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Jamie Hamilton @stirling-j.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

Episode 4: Identity Crisis Available now. Listen, download and subscribe via the links below. Anyone can be part of The 3rd Circle 🤝 Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/0O83... Apple: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t... @martinrafelt.bsky.social

open.spotify.com

Episode 4: Identity Crisis

The 3rd Circle · Episode

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Jamie Hamilton @stirling-j.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

What has The White Stripe's 'Seven Nation Army' got to do with Positional Play? And, is it the greatest guitar riff ever? What links the ideas of Carlo Ancelotti and Carl Jung? Is Antonio Conte a radical futurist? This, and much more, in the latest episode of The 3rd Circle.

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Reposted by Jamie Hamilton

Alex Stewart @afhstewart.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

It remains wild to me how Pep is credited with so many tactical innovations that he simply wasn’t the first person to do. Or second or third. I get that Richards is a City stan and not the greatest football brain but it’s really revisionist nonsense

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Jamie Hamilton @stirling-j.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

🔬The 3rd Circle Podcast - New Episode Episode 2: Equilibrium is now available via the links in the post below. @martinrafelt.bsky.social and I lurch wildly from concept to concept as we struggle to maintain balance during our latest venture into The 3rd Circle...

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Jamie Hamilton @stirling-j.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

🚨🎙️The 3rd Circle Podcast Episode 1: In The Beginning, There Was Now is available now on Apple Podcasts. In this first full length episode, Martin and I sketch out some of the currents and forces that have shaped the game's recent tactical history... podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the…

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Jamie Hamilton @stirling-j.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

🚨🎙️The 3rd Circle podcast IS HERE!! I team up with @martinrafelt.bsky.social to explore the outer limits of the tactics-sphere. This is Episode Zero: Arrival Anyone can be a part of The 3rd Circle, so click the link and join us on this new footballing adventure... shows.acast.com/the-3rd-circle

shows.acast.com

The 3rd Circle

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Jamie Hamilton @stirling-j.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Top stuff from @thepuristfootball.bsky.social The best video tactics content around.

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Peet @goonerpeet.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Iraola: “We have to prepare [positional] patterns, but we cannot just prioritise them. If you can see that you don't have a teammate ahead, forget about the pattern, just drive the ball and try to force things to happen. I want him to attack first.” Dean Huijsen:

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The Purist @thepuristfootball.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

Lots of central options, could attack the box directly… …instinctively shuffles the ball wide.

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Jamie Hamilton @stirling-j.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

It’s interesting to consider to what degree the extreme Positionism of Conte helped Inzaghi implement his looser approach. The same base formation but radically increased autonomy for players to interpret concepts/movements/rotations etc. RDZ/Hurzeler perhaps a similar case?

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Jamie Hamilton @stirling-j.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

By abandoning traditional notions of positional structure teams can challenge man-markers more radically. Just how far are the defenders willing to travel with their marks? I think there are big advantages to be gained with more extreme density and movements in the ball-zone.

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Jamie Hamilton @stirling-j.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

In his recent article @jamiemkemp.bsky.social noted how Racing Santander's tendency to swarm together around the ball can cause confusion for defensive marking schemes. www.lapausa.digital/p/racing-hav...

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Jamie Hamilton @stirling-j.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Enjoyed this on the rise of man2man defence in Germany. In addition to positional rotations/tweaks and overloading build-ups described by Bergas I think Relationist proposals offer very relevant attacking solutions vs man2man defence. See Toni Gagliardi's writing on this.

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Jamie Hamilton @stirling-j.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

"Actors in the system follow simple rules, and improbable structures emerge from lower-level activities..."

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Jamie Hamilton @stirling-j.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Obviously humans aren't termites or ants, birds or fish. But processes by which groups of individual agents achieve highly complex, functional behaviour patterns by paying attention to a few simple environmental cues/triggers is extremely relevant to football tactics/coaching.

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Jamie Hamilton @stirling-j.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

"We [humans] are so dependent on centralized control of complex functions that it is sometimes impossible for us to understand how the same task could be accomplished by a distributed, noncentralized system".

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James Nalton @jdnalton.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

This is interesting. In this article for FotMob after last year's MLS Cup final, l compared Wilfried Nancy's Columbus Crew to Roberto De Zerbi's Brighton and Fernando Diniz's Fluminense www.fotmob.com/en-GB/topnew.... The "mix between position and relation" quote aligns with this.

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Jamie Hamilton @stirling-j.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

5 teams/coaches (no order) to keep an eye on if you’re interested in Relationism. Different methods but all with significant degrees of ball orientation in attack. -Malmö (Rydström) -Cruzeiro (Diniz) -Racing Santander (Jose Alberto) -Columbus Crew (Nancy) -Sydney FC (Talay)

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Kyle Boas @kyleboas.com · 21/11/2024

"It’s not that Racing can’t keep the ball — it’s that they won’t. As soon as they find their window to advance the play or make the forward pass that opens things up, they don’t hesitate." @lapausa.bsky.social Sounds like my kind of team. www.lapausa.digital/p/racing-hav...

lapausa.digital

Racing have Segunda in a stranglehold

José Alberto's side look different to your typical league leader, but their unique identity is what's helping to sustain their position.

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Reposted by Jamie Hamilton

David Beffert @dbeffert.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Love this quote from Wilfried Nancy on his style of play

“In the past I was more a positional play coach, so, ‘you have to stay in your position, the ball is going to come.’ Now I am in between a bit. So yes, we like to exploit the weak side. But I need only one guy on the weak side and where is the ball, I need a lot of density, many players close to each other to manipulate the opposition, to go towards the goal or to go around or to go in between, it depends. But this is a mix between position and relation.”

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