The touchline is the best defender your team has

A press that forces play wide is borrowing an extra man from the geometry of the pitch, and it costs nothing to employ.

Trap a player against the side of the pitch and you have effectively added a defender to your team, one that never tires, never gets dribbled past and never mistimes a tackle. The touchline takes away half his options for free.

This is the oldest idea in pressing and it is still the one most teams execute worst. The mistake is almost always the angle of the first runner. A forward who sprints straight at a centre back has closed the distance and achieved nothing, because the man on the ball retains both directions and will simply play around him. The same sprint made from the inside, curved so the presser's body shuts off the pass back to the middle, forces the ball wide before contact is even made. Same energy, entirely different outcome.

Once the ball is wide, the trap is a numbers problem the defending team wins. The full back has the line behind him, a presser in front, a midfielder covering the pass inside, and one option left, which is a long ball down the touchline that a centre back can attack. Whole matches are won by making that the opponent's most frequent action.

What I would push back on is the fashion for describing this as a high press, because it is not really about height. You can run the same trap in your own third, halfway line, anywhere, and mid block versions of it are more reliable for teams without the legs to press a goalkeeper. The identity is the angle of approach, not the location.

There is a limit and good teams find it. A goalkeeper comfortable enough to invite the press and then clip a diagonal to the far winger beats the whole arrangement in one pass, because your compression to one side has left forty yards unattended on the other. That is why the entire trap depends on the far side winger tucking in, which is the least glamorous instruction in football and the first one that gets ignored.

If you want to know whether a side presses well, do not watch the ball.

Watch the winger farthest from it, and see whether he is where he is supposed to be.