We are used to looking at the pitch horizontally, in a straight line, from back to front. Instead, if you look at how players organize on the diagonal, on an angle, you can spot why teams have trouble progressing past the opponent’s defense.

I’m going to show you two different ways a team could setup on the diagonal. You tell me which team looks the best setup to pass through the opponents defense.

Team A are setup on the diagonal. When the left-back receives the ball, and that player looks up, there’s three to four risky passing options, one safe backwards, and an open switch to the right-winger. Those risky passing options have other risky passing options in close proximity with open passing lanes into feet. They have created a web of passing lanes—not blocked off by the opposition because they are interconnected—that they can use to pass through the defense on the ground or with small flicks over defenders in the air.

Not using the diagonal is like cutting a steak with the grain: you’re following the meat’s fibers, so it stays chewy and tough. Cut against the grain on an angle and it falls apart—just like organizing on the diagonal cuts across a compact defense and makes progression quicker and easier.

Team B are setup to play around the outside. Every pass inside is blocked. They will need to dribble past defenders and use more pace, be more athletic to penetrate the opposition’s defense—something that is harder to maintain over a full match, especially if you don’t have players who can dribble past players or who are not athletic.

Most teams don’t show you to the inside. They force the pass wide to the outside, where they can trap, smother you, and block passing lanes into the center of the pitch. In most cases, the ball is passed to the left-back or left-winger.

If that man receiving the ball on the wing can consistently dribble past several defenders, congratulations; that is rare—you have a unicorn. Capture the unicorn and never let them go. But even if you have that one unicorn on the wing, or the more rare unicorn in the half-space, the midfielders will still need help.

If the man receiving the ball cannot dribble past several defenders, they’ll need players to bounce off of. Even the unicorns will benefit from that help. The goal, then, should be to have several players form ahead of that player receiving the ball to act as a wall to pass off of. A wall pass.

You’ve kicked a ball against a wall. Bounce the ball off the wall, receive, and keep the play moving.

When you setup to help the man receiving the ball on the diagonal, players ahead of the ball can stagger each wall. Play the ball into one wall, bounce it to the next wall, and the next wall in quick succession on the ground. That creates avenues through a compact press.

The second tool is the pass-and-move. Because players are in close proximity to each other, they can utilize quick flicks and dummies accompanied by movement to combine and move around the press. The staircase. Receive, pass, and then immediately move.

If you can’t dribble past the press, you need to use your teammates to pass through the press and progress by moving forward once you play the next pass. You need players in close proximity who are aware of where their teammates are and ready to offer that wall pass to work past a compact defense.

The free man on the opposite wing is always there as the safe positive outlet out of pressure. The pass back or sideways is the negative outlet. You want to progress forward.

This is the law of contraction and expansion. Allow the defense to contract on the ball on the wing, disrupt their shape by passing through them, and then play out with a switch to the free man on the opposite wing to force the opposition defense to expand. When they expand, then you attack their weak points with the ball side players joining the right-winger in attack.

When you don’t prioritize organizing on the diagonal, the opposition defense can use cover shadows to block passing lanes into the center of the pitch. That forces you to pass around the back, back and forth, around the horseshoe of the defense.

Working and organizing from the diagonal and creating overloads are great tools if you know how to use them. If the players are too static or they are not looking to play off of each other, if they are not looking to play those one-twos, it simply becomes a structure without a purpose. The attack lacks conviction.

In these examples, Team A is Germany, and Team B is Liverpool, but this could apply to any team. I spent Saturday watching each match, as I normally do, and focused my efforts on looking at the game from the diagonal—Who utilizes it. The teams that organized on the diagonal had an easier time passing through the opposition on the ground. You can see it in the goal highlights, but it’s more evident in open play before the highlight begins because they sometimes don’t show the build-up to the goal.

Diagonality is a subject that will be talked about more and more as time passes, as more people notice its potential to disrupt defenses. I’m late to the game. Three people I would recommend you follow for more related content are Jamie Hamilton (1) (2), Spielverlagerung (1), and JOGO FUNCIONAL (1) who are covering this concept extensively.

This is another way to change the way you look at football. It is important that we find different ways because when everyone sees the game the same way, teams end up playing the same way.