The overlap survives because it is easy to teach, not because it works

Running outside a winger is the most rehearsed movement in football, and it is usually the less dangerous of the two options available.

Full back sprints past his winger on the touchline, gets to the byline, crosses. Everybody cheers. It is the most familiar picture in the sport and I have started to think it is mostly a way of making something happen when nothing better is available.

Consider what the overlap actually creates. The runner arrives in the widest, least valuable strip of the pitch, with the goal at an awful angle, and the ball has to be delivered across the face from a position where the defenders are all facing it and the attackers are all arriving blind. The pass that follows is the lowest percentage pass in regular use.

Now the underlap, the same full back running inside the winger into the channel between the opposing full back and centre back. The runner arrives closer to goal, in a lane where the ball can be squared rather than crossed, and the defence has a genuine problem, because the centre back who steps out to meet him opens the space the striker wants and the full back who follows him abandons the winger.

So why is the overlap everywhere and the underlap comparatively rare? Because the overlap is simple. The runner has a clear route, no traffic, no decisions, and the winger knows exactly where he is going. It can be drilled in an afternoon. The underlap requires the winger to hold his width and delay, the runner to time his arrival to a gap that only exists for a moment, and the striker to move away from the space he wants so somebody else can use it. Three synchronised judgements instead of one sprint.

There is also a safety argument that gets made quietly and is not stupid. If the underlapping run fails, your full back is caught infield and the counter goes down the flank he abandoned, which is the most dangerous turnover in the game. The overlap at least keeps him near his own touchline.

My complaint is not that teams overlap. It is that they overlap by default, as a first idea rather than a considered one, and that we describe an unsuccessful cross into a crowded box as attacking intent rather than as a failure of imagination.

The next time a team pumps in thirty crosses and scores none, do not blame the finishing.

Look at where the runners chose to go.