It has been substantially defused, and the counter is almost embarrassingly simple.

Centre-backs are now coached to receive on the half-turn with their body open, taking the ball with the back foot so that in one touch they are facing up the pitch rather than down it. The pass went backwards. The player receiving it did not end up backwards. So the trigger fires, four players commit, and by the time they arrive the centre-half is already looking forward at a defence that has just left gaps behind it.

Which means the sides who press best have moved on to different cues, and they are subtler.

The reliable one now is the poor touch. Ball arrives, the receiver takes it a yard too far, has to look down for a beat. That is the moment, and it can be anywhere on the pitch, which makes it hard to coach because it requires everybody to be watching the same thing at the same time and to react on instinct rather than a rule. The best pressing teams look almost telepathic in these moments and the reason is thousands of repetitions, not intelligence.

The second is the pass to a player with his back to the touchline. The line is a defender that never gets tired. Any receiver near it has half his options removed before you arrive, so pressing there is cheap. That is why you see forwards deliberately show opponents outside, angling their approach to invite the ball wide before pouncing.

The third, and this is the one I find most interesting, is the specific opponent. Every side has a player who is weaker under pressure, usually one full-back or one of the centre-halves, and good pressing sides deliberately concede the ball to him. Show the other side of the pitch, let the ball go to him, then swarm. It is not a universal trigger. It is a targeted one, prepared during the week, and it is invisible to anyone watching for the textbook cues.

So if a team looks like it is pressing at odd moments and standing off at obvious ones, do not assume disorganisation. It might be that their trigger is a person rather than a pass.