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Understanding the Game: Overlapping

Since we’ve got a bit of time on our hands, we thought it would be a good time to relax, have a little fun and stretch out a bit with some posts beyond the usual recaps, preview and interviews. In our last Understanding the Game post, we went into the basic rules of the game and touched on formations and the offside rule. Here, we’ll go a little more in-depth on a particular tactical wrinkle that’s widespread in MLS today, overlapping the fullbacks.

Ten years ago, the most common formation to find soccer teams in was the 4-4-2.