The worst man to win the ball back is the one who just gave it away

Counterpressing is sold as instant reaction, but the player closest to the turnover is usually the one least able to do anything about it.

He plays a bad pass, realises it immediately, and lunges. Everyone loves it. The commentary calls it desire. Half the time it is the thing that turns a lost ball into a goal, because he arrives off balance, from behind, at the wrong angle, and the opponent goes past him and now the counter has one fewer obstacle and a free man.

Think about the body positions at the moment a pass is lost. The passer has just released the ball. His weight is on the wrong foot, his momentum is forward or sideways, and his eyes have been on the intended receiver rather than on the man who intercepted. He is the closest player to the ball and the least prepared player on the pitch. Meanwhile the teammate eight yards away, who was not involved, is balanced, facing the right way, and can see the whole picture.

The best counterpressing teams understand this and organise around it. The nearest man to the loss is not automatically the presser. The nearest man who is oriented towards the ball is. The one who gave it away often has a different job, which is to occupy the passing lane behind the interceptor, cut off the outlet, and let somebody with a proper base do the tackling. That is much less satisfying and considerably more useful.

There is also a timing point that the five second cliche flattens. The window is not five seconds because a stopwatch says so. The window exists because the opponent who wins the ball is himself disorganised, facing his own goal, surrounded, without a settled shape to pass into. It closes the moment he completes one forward pass to a teammate who is facing the right way. Sometimes that takes six seconds. Sometimes it takes one and a half. Counting the seconds is coaching the symptom.

What actually predicts a successful counterpress is where your players were standing before you lost it, which brings you back to the boring truth that transition defending is a possession-phase problem wearing a costume.

So when you see a midfielder chase his own bad pass and dive in, do not applaud the effort.

Watch what his three nearest teammates did while he was making a show of himself.