How football tactics work

Formations are read from the back, and the goalkeeper isn't counted. A 4-4-2 is a back four (two centre-backs with a full-back either side), four midfielders and two strikers.

Shirt numbers double as job titles. The 6 sits in front of the defence, the 9 is the centre-forward and the 10 is the playmaker just behind him. The lines join each unit. A player standing in the gap between two of them is between the lines.

Out of possession, meaning without the ball, this 4-3-3 drops its wingers back into a 4-1-4-1. In possession, the full-backs invert, stepping into midfield instead of running down the wing. The two eights, the central midfielders, push up to make a 2-3-5.

Coaches split a match into four moments: in possession, out of possession, and the two transitions, the few seconds after you lose or win the ball. The strip at the top shows which one we're in.

Each patch is coloured by the player closest to it. Analysts call this pitch control. Clubs build fancier versions from tracking data that also count how fast each player is moving. Drag someone and watch the patches change.

More players than the opponent in one area is an overload. Ten outfield players have 7,140 square metres to cover, so an overload in one place always leaves a gap somewhere else.

Without the ball, a team picks its block: how far up the pitch its defensive shape sits. A low block camps on the edge of its own box. A high line pushes the defence towards halfway to squeeze the opponents.

The dashed red line is the offside line. An attacker past it when the pass is played is offside. The higher it goes, the more space in behind there is for a ball over the top. At any height, good teams stay compact: Sacchi's Milan kept about 25 metres from last defender to striker.

Pressing means closing down the player on the ball. Watch the red striker curve his run. His body blocks the pass to the other centre-back, and the lane he blocks is his cover shadow.

That leaves one pass, out to the full-back. It's the pressing trigger, the cue for everyone to jump at once. Pinned against the touchline, the full-back has nowhere to go. That's a pressing trap.

Most teams retreat when they lose the ball. Klopp's Dortmund and Liverpool swarmed it instead. That's gegenpressing, German for counter-pressing. It works because the other team has just switched to attacking and is spread out.

Guardiola's Barcelona aimed to win the ball back within about six seconds. Try both options: pressing wins it near their goal, dropping back wins it much deeper.

Guardiola's style is called positional play. The pitch is split lengthways into five lanes, and players spread across them so the ball always has somewhere to go. The half-spaces sit between the centre and the wings, where defenders struggle to agree who should mark whom.

His treble-winning City attacked in this 3-2-5, with a centre-back stepping into midfield. Watch for a one-two with the winger (pass, run, get it straight back), then a cutback: a pass pulled back from near the goal line to a teammate arriving in front of goal.

Red sits in a low block and lets the opponents have the ball. When red wins it, the opponents' full-backs are still upfield and their centre-backs have to turn and chase. A fast counter-attack runs straight into the space they left.

Leicester won the Premier League in 2016 with less of the ball than almost anyone, doing this again and again with Jamie Vardy's pace. Count the passes: it only takes four.

Each of these managers changed how the game is played. Pick one to see their idea on the pitch.

Try a 3-5-2 against a 4-3-3 with the space map on. Watch the wing-backs, wide players who cover the whole flank, fight over the wings. Drag players to close the gaps.