Zone Press: Pressing the box

This press’ weak side if the freedom that the opposition has to move around, as we are just occupying spaces and zones regarding the ball, we are not focus too much on players which can move and receive the ball.
Anyway, if our press is organized properly, every time that a player receives the ball, there should be players surrounding him, close enough to put pressure as fast as possible.

The main place where the opposition is going to get the ball, is inside the “box”.
We call “box” to the space created between our player inside our press.
For more information on what the box is, check our old post Post: ¿Qué es el box?

In this kind of press it’s very common for the opposition to pass into the box.
As we said before, the main thing to look, is that our box is as small as possible.
Why? Because the smaller the box, the closer we’ll be to put pressure on players.
The efficiency of a defensive system is measured by the time we give to opposition to think on the ball.
As we showed on an older post, many times a team will play in the box just to get people together, get the ball away and use the created space somewhere else. This is the reason why we need to be quick, not only to press the box, but also to get back in original positions once the ball is out.

When we press the box, there are two players which will have very important tasks:

Firstly, player 1, behind the receiving player must be one of the firsts to put get involved, because, in case he doesn’t, the rival player will turn and attack forward. This wouls be the worst outcome for our press.
Secondly, player 2, the outside forward is very important as well. When we press the box, we are always leaving open the outside defenders, which could be dangerous receivers. Our forward is in charge of putting pressure and, at the same time, make sure that his defender isn’t able to get the ball.
These 2 of our players are in charge of holding the receiver: Their main task isn’t to tackle.
If they hold him properly, our other players coming can try to tackle, because, in case they miss, our defensive system still won’t be beaten.

In this video we can see a clear example, where Belgium is zone pressing but makes a mistake when the ball gets in the box: The left forward doesn’t run back to cut the passing line with the outside defender. The aussies realiza this and easily break the whole press.

This is a good example to show that, when only one player misses his task, our whole defensive system can fail.