🚨💣 BREAKING: Bernardo Silva to Real Madrid, deal set to be sealed as revealed earlier… HERE WE GO, SOON. 🇵🇹
Agreement at final stages after official proposal valid until June 2028 plus potential option.
Bernardo Silva, ready to join Real Madrid.
This is the man who discovered:
• Igor Thiago
• Bryan Mbeumo
• Yoane Wissa
• Ivan Toney
• Ollie Watkins
• Neal Maupay
• Andre Gray
Bought for £28m, sold for £219m
Pep Guardiola: “I don’t take for granted, it’s so difficult [now to play out from the back], before they always allowed you to have two central defenders against a striker, or three against two. Now it’s not possible.
It will be the same at Elland Road, man marking. When we played at Newcastle it happened. I saw a few clips of Nottingham Forest with the new manager [Vitor Pereira]. Always it’s happened against Liverpool. That is the reality.
Most of the teams play that way. You have to adapt, have an alternative when that happens. An alternative is you have to play quicker up front, if you win that ball it’s a chance. We had an incredible five or six chances against Newcastle where we missed the last pass, when we can run.
When the team is brave to go one against one, if you can make some combinations to win that ball you can run. Saying that, it’s not easy because you can make a safer two metre pass than a more difficult thirty metre pass.
Always we try to find a way to not just use Erling or a striker in that position. We have to have more variation and unpredictability in our game to drop them and after that make another type of game.
It’s like this, defend so high man to man and then defend so, so deep in the box. There are not ‘middle blocks’ and there is not much process to do it for many, many teams. But we are working on it.”
🎥 https://t.co/fduqCQC6Cp
Elliott Anderson “stunned” 3 City players with that outside-foot pass.
Body orientation facing wide influencing:
• Foden not closing the center.
• Nunes pushing onto the LB.
• Dias holding instead of closing CHO.
Turned a 3v3 into a 2v1 in his favor
I've always been fascinated by De Zerbi.
Regardless of opinions about style, he's one of the very few genuine innovators within the Positionist paradigm.
His vision of football can be read as beautiful or dystopian; the desire to impose his interpretation of tempo is unrelenting.
Let me tell you something I am sure you didnt know about Brentford. They have not sacked a coach in the last 11 years and their last 4 coaches have been internally recruited.
Do you doubt me? Here you go
1) Lee Carsley (interim, September–November 2015) — Stepped up from managing the Development Squad to steady the ship after Marinus Dijkhuizen's sacking; his brief caretaker stint paved the way for a more permanent internal shift, embodying Brentford's preference for promoting from within rather than panicking with outsiders.
2) Dean Smith (November 2015–October 2018) — was promoted after Carsley's interim role; he delivered three consecutive top-10 Championship finishes, building a foundation of stability before leaving for Aston Villa. Of course, this is yet another example of Brentford trusting club insiders over external hires.
3) Thomas Frank (October 2018–June 2025) — Elevated from assistant head coach under Smith; he masterminded Brentford's long-awaited promotion to the Premier League in 2021 via the play-off final, then kept them competitive in the top flight for years—proving internal promotions can lead to sustained success.
4) Keith Andrews (June 2025–present) — The latest in the chain: promoted from set-piece coach (joined July 2024) after Frank's move to Tottenham; with no prior head coach experience, his seamless transition keeps the data-driven culture intact, making Brentford's last four head coaches.
This internal recruitment strategy extends beyond coaching to the entire club structure, making Brentford one of the best-run in the world. Owner Matthew Benham's data-driven philosophy—scouting 85,000+ players globally, narrowing to undervalued gems via a rigorous seven-stage process—ensures buys are low, sells high, and fits tactical needs perfectly. Coaches like Frank (and now Andrews) are deeply involved in final decisions, blending analytics with on-pitch insight for seamless integration.Promoting from within minimizes disruption: Andrews already knew the philosophy, players, and culture after a year as set-piece specialist. This continuity; avoiding rebuilds that plague bigger clubs; fuels consistent overperformance on modest budgets. When utilised properly, such recruitment isn't just efficient; it's a competitive edge that turns mid-table minnows into sustained threats, proving brains beat big spending every time.
In my books, they are one of the best run clubs in the world.
The best attacking play is full of surprise, misdirection, improvisation, elegance and collaborative spontaneity.
All of these aspects are generally appreciated as aesthetically pleasing.
Aesthetics and functionality are not separate things.
‘Safe turns’ are a core skill - the ability to perceive the movement of your opponent & time your turn safely against their flow - using their momentum against them while screening the ball is essential if you want to retain possession & turn to play forward
It’s very interesting to use this lens when watching games.
Which players/teams are making shadow plays, how, where, between who?
What advantages are gained, what potentials are missed?
A train of thought about classical coaching, modern coaching and future coaching: Oldschool coaching is mostly individual improvement in specific situations. Which is a logical approach, but it's ineffective because in football there are so many situations with so many options.
Formations, like Glasner is implying, are simply just numbers on a sheet. It’s all about the characteristics of the players — I remember him saying he plays 3-4-3 because it suits the squad. It’s not even his favourite formation. Everyone attacks with 5+ on the last line and a 3-1/3-2/2-2 rest defence behind that, it all comes down to the characteristics and whether they suit the roles their given. Palace’s players do.
This is Bielsa's gift: The way he can describe things that happen naturally on the pitch, things you might've felt a thousand times, but never truly thought about it until he explains it out. Simply incredible.
I love finding out, or rather realizing psychological influences like this. This was something I've thought about for while, but couldn't put it into words like this.
Dear young athletes- keep this photo saved to your phone and show the next person who says you have to focus on one sport in HS.
The amount of kids I’ve heard say “I can’t risk getting hurt” or “my coach won’t let me” drives me crazy.
You get one shot to be a HS athlete.
@YouthInc
What happens when you analyse a tactical system from a different perspective?
Wirtz turns into a left back?
Woltemade's 9 gets flipped to become a 6?
Numbers lose their meanings.
It's all possible in the context of Julian Nagelsmann's extreme diagonality 🇩🇪↗️↘️↙️↖️
Look how Ronaldo is constantly adjusting his position, signalling for the aerial ball, reading every move before the bicycle kick even happens. Every goal he scores in the box comes from that peak positioning IQ. It’s not luck.. give this man his flowers🐐
Goalkeepers react to queues from the player’s body, even before the ball is kicked
It’s what gives them a chance of getting to to the ball with enough time to save it
The ball rebounding of arbitrary objects does NOT facilitate this
People will say it benefits physical reaction / reflexes but detached from these queues, I doubt it moves the needle
They are not reacting to stimulus that GKs need to react to