If you don’t know much about football, some of the terminology that is used can seem extremely confusing and as though it’s utter nonsense without the context to help explain it.
Even if you’ve grown up with football as a big part of your life, it is not out of the realms of the possible that a term gets used that you have a general sense of, but you aren’t totally clear about what it means.
One of the best examples of that might well be ‘in the channels’, which we all hear used by commentators and pundits whilst perhaps not being completely certain we know what they’re referring to.
The Vertical Channel
No, you don’t need to reach for your television remote if you hear someone talking about channels when you’re watching a football match. In essence, a football pitch has two types of channels for players to use: vertical and horizontal.
The vertical channel is the one that most people will understand reasonably easily, being the space between the full-back and the centre-back on their side of the pitch. This channel is most often exploited when the opposition is using a flat back four, giving attackers the chance to run into the space on a defender’s blindside and receive a pass.
The reasons it’s so easily exploited are that the full-back and the central defender won’t always know whose responsibility it is to pick the attacking player up, which becomes even more the case if there is a midfield runner coming in from deep.
If the defensive team concedes a goal, you will often see defenders pointing and shouting at one another, trying to make clear that they did not feel as though it was their responsibility to pick up the runner. Attackers look to exploit the area, as well as to cause confusion in the opposition defence, which will hopefully open up space for teammates.
The Horizontal Channel
It is fair to say that the horizontal channel is a little bit tougher to identify, but is also one that attackers will more commonly move into. If you can imagine a team playing a rigid 4-4-2 formation, it is easy to picture where the defensive quartet are likely to position themselves and how the midfield will be spread.
The horizontal channel is essentially the gaps that fit between these two sections of the team, where midfielders are reluctant to drop back, feeling as though it’s the defence’s duty to mind the space, and defences don’t want to push up and leave a gap behind.
Although the 4-4-2 formation isn’t in fashion as much anymore, there is still the ability for attacking players to take advantage of the horizontal channel. If the midfield drops back to take care of them, that can open up space for other members of their team, whilst if the defence pushes up then it can be much easier to play a ball over the top and into the space that’s been created.
Hitting this channel with a long ball from defence or even a team’s goalkeeper can cause the opposition players all sorts of problems, which is why managers will often choose to defend in a low block.