The analysis desk.
Longer-form breakdowns from the team behind FDVS — the tactical patterns behind the numbers, written out in full rather than compressed into a single stat.
Defensive structures have gotten more disciplined league-wide, and the numbers behind why are worth a proper look — read the full piece below.
What actually sets off a coordinated press — and why the moment just before it matters more than the press itself.
A look at the corner and free-kick patterns producing the highest conversion rates across covered leagues this season.
Tracking how a positional tweak on the flanks ended up reshaping matchups in the middle of the pitch.
The split-second decision after losing the ball, and what a team's choice reveals about their broader defensive identity.
How the modern version of the role differs from its 2010s predecessor, and why it's showing up in different data.
The structural difference between sides that convert a regained ball into danger and sides that just reset possession.
Why the low block is harder to break down than ever
A low block used to be a fallback — the shape a weaker team retreated into when they couldn't compete for the ball higher up the pitch. That's changing. Across the leagues FDVS tracks, teams sitting in a compact low block are conceding fewer clear chances than they were even two seasons ago, and the reason isn't that attacking football has gotten worse. It's that defending deep has gotten more precise.
The shape itself hasn't changed — the spacing has
A low block still looks like a low block: two banks of four (or five), condensed vertically, daring the opposition to work the ball into tight spaces. What's changed is the horizontal spacing within that shape. Teams are now compressing the width between their center-backs and fullbacks more aggressively than they used to, closing the half-space gaps that used to be the reliable way through — the corridor between a fullback and center-back that a well-timed run or a clever pass could exploit. That gap hasn't disappeared, but it's noticeably narrower across most of the sides we track, and the data shows fewer high-value chances originating from it than in previous seasons.
Why xG from inside the box has quietly dropped
The clearest signal in the numbers isn't shots — teams still generate plenty of shots against a low block. It's the quality of those shots. Average xG per shot against compact low-block defenses has trended down across multiple leagues, which tells you attacking teams are being forced into slightly worse positions before they pull the trigger, even when they're still getting shots off. A block that used to concede a clean sight of goal from twelve yards is now more often forcing a shot from a tighter angle or a yard or two further out — not a dramatic difference on any single shot, but a meaningful one compounded across a full match, and a full season.
Set pieces are where the block still leaks
If there's one place a well-organized low block is still genuinely vulnerable, it's set pieces — which is exactly why our Set Pieces axis exists as a separate rating rather than folding into Defense. A team can have an excellent low block in open play and a mediocre set-piece defense at the same time, and increasingly, that's precisely the split showing up in the data. Several of the highest-rated defensive sides we track by open-play Defense rating sit much closer to average on Set Pieces specifically — the discipline that keeps a low block tight during a passing sequence doesn't automatically transfer to marking assignments from a corner.
What's actually breaking blocks down now
Where teams are still generating high-quality chances against a well-organized low block, it's overwhelmingly coming from two sources: overloads created before the ball reaches the final third, and switches of play that arrive faster than the block can shift across. A low block's biggest weakness was never the shape itself — it's the moment of transition when the ball moves from one side of the pitch to the other faster than eleven players can realistically reposition. Teams generating the best numbers against deep blocks this season are the ones manufacturing exactly that scenario deliberately, rather than trying to pick a lock through the middle.
Why this shows up in Form before it shows up in results
A team getting genuinely better at defending deep doesn't always show it in the scoreline right away — a low block that's conceding lower-quality chances can still concede the odd well-taken one, and results can lag behind the underlying improvement by several matchdays. This is part of why our Form axis is weighted toward recent performance level rather than results alone, and why a team's Form rating can climb even through a run of mixed results, if what's actually happening defensively is improving underneath.
Is this trend likely to continue?
Tactical trends in football rarely move in one direction indefinitely — attacking sides adapt to whatever defensive innovation is working, and the low block's current effectiveness will likely draw a counter-response the same way pressing triggered a response from possession-based sides a decade ago. The teams generating success against low blocks through fast switches and pre-final-third overloads are, in effect, that counter-response already forming. Whether it fully catches up to the current defensive edge, or whether low blocks keep tightening faster than attacks can solve them, is exactly the kind of pattern we'll keep tracking across the season — and exactly the kind of shift that would show up first in the underlying data, well before it's obvious from the results alone. It's also exactly the kind of pattern this section of the site exists to cover — the numbers can tell you a low block's Defense rating is climbing, but a proper tactical read is what explains why.