The best pressing trigger is a defender's first touch

Teams still press on the backpass, a signal opponents have learned to fake, when the honest information is in how the ball is controlled.

The backpass has been the standard pressing trigger for two decades. Ball goes backwards, the front line goes forwards, everybody behind them steps up. It is easy to coach, easy to see from the bench, and increasingly easy to exploit.

The exploitation is deliberate now. Sides play the pass backwards specifically to invite the press, because a press that has committed is a press that has left space behind it, and one accurate ball over the top turns a defensive moment into a four against three. Goalkeepers are selected partly for their ability to make that pass under a charging forward. When the trigger is a known signal, the opponent controls when it fires.

What I would press on instead is a defender's first touch, and specifically its direction. A centre back who receives the ball and controls it towards his own goal, or across his body onto his weaker foot, has told you something he cannot fake, which is that he is not currently able to play forward. He has to take another touch to get his body right. That extra touch is the window, and it is roughly a second, which is the time a striker needs to cover eight metres.

The same read works for body shape before the ball arrives. A player who receives square on with his hips pointing at his own goalkeeper has already limited his options. A player who has opened up and can see the far touchline has not, and pressing him hard tends to end with the ball played through the space you just vacated.

This is harder to coach than the backpass rule, because it requires each pressing player to make an individual judgement in real time rather than to respond to a shared cue. It also has a failure mode. If one forward reads the touch as a trigger and the midfield behind him does not, the team is stretched and the press is worse than useless. That coordination cost is why the crude trigger survives.

The compromise most good sides have arrived at is to keep a simple cue for the collective shape and let one or two players hunt on the touch. That works if the hunters are chosen carefully.

A pressing scheme that fires on a signal the opponent can send whenever he likes is not a scheme. It is a habit, and habits get punished.