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I was never as good at playing certain sports as I would have liked, but I always find the tactical side of things interesting to learn about. Particularly tactics that are really innovative and change the way in the sport is played in some sense, or that are trying to do something unique.
What are some examples of this in whatever sports you follow?
In soccer/football, you had the system of Total Football based on a extremely fluid attacking mentality where any outfield player could swap with any other.
It aimed to exploit space in the opponents defence by pulling players out of position, and when they lost the ball the entire team pressed the ball as soon as possible to win it back:
It has roots in the 30s and 40s, but is really dated in the Ajax and Dutch National teams of the late 60s and early 70s. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a tactic more revolutionary than this, as although teams nowadays don't play total football in quite the same dramatic way the core principles have been hugely influential amongst several top coaches (mainly by way of Cruyff who evolved those principles in his Barcelona team in the 80s/90s) - so the ideas of creating overloads, exploiting space, counter-pressing etc. Pep Guardiola's teams are the best examples of this, but there are loads of modern coaches.
In basketball I have heard about Mike D'Antoni's Suns team in the early 2000s and how they had an influential 'sevens seconds or less' tactical style, I assume that must be influential on the way teams like the Warriors play 'small ball' today? But I don't know a whole lot about bball strategy, maybe someone could tell me more about that?
I'm sure there is myriad examples in american football too, and I'd be curious to hear about ice hockey which, tactics wise, I know literally zero about.
What are some examples of this in whatever sports you follow?
In soccer/football, you had the system of Total Football based on a extremely fluid attacking mentality where any outfield player could swap with any other.
It aimed to exploit space in the opponents defence by pulling players out of position, and when they lost the ball the entire team pressed the ball as soon as possible to win it back:
It has roots in the 30s and 40s, but is really dated in the Ajax and Dutch National teams of the late 60s and early 70s. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a tactic more revolutionary than this, as although teams nowadays don't play total football in quite the same dramatic way the core principles have been hugely influential amongst several top coaches (mainly by way of Cruyff who evolved those principles in his Barcelona team in the 80s/90s) - so the ideas of creating overloads, exploiting space, counter-pressing etc. Pep Guardiola's teams are the best examples of this, but there are loads of modern coaches.
In basketball I have heard about Mike D'Antoni's Suns team in the early 2000s and how they had an influential 'sevens seconds or less' tactical style, I assume that must be influential on the way teams like the Warriors play 'small ball' today? But I don't know a whole lot about bball strategy, maybe someone could tell me more about that?
I'm sure there is myriad examples in american football too, and I'd be curious to hear about ice hockey which, tactics wise, I know literally zero about.
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