Four teams. Two nights. One final in Budapest on 30 May. The Champions League semi-finals are here and the draw could not have delivered better matchups. The defending champions PSG against the most in-form team in Europe in Bayern Munich. And Diego Simeone’s reinvented Atletico Madrid against an Arsenal side chasing their first ever European…
Eight clubs. Four ties. One trophy on the line in Budapest. The 2025/26 Champions League quarter-finals arrive this week with a lineup that reads like a dream draw, four matchups that cover old scores, historic rivalries, tactical chess matches and genuine title contenders. The first legs kick off on Tuesday 7 April, and by the…
For a few years around 2010, the false nine was the most talked-about tactical concept in football. Then the conversation moved on. Traditional strikers came back into fashion, pressing systems took over the headlines, and the false nine was quietly declared dead by the kind of people who like declaring things dead. It was not…
Most fans can recognise a high press when they see it — the furious closing down, the goalkeeper forced long, the forced error in a dangerous position. Fewer can explain precisely why it works, where it came from, and what the data tells us about when it succeeds and when it catastrophically falls apart. This…