But Martínez’s Wigan were not your typical club. In 2010/11, they created goals in extremely unusual ways. They relied much less on traditional open-play goals than most and did not bother with anything that resembled a patient buildup. In half their games they failed to score from open play at all. When they did, they tended to come from what are known among analysts as “fast breaks”—lightning-quick counterattacks.6 And the rest of their goals came from free kicks. Their output in both these categories was exceptional. They scored twice as many goals on the break as the average side, and they
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