Total Football: The Essence of Modern Tactic

Hi guys, I would like to explain in depth to you guys about a revolutionary football tactic which is Total Football. What Total Football actually is and what are the key elements of it? Basically, Total Football is a style of football in which every player can play at any position on the ground. This style of football is mostly associated with Ajax Amsterdam FC and the 1970s Netherlands national football team.

Total Football is a style of football which gives total freedom to all the players to move around & play at any position on the field and this is why sometimes the defenders would end up at the striker position and the striker also can end up at the defender position. Switching on positions makes it real hard for the opposition to mark the players, the point of this is to ensure whenever a teammate leaves his position, another teammate would cover and occupy his position so that the overall shape of the squad formation would stay the same. For example, when a flanker trying to get in the top striker position, the attacking midfielder would go to the flank position and the striker can drop deep enough to occupy the attacking midfielder position.

This tactic can be linked to one of the best players in football history, Johan Cruyff. He takes the role as the captain who lead the Dutch team, he plays in the second striker position but he frequently drops deep to the defense to start the switch of positions in order to escape the opposition man-marking defending style. After dropping deep, he has taken the defender position and the defender who already at that position need to move up to attack. Usually at this point Johan Cruyff will stays in the defense and the defenders who move up will take the ball forward.

The 1970s Dutch team were commonly use the 4-3-3 formation, but with the possession of the ball, they will switch to 1-3-1-4-1 with one player at the back and working as a sweeper to clear any long passes and through passes directly towards their goal. The sweeper can be anyone, even for the striker if they drop deep to perform the switch, like Johan Cruyff dropping to the defense position and take the role as the sweeper. As soon as Cruyff moves up with the ball, the center back will take his position back to ensure the shape of the team formation stays the same.

This is what total football is all about, when one teammate leaves his position, another teammate immediately fills that position to ensure that the shape remains the same and this was also one of the reasons why people said that Johan Cruyff was often found everywhere on the pitch because the Total Football system giving enough positional freedom for him to do so. Johan Cruyff are just one example of a player who are playing at different positions, every player from the 1970s Dutch team had the ability to play at a various of different position.

Even though the Total Football was famous used by Ajax and Netherland team of the 70s, actually it was the Hungarians who first using this system way back in the 1940s. Nevertheless, Ajax and Netherlands took this system into another level, a level where no one ever think of and it considered as one of the revolutionaries in its time. It is a very fluid football system that can be a headache and a big threat towards any opposition team. One of the benefits of this constant switching of positions is that it helps to create multiple passing lanes for the man in possession which give a free space for other teammate to attack, nowadays we call it as the ‘Third Man Run’.

Going back to the system itself, there are more than just switching position as it happens only when the team possess the ball. One of the things that made this style very popular was their ultra-high pressing method, the entire squad would press at the same time to make sure that they don’t give any minute or space to the opposition and a high defensive line was kept to play the off-side trap. Even if the opposition were able to beat the offside trap, keeper can also take the role as a sweeper to clear the ball that have pierce through the defensive line.

This system was built on one principle which is keep hold of the possession and play forward passes, this kind of system are the essence to the modern football tactical which called Tiki-taka.

By Kamal Nizam