Forget pressing. Stop worrying about the increased emphasis on the half half-spaces. Free eights? Pssh. Keepers comfortable with the ball at their feet? I'll pass. Center-backs who need to contribute to the attack and defend space rather than their own penalty area? Zzzzzzz. The death of the 4-4-2? The only thing dying here is me, from boredom.
While the sport has changed in all kinds of notable ways over the past 20 or so years, none of those obviously cherry-picked examples were as influential as the evolution of the fullback position. Nothing is new in this sport, but the current version of the trend began somewhere around the time Cafu and Roberto Carlos started playing together for Brazil in the late 1990s. It was then stamped into the historical record when Italy -- yes, Italy -- won the 2006 World Cup with Gianluca Zambrotta and Fabio Grosso blasting up and down the wings from deeper positions.
No longer does the international game create trends; it gets enveloped by them. But one simple way to understand the modern club game over the past 15 years is that the defining teams were the teams with the best attacking fullbacks.
At Barcelona, you had Jordi Alba on the left and Dani Alves on the right. At Real Madrid, it was Marcelo and Dani Carvajal. Bayern Munich had David Alaba and Phillip Lahm. Liverpool featured Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold. And after his first season in Manchester, Pep Guardiola realized he needed to get hip to the trend, too. City spent £118 million on fullbacks alone in the summer of 2018 and, well... you know how it's gone since then.
But then this season happened, and the rule turned inside out. Are you having a successful season? You must not be playing two attacking fullbacks at the same time. Are you going to leave the year with 30-something-fewer points than you had a year ago? Then you're a team coached by Jurgen Klopp, still featuring Robertson and Alexander-Arnold.
In fact, Liverpool's last two games suggest that even Klopp has realized the reality of soccer in 2023: you can't win with both of your fullbacks pushing high up the field.