Several Serie A teams are increasingly encountering difficulties when initiating build-up play from the goalkeeper under organized pressure.
Build-up from the back has become a default phase in modern Italian football, with goalkeepers routinely involved in the first line of possession. However, when opposition pressing structures are well-timed and compact, this phase often slows progression rather than facilitating it. Instead of creating positional advantages, teams risk compressing their own structure, limiting passing angles and delaying access to midfield zones.
In these situations, the issue is not technical execution alone, but the rigidity of the build-up logic, where teams persist with predefined circulation patterns even when contextual conditions are unfavorable.
The growing difficulty in progressing from the goalkeeper highlights a broader structural challenge: build-up phases must incorporate adaptive decision-making, not just technical repetition. When early progression lanes are blocked, teams that lack alternative release mechanisms, such as earlier midfield support, temporary asymmetry, or direct phase variation, become predictable and vulnerable to pressure.
Rather than abandoning build-up from the back, the implication is that Serie A teams need to refine phase flexibility, allowing goalkeepers and defenders to adjust progression choices dynamically based on opposition behavior. The effectiveness of possession-based systems increasingly depends on their ability to switch tempo and structure before pressure fully stabilizes.