Blue Lock And Captain Tsubasa Were Right All Along

The trigger was my second son’s team

My second son is in the fourth grade and plays on a local soccer team. It’s technically a youth affiliate of the JFL, but for the younger age groups, the team prioritizes “just having fun.” They don’t teach much about tactics.

If anything, the boys charge toward the goal with the energy of “I’ll dribble past everyone myself and score.” Even from far out, they fire away with shots. It’s the primitive soccer of Blue Lock, or the fantasy soccer of Captain Tsubasa, played out in real life.

One day, this team played against a certain local team. What surprised me was that this other team, despite being third-graders, was doing build-up play that even involved the goalkeeper. Everyone, including the keeper at the very back, connected passes and advanced the ball together. It made me wonder: can kids this age really do that?

Watching that match, I thought our team must look pretty juvenile by comparison.

The coach’s briefing

Some parent must have felt the same way and brought it up with the coach, because later our team’s coach got the chance to explain the club’s development philosophy.

The main point was that tactics aren’t deliberately crammed into the kids during the younger age groups. “Look at the sixth graders,” he said. By sixth grade, both proper tactical understanding and individual skill should be developed, and the current approach is a building process toward that point. That was the careful explanation he gave.

Something clicked into place for me. As a matter of sequencing, it made sense.

But in the rematch

Some time later, we had another chance to play a practice match against that same opponent.

To give away the result first: they were disappointingly weak.

The pitch that day was quite small, due to venue constraints. I believe it was 5-a-side or 6-a-side, conditions close to futsal. The earlier match, where they had shown off proper build-up play, had been on a wide 8-a-side pitch.

That difference seems to have mattered a great deal.

What happened the moment the space disappeared

On the small pitch, our boys were still playing their “everyone charge at the ball and the man” style of soccer. Without intending to, this ends up creating something close to a high press. For the kids on the other team, there was almost no moment where they could calmly hold the ball.

Build-up play, I think, is a technique that only functions when there’s space. It works because the player receiving the pass has time and room. The instant that room disappears, third-grade-level ball skills aren’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 breaks down

When the pitch itself gets smaller

Attacking side

Defending side

Passing lane

Figure 1: When space is compressed, build-up play stops functioning

There seem to be, in principle, only two ways out of a situation like this.

1. A big switch of play: send the ball from the compressed side all the way to the open far side in one go
2. Individual breakthrough: break the deadlock alone, through dribbling or body positioning

The kids on the opposing team looked like they hadn’t 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 the goal”

Even back when the opposing team was showing off proper soccer on the wide pitch, there was one thing that bothered me.

For a team good at build-up play, carrying the ball up to the edge of 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 are many scenes where nobody breaks down the vital area, and no shot ever comes.

My boys, on the other hand, all charge toward the goal, so paradoxically there is always “the smell of the goal.” I spent a long time as a defender when I played myself, and what’s genuinely scary for the opponent is the latter.

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 and finishing

Both passes and runs go into the box. Ending in a shot

Circulation of sideways passes

Advance toward the goal

Shot

Figure 2: Sterile possession vs. goal-oriented play

Thinking through the example of Mitoma

Let me connect this to adult soccer. Watching Kaoru Mitoma play, there’s something I notice.

Opposing defenders can’t press him too hard. The moment they close the distance, the risk of being beaten by a single touch spikes sharply. So they’re forced to keep a certain distance and stay back.

What does this mean? On the side where Mitoma is, the opponent can’t fully compress the space. And if they can’t compress it, passing lanes open up, leaving space for other players to use.

In other words, the mere presence of a dribbler functions as a pressure device that gives the whole team time and space.

With a dribbler present, the opponent can’t compress

← Center line

Dribbler

Defender

Zone where closing in gets you beaten

Near side

Far side

Center

Space

Defender can’t close in → passing lane remains → the ball can be received in a dangerous area

Figure 3: A dribbler creates space for teammates

The concept of “qualitative superiority”

This idea has already been put into words in modern soccer tactical theory. It’s a framework organized by Pep Guardiola and his mentor figure Juanma Lillo, describing the three kinds of superiority the attacking side should create.

① Numerical superiority More teammates in a local area

3 vs. 2 → there is always a free teammate

② Positional superiority Taking up a structurally strong position

Half-space

A “strong zone” that is neither inside nor outside

③ Qualitative superiority Placing a player who can win 1-on-1

The defender can’t close the distance

Organized by Pep Guardiola / Juanma Lillo

Figure 4: The three kinds of superiority the attacking side should create

1. Numerical superiority — a state where a team has more players in a local area
2. Positional superiority — taking up a structurally strong position, such as the half-space
3. Qualitative superiority — placing a player who can win 1-on-1 into a matchup they can win

The opposing team’s coaching seemed to cover only 1 and 2, with nothing of 3. 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”

A state where a team holds the ball but there’s no smell of the goal is called, in tactical terminology, sterile possession.

This was a problem already being raised in the final days of Pep’s Barcelona (around 2011-12). What seems to have driven the resolution during the MSN era, when Messi, Neymar, and Suárez were all together, was largely the fact that the team had assembled “individuals who could supply qualitative superiority.”

Behind the mainstreaming of gegenpressing, which Klopp perfected at Liverpool in the latter half of the 2010s, there appears to have been a paradoxical view: a team that plays nothing but short passes is itself a device that invites pressing. A team that only thinks about circulating the ball cleanly tends to become an easy target for a team confident in its defense and stamina, one that wins the ball back with a high press and drives home a short counterattack.

On teaching only build-up play

As a matter of youth development theory, there’s a somewhat tricky point that emerges from this.

There’s a long-standing question of why Brazil keeps producing the strongest individual talents in the world. Messi (in his childhood), Neymar, Ronaldinho, Coutinho. What they have in common is a background in futsal. Futsal, the extreme case of compressed space, is where kids develop the ability to break down tight situations individually.

Spain’s La Masia (Barcelona’s youth academy) also thoroughly hones both rondos (passing drills in tight spaces) and individual technique.

Youth development that teaches only build-up play, without developing individual skill, might be closer to imitating just one part of the original model. The higher the level, the more the opponent will inevitably compress space. Without an individual capable of breaking that down, possession ends up staying sterile.

Imagination outdoes reality

Both Blue Lock and Captain Tsubasa are stories built around “scoring goals through individual power.” That might look like a set of values opposite to modern positional play.

And yet, where modern tactical theory has ultimately arrived is close to the same conclusion: without individuals who can supply qualitative superiority, tactics can never fully function. Seen that way, the values these two works have depicted were, if anything, pointing in the right direction. The instincts of manga artists shouldn’t be underestimated.

The sight of my kids running toward the goal without being taught any tactics certainly looks juvenile from the outside. But looking at where modern tactical theory has arrived, I find myself thinking that this primal impulse, too, might 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 directly to my own sense of the game and to the central argument of modern tactical theory.

This piece was originally conceived and directed by Kuzuryu, with the writing done by AI.

References

• Jonathan Wilson, Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics (Japanese translation by Keiko Noma, Chikuma Shobo) — Japanese translation of the original Inverting the Pyramid
• Michael Cox, Zonal Marking: The Making of Modern European Football (Kindle edition)
• Lee Scott, The Positional Football Textbook: The Dominant Game Model Practiced by Pep Guardiola (Japanese translation 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.