Twelve situations, two calls each

Each situation is a moment a manager actually faces: a lead to protect, a press being played around, a goalkeeper who likes it short. Both answers are sensible, and neither is the clever one. Every call moves you a step on the board, but the board stays hidden until the last answer, so there is nothing to play towards. Previous situation and Next situation let you step back through your calls and change any of them.

The board

Left to right runs from direct to control: how much a side keeps the ball and how rarely it goes long. Bottom to top runs from deep block to high press: how many passes a side lets opponents make before it wins the ball in the middle or final third. Every dot is a real club in a real season, placed by its own numbers against the rest of its league that year. By that measure, Bielsa’s Leeds let opponents make fewer passes per defensive action than any other 2020/21 Premier League side and Moyes’s West Ham allowed the most, which is why they sit near opposite edges. Arteta’s Arsenal appears twice: in 2020/21 it sits below the line with the deep sides, and by 2022/23 it has climbed to the middle. Simeone’s Atlético lands close to the centre spot in all six seasons, middle of La Liga for both possession and pressing every year, which says as much about what two numbers can miss as it does about Atlético.

Your nearest team-seasons

The three dots closest to you are joined to your marker and named underneath, each with a line on where it differs from you: whether it presses higher or sits deeper, and whether it keeps the ball longer or goes forward sooner. On a narrow screen only those three are labelled; tap any other dot to name it and see the same comparison.

What pulled you there

The dotted line on the board is your route, one step per answer, starting from the centre circle where an average side would sit. Underneath, the answers that pushed you furthest in your final direction are written out, so you can see which calls made the difference and change one to see where else you might land.

Where the positions come from

The team positions use season statistics for the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1 from 2017/18 to 2022/23, archived from FBref. The sides on the board were picked after every club in those seasons had been placed, so a famous name only appears where its numbers put it. The board compares how you would set a team up with how these teams played. It is not a measure of coaching ability.