The 3rd Circle

The Champions League Final between PSG and Arsenal is billed as a clash of styles. But are these teams really as different as we think? Both Mikel Arteta and Luis Enrique have spoken about their dream of a system where all players are capable of playing everywhere. Despite significant divergence in their interpretations, the two Spanish coaches are united in their reverence for the most powerful t...

What have we just witnessed? PSG vs Bayern has caused a rupture in football's space-time continuum. It is as though a portal has been opened to another dimension, and a barrage of possible futures has come flooding in. But how much of this is real? Does this game really herald the coming of a new age? Or, is it a curious artefact that reflects our own biases back at us? Is Mikel Arteta the heir to...

Muffi Burhani makes his inaugural journey into The 3rd Circle to help Jamie and Gorka pick apart the remains of the EPL's showpiece face-off. No stone is left unturned as our crew sets controls for the heart of Manchester City vs Arsenal. Jamie voices his concerns about straight-line wingers, Muffi delves into the intentions behind Arteta's squad-building ethos, and Gorka makes numerous self-procl...

Jamie and Gorka shield their eyes from the alluring glare of objective football theory as they place aesthetics front and centre of our experience. Our hosts draw on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant to help explain why we can never establish contact with 'the-game-in-itself'. Can we ever analyse a game objectively? Does best practice exist? Why does any of this even matter? It's a philosophical dee...

It's a Friday the 13th round-up show as Gorka joins Jamie in The 3rd Circle to slash through the narrative machine. Why does Eberechi Eze look so out of sorts in Mikel Arteta's maximum efficiency super-system? Is Guillem Balague the true voice of European Football? Gorka picks through the shredded remains of Hansi Flick's Barcelona. And we marvel at the chaotic energy of Kim Hellberg's high-flying...

Jamie embarks on a solo mission into The 3rd Circle to weigh up the risk vs reward of central attacking. Why are coaches so hesitant about playing through defensive blocks? What are the assumptions influencing tactical thinking? Why are the strategies of Racing Santander and Middlesbrough important? As usual, Space is at the heart of it. But, are we controlling space, or is space controlling us?.....

This is the second part of Jamie and Martin's discussion around Karl Marius Aksum's implementation of a perception-based coaching methodology with Swedish champions Mjallby. Despite the meagre resources of the small fishing village, Mjallby were able to gain significant advantages as a result of Aksum's innovative techniques. But how does a concept as vague as 'perception' actually cash-out in the...

In David Cronenberg's body-horror cult classic "Scanners", members of the public with special psychic and telekinetic powers are recruited by weapons manufacturer ConSec. Jamie and Martin do not mention the Canadian director's 1981 film, but they do discuss scanning. Visual perception is the topic du jour in The 3rd Circle, and unlikely Swedish champions Mjallby AIF are our entry point. How did a...

In a recent post-match interview, Manchester City playmaker, Rayan Cherki, dared to let slip that he had gone against his manager's wishes. Pep Guardiola is arguably football's greatest ever tactical mastermind, but on this occasion, it appears that his plan was trumped by Cherki's intuition. What does this episode tell us about the relationship between Guardiola and Cherki? Is it a case of troubl...

The 3rd Circle shines its analytical lens on Glasgow to investigate some unusual happenings in the city's East End. Jamie and Gorka piece together the logic behind the playing style of Celtic's divisive new Head Coach, Wilfried Nancy. What is Nancy trying to do? Why is he trying to do it? What's he building in there? Can Nancy's odd mix of influences come together to create something beautiful? St...

Like Santa returning from his annual eleven-month luxury cruise, The 3rd Circle is back just in time for Christmas. And what better gift for the well-behaved kids of the tactics-sphere to receive than this brand new episode? While ruthless tyrants like Mr Claus delegate their elf workforce to trawl through billions of messages and make sense of endless communications, Jamie and Martin can afford n...

With the match analysis done and dusted, Jamie and Martin delve into the broader narratives surrounding the current footballing moment. The 3rd Circle cross references perspectives and reaction from Rio to Catalonia and wrestles with the complexities of the resultant parallax view. What are the limits of control in contemporary football coaching? How much freedom can be afforded to the players? Is...

Jamie and Martin delve into the details of Paris Saint-Germain's historic 5 - 0 victory over Inter in the 2025 Champions League Final in Munich. What were the tactical aspects that allowed arch-controller, Luis Enrique to claim his second Champions League trophy in such emphatic style? How and why did the game's tactical dynamics play out and how could Simone Inzaghi have responded to help his pla...

Jamie and Martin take The 3rd Circle's para-academic football research unit down to the deepest level of the game's atomic structure. Forget the God's Eye View, the truest creative forces are inside football's base matter. To investigate these most unstable of phenomena, our hosts channel the spirit of Dennis Quaid and fling themselves headfirst into football's Inner Space. What will reveal itself...

Jamie and Martin get meta in this episode of The 3rd Circle as our ever-intrepid hosts try to sketch a more detailed outline of the dominant tactical paradigm. Could it be that the reality we perceive as real is nothing more than a simulation? Are we all living in a box? If we are, what is its nature? Why are we living in it? How might we escape? The 3rd Circle offers up philosophical musings from...

It's who we are, mate. So, who are you? Who are we? Who made who? Who's next? In this episode, Jamie and Martin tackle one of the most prevalent concepts in contemporary football tactics - Identity. Ralf Rangnick proposed that coaches need a video of the perfect match in their heads, but is this really true? How do pre-defined, idealised models of play cash-out in the real world of playing and coa...

In perhaps their most complex assignment so far, Jamie and Martin enter The 3rd Circle to interrogate how Time constrains the reality in which football is played. Our hosts find themselves in a race against the clock and must channel their inner Dennis Bergkamps to find ways of progressing through a seemingly endless entanglement of temporal contradictions. So, if you're ready to find out how tedd...

William S Burroughs wrote that "'Never go too far in any direction' is the basic rule on which England is built". Could it be that Burroughs' observation is as pertinent now as it was back when it was written in 1975? Pep Guardiola has alluded to a break in the established norms of the modernised English game. But how can we understand the nature of the different forces that are pushing football b...

In this first full length excursion into The 3rd Circle, Jamie and Martin try to make sense of the complex tactical landscape that we find ourselves in today. Our hosts trawl through obscure old newspaper articles and match reports as they sketch out a timeline of football's recent tactical history. Pep Guardiola's 'superhuman' Barcelona, Carlo Ancelotti's Milanese diamond and Roger Schmidt's taur...