The Backheel: Football's Space Craft

While you will be familiar with 3-4-3 and 4-2-4 and 3-5-1-1 and suchlike as ways of describing how a team plays, I don’t like this numbers game.

Firstly, because I’m very uncertainly grounded in maths, and secondly because the numbers are dull and, I feel, of questionable value. I usually have major problems matching up what I see and what the pundits have told me I ought to be seeing.

I know what I ought to be seeing: attractive, exciting, attacking football.

I also know that those formations are never designed with that in mind as they are invariably defence-based. Coaches are good at planning defence but not nearly so good at organising things up front.

I have worked on this matter and managed to overcome my aversion to maths long enough to devise my own numerical trio: 3-6-0. Something different because it features only nine players? The much greater difference is that these are not players, these are degrees: 360 of them.

My 3-6-0 is not a formation. It is an invitation; an invitation to players to broaden the scope of their passing. And it is an appeal for greater use of the backheel.