If the goal is to win trophies, you do not have to play out from the back, you do not have to be pragmatic, and you do not have to play positional football. There is no one correct way to play football.

There are two extremes.

On one side, you have the teams conforming to the meta tactic. The team that is winning now, or a set of teams dominating the league, determines what the meta is. The quality of their players will determine how high the teams that are conforming will finish in the table, and for most, the quality will not be high enough to beat the teams that are determining what the meta is.

On the other side, you have a minority of teams experimenting. The black sheep. They think oppositely to the rest. That is, in my opinion, the only way to surprise people and to actually compete for titles as a team with lower-quality players. In the words of Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou, “I always win in my second season.” How does he win? He doesn’t follow the crowd.

Those experiments either fail spectacularly or they become unstoppable because the rest are only going to face that black sheep twice a season. The teams conforming to the meta have a plan to face other meta teams, but they need to create a specific tactic for the black sheep. They become harder to beat.

An elite manager, for me, is one who can play to both sides. Conform to the meta and reinvent their team’s play to be a black sheep. Surprise people; they must win matches, then win titles, and repeat.

We should want those that aren’t afraid to be different.