In a Champions League match in 2015, Bayern Munich manager Pep Guardiola surprised everyone when he opened play by having his club mark Barcelona — and its brilliant strikers Messi, Neymar and Suarez — in a man-to-man defensive alignment all over the pitch. Sky Sports analyst Gary Neville went on a long-winded speech about how unconventional this tactic was, a point driven home when the television camera panned wide to show the full alignment at once.
Among the viewers was David Powderly, then a coach of the under-14 team in the development program of Charlton Athletic FC, who wanted to recreate that overhead view in his training sessions.