“What, then, is going on in there during a game? What are the thought processes that made Busquets better? “You have to control everything: it’s like chess. Do your opponents play with two forwards? A second striker? A line of three? You have to know where the spaces are, how to generate them. If your full-back attacks, who has to take that position? You have to know that, know who’s there. I calculate everything: where my teammates are, where are the opponents, what can happen in a play. A loose ball, a rebound.
“It’s learned, studied: you do it lots of times, and once you have it all under control it becomes intuitive. But to start with you have to know where everything is, what can happen. I would have to be alert to everything; that’s your role. From in there you give a lot of orders. In fact, lots of coaches would tell me that after a certain point in the game I should be alert to the bench so that they could tell me what the changes and substitutions are so I can apply those. You’re always thinking. The tiredness is more mental than physical.””
Source: The Guardian