Coaches whose ideas were considered almost extinct have re-emerged as teams battle fatigue and a lack of training time
For football, this was the year evolution went backwards. It began with further victories for the high press, with Hansi Flick’s Bayern Munich surging to the Champions League and the Bundesliga, and Jürgen Klopp’s side giving Liverpool their first league title in 30 years, but it ended with a widespread reversion to a more cautious style.
A dozen years ago, Pep Guardiola led the rise of press-and-possess football; recently, the pressing element has come to be prioritised – and then Covid-19 arrived. There are those who will dismissively point out we had pressing in the 80s. And we did – we’ve had it since the 60s – but we also had computers in the 80s, it’s just that they were nowhere near as sophisticated or powerful as they are today.
