While man-marking can be heavily exploited by manipulation and positional rotations, zonal marking tactics ensure the players are always in the right position. Zonal marking is often used because of its flexibility and better control of space in certain zones. In zonal marking tactics, the whole team moves as a unit according to specific references.

This is not to be confused with man-marking which is also man-oriented but with each player having his own reference in the form of a specific target player he’s supposed to cover. Both focus on covering zones rather than players but the former has the ball as the reference for their movement while the latter uses the opposition player on the ball to coordinate the movement of the whole block. Two most prominent examples of zonal marking are position-oriented and man-oriented approaches. The very first zonal marking tactics were introduced as early as the Arrigo Sacchi days but were then perfected by modern coaches like José Mourinho and teams such as Atlético Madrid. Zonal marking is often considered as the more advanced and at times more effective approach as it requires a higher understanding of the concepts of time and space. Examples of zonal marking in footballĮven though most teams nowadays use a mixture between zonal marking and man-marking tactics, the former does seem to be a more widely spread defensive strategy. Similarly to man-marking, some other tactical terms that are closely connected to zonal marking are the defensive phase of play, compactness, shape, structure, philosophy and orientation.

Michael cox zonal marking website