PSG's Champions League run is making many people fall back in love with football. Luis Enrique has taken a group of largely unproven but technically gifted youngsters and turned them into a modern manager's nightmare.

Everyone has spoken at length about how great PSG are to watch, with their superb dribblers, direct football and proclivity for screamers, but the Parisians also happen to be superbly effective.

It is Enrique's unique blend of positional play and 'relationism' that are the cause of this,

Most people have heard of positional play - the principle popularised by Johan Cruyff and Pep Guardiola at Barcelona and used by Enrique in the first half of this season - but it is relationism that PSG have taken up with such enthusiasm in recent months.

Relationism places importance on allowing players to make decisions according to the current context of the game. That context derives from observations such as where a player's teammates are stood in a given moment, the unique skillset of the player currently in possession, or even the body language of the opponent - as well as every other piece of information a player has access to at that moment.

To a traditional, positionally-based defence, this relationist style is terrifying.

Playing The Odds

Football is, by nature, a high-variable game, so much so that most modern managers do their best to limit those variables as much as possible. Positional play does just that: the possessional dominance a positional side can achieve swings the pendulum of probability into their favour by simply reducing the chance of something random happening.

But rather than viewing variables as an obstacle, relationist football seeks to capitalise on the game's capacity for randomness. In theory, if every player has the freedom to think and move according to what they think gives their team the best chance of scoring, probabilities suddenly become uncontrollable for a positionally-based defence.

Think of it like a game of chess. Positional play is a mid-level robot able to achieve a 'safe' or 'good' move every time. Relationism is a frantic prodigy capable of 'perfect' moves perhaps amidst some 'poor' ones. The better the squad, the more 'perfect' moves they can achieve.

Relationism In Action

Enrique uses three forwards with no fixed positions, as well as offering license for his midfielders and full backs to push forward in the right moments.

Just Doué it. pic.twitter.com/yWO0xebueB

— Paris Saint-Germain (@PSG_English) April 9, 2025

The diverse skillsets of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Ousmane Dembele, Desire Doue and Bradley Barcola allow this to function to great effect. Each of these forwards are confident on the left, right or through the middle.

Khvicha Kvaratskhelia's heatmap vs Aston Villa in the Champions League quarter final first leg. Data from sofascore.com

In addition to this, both Achraf Hakimi and Nuno Mendes are two of the most technically complete full backs in world football - just look at how Mendes took his goal against Aston Villa.

PSG set a pattern of disrupting the positionally-focused and highly organised Villa backline through as many rotations as possible. And while there are many terms used to identify movements often seen in relationist football, it is the spontaneity of those movements that is arguably more important to understand.

Vitinha managed 164 touches in the first leg vs Aston Villa. The Portuguese' ability to set the tempo of a game is imperative to how Enrique wants to play. Data from sofascore.com

For those interested in learning more about relationist patterns, look up Jamie Hamilton. Hamilton is the coach who coined the term relationism in 2022, and has explored and written about a range of movements from 'toco y me voy' to 'the yo-yo'.

Positional Principles

Enrique may have injected his side with relationist ideas, but he utilises various positional principles to further enhance his team's effectiveness.

Joao Neves' performance against Aston Villa is a perfect case study of this. The Portuguese had clearly been instructed to latch himself onto Villa's last defender when the ball went wide, in order to push the Villa line back. He did this time and time again, to great effect - which in turn allowed PSG's forwards to interact freely with each other, without having to worry about maintaining a positional presence through the middle.

Joao Neves' heatmap from the Champions League quarter final first leg.

The Parisians are also positionally consistent with how they progress the ball into the final third. They repeatedly set out in a 3-2-5 to move the ball forward, playing passes quickly into the front five and initiating more freedom from there.

It truly is a remarkable sight to behold. The beautiful blend of freedom and individuality working with a thoroughly-planned structure to create edge-of-your-seat football. Better yet, edge-of-your-seat, productive football.

Its effectiveness means that every top club's coaching team will be looking in-depth at how they can implement elements of relationist football into their game - which may in turn, save our beautiful game from the monotony that has slipped into football in the past few years.