Pressing the ball reception can improve high press efficiency

Data from StatsBomb, photo from Playing for 90

Summary:

• Time given to an opponent on the ball before a pressing action appears to be an important factor to determine pressing effectiveness, particularly to prevent opposition ball progression.

• Findings are more complicated when focusing on generating turnovers through pressure. Giving an opponent more time on the ball can result in more turnovers, as a long pass becomes a more common decision.

• Metrics that analyse pressing tempo could be used to better understand a collective press, it’s weak points, and individual factors.

“Siempre llegas tarde” (You always arrive late). A common shout during Guillermo Almada’s coaching sessions, and he wasn’t referring to players turning up late for training, but to players arriving late to press the ball. The Uruguayan head coach is known for creating intense, high pressing sides, and his sessions frequently focused on the tempo of a collective press, in order to limit opposition time on the ball.

High pressing has become one of the most analysed aspects of football, and there’s been a development of press-related metrics in the public space. PPDA is the most famous metric to analyse a team’s intensity, and effectiveness, to press high up the pitch.

High recoveries and subsequent shots are other ways of analysing a team’s style and strengths, whilst with StatsBomb’s pressing actions, it’s possible to calculate the percentage of passes that are put under pressure.

However, I haven’t seen much data analysis that aims to understand the most important concepts that make up a successful high press, and how specific teams could improve in this phase of play. Tracking data would be required to fully understand the details in a collective press, but I still believe more can be done with event data.

This study will focus on the idea that limiting time and space for opponents is a key aim when pressing. Teams that press efficiently limit situations where players have the time to control the ball, get their head up, and choose the best pass. They also reduce the time that opponents have to make positional rotations before a pass, which can disorganise a defense.

Brighton’s Maxim De Cuyper given time before being pressed by Manchester City’s Oscar Bobb in their recent match. De Cuyper picked-out a progressive pass and began a sequence that led to Brighton’s late winning goal. Issues in City’s press were detailed in Liam Tharme’s piece on The Athletic and by Jon Mackenzie on the Tifo Football Podcast (4th September).

Limiting time and space are linked to a couple of pressing concepts that are often discussed in tactical pieces; tempo and access. Tempo generally refers to the moment at which a player “arrives” at their direct opponent to pressurise them, a key concept for Almada, who wanted to maintain a high-tempo press. Access partly determines the tempo of a press, and describes the distance between a defender and the opponents that they may have to press.

Without tracking data, I’ve created an approximation to measure these concepts. I’ve compared the time between a ball receipt and a pressing action.

To evaluate how time on the ball can influence the effectiveness of a press, I’ll use two metrics, which are based on assumptions regarding the motivation behind deploying this strategy. Some coaches/teams may find different metrics or a different time period more useful, given their play style.

I analysed both metrics as percentages, to adjust for opportunity

Time on the ball was separated into four different groups, and only pressures in the final third were included in the study:

• 0 seconds, pressing the ball receipt

• 0 to 1 seconds on the ball before being pressed

• 1 to 2 seconds on the ball before being pressed

• More than 2 seconds on the ball before being pressed

The following table shows the results from StatsBomb’s open data sets, using Women’s and Men’s competitions, post-2000

The results suggest that time pre-press does impact efficiency, as theorised. Ball progression in six seconds after a pressing action appears to be impacted to a greater extent. If an opponent is given more than two seconds on the ball before being pressed, the probability of ball progression more than trebles, compared to pressing a ball receipt.

A less clear trend shows up when analysing turnovers post-pressure. Arriving at the moment of a ball receipt still seems to lead to the most effective outcomes, however, little difference is found within the other types of pressures.

The influence of press type on the opponent’s decision may partly explain these results. Players tend to attempt more long balls when they are given more time on the ball before being pressed, possibly as they have time to see the press coming and pick-out teammates that are positioned far away.

More time on the ball helps to improve long pass success (under pressure), however, the success rate is still low. This decision making trend could therefore be impacting the number of turnovers, as well as the rate of ball progression, when a press comes more than two seconds after a ball receipt.

Finding weaknesses in a high press

With evidence of the importance of tempo and access in a high press, particularly to prevent ball progression, and metrics that create a proxy for these concepts, we can dig deeper into a team’s press.

For example, seeing which players within a team tend to press a ball receipt more or less frequently. A player performing worse in this metric could be a weakness to exploit when an opponent is trying to build-up from the back.

This analysis backs-up the criticism that Mesut Özil recevied at Arsenal, for his weaknesses out of possession.

Arsenal final third press analysis during 2015-16, showing the four players with the highest number of final third pressures

Specific zones can also be analysed on a collective basis, which may relate to individual performances or overall structural decisions (for example, how aggressive a full-back is to jump). The heat maps below show where Euro 2025 champions England pressed with more intensity during the tournament, and which percentage of their pressures were on a ball receipt (compared to tournament average).

Despite showing a similar intensity to generate pressure between the left and right sides of the pitch, England seem to have given their opponents more time when they built through the right.

Connecting possession and pressing sequences

A high press is a collective action, and therefore I attempted to analyse the importance of tempo by looking at all of the events in the ten seconds following a first high pressure action.

I used xgboost to analyse a range of characteristics in a ten second possession/pressing sequence (or less if there was a turnover or successful progression before ten seconds). Focused on whether a turnover was forced or not, I considered the time on the ball before a pressure, passes made without pressure, pressing zones, weak foot passes and goalkeeper passes.

The model only has an roc_auc of 0.64 (a method of analysing model performance), and therefore it isn’t particularly precise. However, limiting time on the ball before a pressure once again showed up as a key concept, ranking as the second most important feature, after passes without pressure.

I’d be very interested to see if anyone can develop this idea, particularly with the use of tracking data, and create a more precise model. Concepts like tight marking of close passing options, the expected pass number of potential progressive passes, and simply better defining a high press situation through knowledge of collective positioning, could improve the model. They may also be concepts available in event data that I failed to include.

However, the metrics developed in this article go some way to backing-up the importance of tempo and access in a high press, and could be used to help pre-match analysis, and both collective and individual development.

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