Good teams now set the trigger for you

Press-baiting has turned the pressing trigger from a defensive weapon into an instruction the opponent can write.

The backward pass to the centre back used to be an invitation. Everyone learned it. The moment the ball travelled backwards, the nearest forward went, the second forward cut the switch, and the midfield stepped up as one. It worked because the backward pass was usually a sign of discomfort.

Now it is often a lure. A centre back takes a deliberately heavy touch, opens his body as though he has not seen the runner, and waits. The press arrives on schedule because it has been drilled to arrive on schedule, and one pass eliminates four players who are all facing the wrong way. That is not a mistake by the pressing team in the sense of bad execution. Their execution was perfect. The problem is that the trigger was chosen by the opponent.

The consequence is that pressing has become a game of second-guessing rather than a game of intensity, and intensity is much easier to coach. You can teach a squad to run at the ball on a signal in a fortnight. Teaching them to recognise a fake invitation takes a season, and it depends on players trusting each other enough to not go, which is culturally the harder thing since the man who does not press looks like the man who is not trying.

My view is that teams should carry fewer triggers and defend them better. Three well-understood signals executed with total commitment beats seven that half the team recognises. A press only works if all of it goes, and a press that half goes is worse than no press at all, because it removes the compactness and gains nothing.

Look for the tell instead. Baiting requires a controlled first touch and a head that comes up early. A defender in genuine trouble does neither.

There is a wrinkle about who baits well. A goalkeeper is the ideal decoy because he can hold the ball longer than anyone else without being touched, so the modern pressing question is really about whether your forward believes the keeper is uncomfortable or is pretending. Get that wrong twice in a match and your coach will stop the press entirely, which is what the opponent was buying all along.

The best pressing sides are not the ones who go the most. They are the ones who can still stand still.