The game is played where the players are. Sounds daft, doesn’t it? Sounds like gobbledegook. What’s with a statement like that? What does it mean?
Actually, it’s a phrase used by football men. You know, old football men, real football men. The types that roll their eyes a little at talk of xG and xP, and may grimace at the size of the new data analytics department and the hipsters therein. It means that your team will attempt to play in whatever part of the field they think is occupied by their best player. Where did the great Barcelona team play? They played where Lionel Messi was. If he went out wide, they tried to play there. If he was in the middle, they gravitated