Elite Football and the Cult of Safety: When Defense Becomes Religion

Minute 88, the score is 0-0, and a team that Asian media calls a 'tactical master' has the ball in midfield. Three opposing players drop back and build a wall. And the player on the ball — the highest-paid man on the pitch — passes sideways. The stands fall silent. The commentator whispers: 'They are controlling the game.' I sit in the stands and write one line in my notebook: 'This is not control. This is a peace negotiation between two fears.'

The whole world praises good defending; I only see a team hiding behind fear.

I have watched elite football for more than fifty years, and I have learned one thing: when a major tournament reaches the knockout stage, the average number of goals per match drops systematically. At the 2026 World Cup, the group stage produced about 2.5 goals per match, but from the round of 16 onward that figure fell below 2.3. At Euro 2026, many knockout matches ended 1-0 or were decided on penalties. This is not coincidence. It is a choice.

Football is the only thing I know where people worship safety as a feat.

Context: the dogma of 'not losing is better'

Look at how the media builds its stories. A team that defends deep, floods bodies behind the ball, and hoofs it clear — and is called 'brave', 'disciplined', 'tactically mature'. A team that dares to push high, dares to take risks, and loses 1-2 — and is called 'naive', 'inexperienced'. This way of judging completely inverts the true value of the match. It rewards fear and punishes courage.

I have written about this for three decades in Tokyo. In 2026, when France beat Belgium 1-0 in the World Cup semi-final, the entire Asian press corps hailed Didier Deschamps as a tactical genius. I sat at Luzhniki, immediately called a data analyst in Brussels, and within three hours published a piece with a number that made many people uncomfortable: France's expected goals (xG) was only 0.8, while Belgium's was 2.1. The winner was not the better team. The winner was the team that took fewer risks and got lucky.

That was the first lesson: results are not proof of process. But the media lives on results, because results are easy to tell as stories.

In 2026, I watched Denmark reach the Euro semi-final after Christian Eriksen's tragedy. The whole world wrote about a 'fairy tale'. I wrote something different: Denmark went deep because nobody wanted to play them. Teams feared facing a collective playing for spirit, so they chose to defend, and that very choice handed Denmark control of the match. Three European coaches later confirmed to me privately that this hypothesis was partly right.

Core analysis: what the data says about the wave of defending

Let us get into the numbers. In modern football, three metrics expose the truth that the scoreline hides: xG (chance quality), PPDA (passes allowed per defensive action), and the number of high presses in the opponent's final third.

When a team lowers its PPDA — meaning less pressing, a deeper block — it reduces the risk of being cut open. But it also reduces its own xG. That is a trade-off, not a philosophy. And in many knockout matches, that trade-off is sold to the audience as 'tactical class'.

I spent four months in Osaka during the 2026 season that was wiped out by COVID-19. The 2026 season was wiped out, but I kept my bet on a second-tier club. I followed Cerezo Osaka, recording how they shifted to online training with GPS data from smart vests, and how coach Miguel Ángel Lotina completely changed the training plan. When I wrote that Cerezo would win once the ball rolled again, readers laughed. When the J.League restarted in July, Cerezo won six straight matches and climbed to second place.

What I learned was not 'good defending'. What I learned was: a team willing to change its process will beat a team that only knows how to protect a result. Cerezo did not defend to avoid losing. They restructured to attack better.

By contrast, look at the return of the back-three trend. The media calls it 'tactical evolution'. I call it a stampede. When a coach switches from a back four to a back five, in most cases it is not because he has found a new attacking system, but because his back four was just cut open and he needs an extra body to hide the hole. Three centre-backs are not an idea. They are a blanket.

There is a striking paradox: the very data departments — the weapon I use to break consensus — sometimes become a tool for justifying caution. When a coach explains that he chose to defend because 'the model shows high risk', he is not citing data to find the truth, but to protect his job. Data becomes a shield of responsibility.

Look at the numbers in domestic leagues. In many top European football nations, the average goals per match has declined slightly over the past decade, while the number of matches with fewer than three goals has risen. The biggest clubs, the ones with the most expensive attackers, are the ones playing safest. This is money betraying the audience.

The irony is that it is the small clubs in the second tiers, where there is nothing to protect, that often play the most honest football. There, people bet on process, not on preserving reputation. That is why I always return to the forgotten leagues.

Contrarian view: where I might be wrong

I have to be honest. There is an argument against me, and it is strong.

First, massed defending may be the only choice for the weaker team. A club with a budget one-tenth of its opponent's that dares to push high will be crushed. For them, 'not losing is better' is not cowardice; it is mathematics. I was too quick to call all caution fear.

Second, xG data is imperfect. It measures chance quality based on location and shot type, but it cannot measure psychological pressure, nor a team deliberately ceding territory before striking at minute 85. Some teams defend like a trap, not like a bunker.

Third — and this is what I question most in myself — contrarian thinking can become an addiction. When I was thrown out of a press conference in Tokyo, my question stayed on the table. In 2026, after Japan lost 0-2 to Syria in a World Cup qualifier, I stood up in Saitama and asked the head coach directly: 'Do you know you are destroying twenty years of Japanese attacking football?' He walked out mid-session. I was warned, but the clip spread with two million views, and a week later a former Japan international emailed me revealing that the squad was split over tactics.

But I also know: if I only flip views to cause a stir, I become a noise-maker. The difference between a critic and a troublemaker is this: a critic offers verifiable numbers; a troublemaker offers only emotion.

Conclusion: a verifiable prediction

People ask why, at 68, I still write as if it were the end of the world. I just smile. I write because I believe audiences deserve to watch football, not a negotiation game.

My prediction for the coming major-tournament cycle: the champion will not be the best defensive team, but the team willing to take risks at the right moment. Watch the xG of the semi-finalists. If the eventual champion has a lower average xG per match than their direct opponents, then elite football is still worshipping fear — and I will write about it again, even if I am thrown out of the press room for the fourth time.

My question is not who wins. My question is: how many more 0-0 draws do we want to watch before we admit that safety is not a feat?