A pressing trigger should be a body, not a place on the pitch

Most sides press when the ball reaches a certain zone, when the useful signal is which way the receiving player is facing.

Ball goes to the left centre back. Press. That is what a lot of teams are actually taught, dressed up in more sophisticated language, and it is why so much pressing looks committed and achieves nothing.

Zone-based triggers are easy to communicate and easy to grade in review. They are also easy to beat, because the opposition can see them from the first ten minutes and will arrange for the ball to arrive in that zone with a player who is comfortable there and two support options already set. You have pressed into a prepared position. Congratulations.

The trigger worth using is the receiver's orientation at the moment the ball leaves the passer's foot. A player receiving with his hips pointing at his own goal cannot play forward without turning, and turning takes time you can take from him. A player receiving open, able to see the whole pitch, can beat your first presser with one pass and now you are short. Same zone, same pass, completely different situation, and only one of them is worth sprinting at.

Second signal, almost as good. A heavy first touch. Anything that moves the ball away from the receiving player's body buys about half a second, and half a second is roughly the difference between arriving in time and arriving as a decoration.

Coaching this is harder because it cannot be drawn on a board. The player has to read the picture live, which means he has to have his eyes up before the pass is played rather than after, and that scanning habit is trained in exercises that look nothing like pressing drills. It also means individual players will occasionally decline to press when the board says press, and a coach has to be willing to accept that rather than treating it as indiscipline.

Sides that get this right have a very distinctive rhythm. Long periods of apparent passivity, everybody watching, then three players arriving simultaneously and the ball is theirs in the final third. It looks like a switch being thrown. It is really eleven people agreeing on what they just saw.

Press the shoulders, not the postcode.