Examples of pitch size impacting playing style and vice versa

Usually this takes the form of managers tinkering with the pitch dimensions in order to suit their style of play or stifle opponents. Here are some prominent examples of football pitch size impacting on a team’s playing style.

Stoke City

Another of the clubs with a 100-metre long pitch at the time was Stoke City, who also had one of the narrowest pitches in the top-flight at the time. When they were first promoted, the pitch was just 64 metres wide. If you consider that the Potters had initially made their mark in the Premier League with long throw-ins that landed at the heart of the opposition penalty area, and that then manager Tony Pulis favoured a rugged and direct style of play that unsettled ‘fancier’ opponents, the benefits of a smaller pitch immediately become clear.

In fact, Stoke had deliberately ‘shrunk’ their pitch down after securing promotion to the Premier League. The small playing surface was a deliberate tactic as they prepared to welcome more illustrious opponents to what was then the Britannia Stadium. 토토사이트 The Potters confirmed to local newspaper the Stoke Sentinel that the changes to the pitch dimensions had been made on Pulis’ instructions.

After qualifying for the Europa League just two years later, the Potters played with two separate visible pitch markings: the regular one for Premier League games and the extended ones for European games.

The Sentinel recalls on occasion on which right-back Ryan Shotton took a throw-in from the ‘wrong’ touchline. Pulis was not happy with the club’s acceptance of UEFA’s pitch size directives.

He said at the time: When Everton play in Europe they don’t extend their pitch and when Liverpool play in Europe they don’t extend theirs either, but we take notice of Europe and we have to do that. For the next league game we will have the pitch the same size as we’ve had it for the last three years in the Premier League. It’s a size that suits us as it lets us to play close together as a team, particularly for the wide players.

Premier League rules subsequently enforced a new minimum pitch size, so the playing surface increased to 100 metres x 66 metres. In 2017, then manager Mark Hughes pushed the dimensions out to 105 metres x 68 metres to suit a new expansive style of play, which didn’t pan out as hoped.

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