Overloads

An overload is a numbers game: more of your players than theirs in one part of the pitch. Two against one means somebody is free, and a free player can receive, turn and pass before a defender arrives. Managers build overloads on purpose, by sending extra players to the area where they want to attack.

Try itFocus play · one slider

Focus playCentre

Players in the zone

2v1

Counting in a zone

Take your 4-3-3 with the ball on the right of midfield, against a 4-4-2 that reacts to your players. Draw a box around the area near the ball and count shirts. With a balanced plan, focusing play through the centre, the lab finds 2 of your players against 1 of theirs.

Diagram4-3-3 vs 4-4-2

Now tell the team to focus play down the right. More of your players drift towards the ball, but the other team is not standing still. They slide a midfielder across too, so in this example the count becomes 3 against 2. You still have a spare player, only one.

Send your right-back forward as well and the zone tips further, to 4 against 2. Now there are two free players near the ball, and the defence cannot cover both.

Diagram4-3-3 vs 4-4-2

Where the extra players come from

Players do not appear from nowhere. Every one you add to the zone has left a space somewhere else. A right-back high up the pitch is not behind the ball. Lose it, and the other team can break into the grass that player left.

The same logic works in reverse. Focus play down the left and, in this example, the zone on the right becomes 1 against 2. The numbers you gain on one side are numbers you give away on the other.

That is the trade every overload asks for. You win one area by weakening another, so the extra player has to be used before the defence slides over to cancel it out. The lab counts bodies in the zone. It cannot tell you whether the pass to the free player arrives in time; that part belongs to the players.

In the lab below, you will choose where to focus play and who to push forward, then count the result inside the marked zone.