Blue Lock and Captain Tsubasa were right all along
It started with my second son’s team
My second son is in fourth grade, and he plays for a local soccer team. It’s technically a feeder club under a JFL organization, but for the younger age groups the priority is “just have fun.” They don’t teach much tactics.
If anything, the boys charge toward the goal with the energy of “I’ll dribble past everyone myself and score.” They fire off shots even from long range. It’s the primal soccer you see in Blue Lock, the fantasy soccer of Captain Tsubasa, played out in real life.
One day that team played a match against a certain local team. What surprised me was that the other team, despite being third graders, was running build-up play that even involved the goalkeeper. Everyone, including the keeper at the very back, connected passes to advance the ball. I found myself wondering whether kids this age could really do that.
Watching that match, I figured our team must look pretty childish by comparison.
An explanation from the coach
Some parent must have felt the same way and raised it with the coach. Some time later, our team’s coach gave us a chance to explain the development philosophy.
The gist was that they deliberately don’t cram in tactics during the younger years. “Look at the sixth graders,” he said. By sixth grade, both proper tactical understanding and individual technique should have developed, and what we’re building now is a step toward that point. It was a careful explanation.
It clicked into place for me. As a matter of sequencing, it made sense.
But in the rematch
Some time later, we had another practice match against that same opponent.
I’ll give away the result up front: they were disappointingly weak.
The pitch that day was quite narrow, due to venue constraints. I believe it was 5-a-side or 6-a-side, conditions close to futsal. The earlier match where they’d shown off proper build-up play had been on a wide 8-a-side pitch.
This difference seems to have mattered a great deal.
What happened the moment the space disappeared
On the narrow pitch, my son’s team was still playing its “everyone charge at the ball and the player” style of soccer. Unintentionally, this creates something close to a high press. For the kids on the other team, there was almost no moment where they could hold the ball calmly.
Build-up play, I think, only functions when there’s space. It works because the player receiving the pass has time and room. The moment that room disappears, a third grader’s footwork isn’t enough to carry the ball forward.
Wide pitch (space available)
Multiple passing lanes visible → build-up play works
Narrow pitch (space compressed)
Passing lanes disappear → build-up play stops functioning
When the pitch itself gets smaller
Attacking side
Defending side
Passing lane
Figure 1: When space is compressed, build-up play stops functioning
In principle, there seem to be only two ways to break through this situation.
- A big switch of play: send the ball in one go from the compressed side to the open far side
- Individual breakthrough: break down the situation alone through dribbling or body positioning
The kids on the opposing team didn’t seem to have been taught either of these. They could connect passes cleanly. But in a situation where they weren’t allowed to connect passes, they froze.
The idea of “the smell of a goal”
Even back when the opposing team was showing off proper soccer on the wide pitch, one thing bothered me.
For a team good at build-up play, carrying the ball up to just outside the opponent’s penalty area (the vital area) is easy. But from there, they keep circulating the ball all the same. As a result, there were many scenes where nobody broke down the vital area and no shot ever came.
My sons, on the other hand, all charge toward the goal, so paradoxically there’s always “the smell of a goal.” I spent a long stretch of my playing days as a defender, and what’s genuinely frightening for an opponent is the latter, without question.
Sterile possession Just circling in a C-shape outside the box
① ② ③ ④ Just circling in a C-shape. Never entering the box at all
Goal-oriented Breaking into the box to finish
Passes and runs both aimed into the box. Shots follow
Circulation of sideways passes
Forward drive toward goal
Shot
Figure 2: Sterile possession vs. goal-oriented play
Thinking through the example of Kaoru Mitoma
I want to connect this to adult soccer here. Watching Kaoru Mitoma’s matches, there’s something I’ve noticed.
The opposing defender can’t press Mitoma too aggressively. The moment he closes the distance, the risk of being beaten by a single touch shoots up. So he’s forced to hold back at a certain distance.
What does this mean? On the side where Mitoma is, the opponent can’t fully compress space. And if they can’t compress it, passing lanes open up, and space remains for other players to use.
In other words, the mere presence of a dribbler functions as a pressure device that buys the whole team time and space.
With a dribbler present, the opponent can’t compress space
← Center line
Dribbler
Defender
Zone where closing in gets you beaten
Near post
Far post
Center
Space
Defender can’t close in → passing lane remains → receivable in a dangerous area
Figure 3: A dribbler creates space for teammates
The concept of “qualitative superiority”
This idea has actually been put into words in modern soccer tactical theory. It’s a framework organized by Pep Guardiola and his mentor Juanma Lillo, describing three kinds of superiority the attacking side should create.
① Numerical superiority More teammates in a local area
3 vs. 2 → there’s always a free teammate
② Positional superiority Taking up structurally strong positions
Half-space
A “strong zone” that’s neither central nor wide
③ Qualitative superiority Placing a player who wins 1v1s
The defender can’t close the distance
Organized by Pep Guardiola / Juanma Lillo
Figure 4: Three kinds of superiority the attacking side should create
- Numerical superiority — a state where there are more teammates than opponents in a local area
- Positional superiority — occupying structurally strong positions, such as the half-space
- Qualitative superiority — placing a player who wins 1v1 duels into a matchup he can win
What the opposing team was teaching went as far as 1 and 2, but 3 seemed absent. The phenomenon of the opponent being unable to compress space when Mitoma is on the pitch is exactly the effect of 3.
The classic problem of “sterile possession”
The state of holding the ball without any smell of a goal is called, in tactical terminology, sterile possession.
This was a phenomenon flagged as a problem even in the late Guardiola-Barcelona era (around 2011-12). What moved toward a solution in the MSN era, when Messi, Neymar, and Suárez were all together, was largely, I think, the fact that they now had individuals who could supply qualitative superiority.
Behind the mainstreaming of gegenpressing, which Klopp perfected at Liverpool, in the latter half of the 2010s, there seems to have been a paradoxical view: a team that plays nothing but short-pass one-touch football is itself a device that invites pressing. A team that thinks only about circulating the ball cleanly tends to become an easy target for a team confident in its defense and running power, which can win it back with a high press and hit them with a short counter.
On teaching only build-up play
As a matter of youth development philosophy, this raises a somewhat tricky problem.
There’s a long-standing question about why Brazil keeps producing the strongest individual talents in the world. Messi (in his youth), Neymar, Ronaldinho, Coutinho. What they have in common is a background in futsal. A child raised in futsal, the ultimate compressed space, develops the ability to break down situations individually in tight spaces.
Spain’s La Masía, Barcelona’s youth academy, also thoroughly hones both rondo (passing in tight spaces) and individual technique.
A development approach that teaches only build-up play without developing the individual may be closer to imitating just one part of the original model. The higher the level, the more the opponent will inevitably compress space. If there’s no individual who can break through it at that point, possession stays sterile to the end.
Fantasy outstrips reality
Both Blue Lock and Captain Tsubasa are stories built around scoring goals through individual power. That might look like a value system at the opposite pole from modern positional play.
And yet, where modern tactical theory has ended up landing is close to the same conclusion: tactics can’t fully function without individuals who can supply qualitative superiority. Seen that way, the values these two works have depicted were, if anything, pointed in the right direction. The instincts of manga artists shouldn’t be underestimated.
The sight of my kids running toward the goal without having been taught any tactics certainly looks childish from the outside. But looking at where modern tactical theory has arrived, I find myself thinking that this primal impulse, too, may be part of a power that will eventually be needed.
As someone who has played soccer for a fairly long time, it was a small find that this observation connected my own sense of the game directly to the central argument of modern tactical theory.
This piece was drafted and directed by Kuzuryu, with the writing by AI.
References
- Jonathan Wilson, Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics
- Michael Cox, Zonal Marking: The Making of Modern European Football (Kindle edition)
- Lee Scott, The Guide to Positional Football: The Dominant Game Model Practiced by Pep Guardiola (Japanese edition, translated by Teppei Takano, supervised by Ayumu Ryuoka, Kanzen)
Originally published in Japanese at https://clazytech.com/2026/05/1593/. Translated with LLM assistance and reviewed before publication.