If you had to pick one attacking action to build a team around, on pure expected-value grounds, it wouldn't be the through ball or the cross or the long shot. It'd be the low pass backwards from near the byline into the area around the penalty spot.
The cutback. It's not glamorous and it doesn't get its own name in most tactical discussions, but the chances it produces are among the best available in open play.
Why it works so well
The mechanics are worth spelling out because they explain everything.
When the ball reaches the byline, every defender in the box is facing his own goal. That's not a choice, it's forced — you have to track the ball and the ball is behind you. A defender facing his own goal cannot see runners arriving from midfield, cannot easily change direction, and cannot attack the ball without turning first.
Meanwhile the goalkeeper has committed to the near post, because a ball at the byline threatens to be crossed or shot from a tight angle. His position is now wrong for anything that comes back across.
So the pass arrives in a zone — roughly the penalty spot and the area just behind it — where there are no defenders facing the right way and where the keeper isn't. And the player receiving is running onto it, facing goal, with a clear sight.
That's about as good as an attacking situation gets without the ball actually being in the net.
The numbers
Chances created from cutbacks convert at rates substantially higher than chances from crosses, and the gap is large — depending on how you define the zones, cutback chances can be worth two or three times a conventional cross in expected-goal terms.
They're also more reliable than through balls, because the pass itself is easier. A through ball has to be threaded between defenders at exactly the right weight. A cutback is a square or backwards pass over a short distance into a zone that's empty by construction.
Low difficulty, high value. That combination is rare in football.
How teams manufacture the situation
The whole trick is getting somebody to the byline with the ball and their head up. There are a few standard routes.
The overlap. Winger comes inside, full-back runs outside him, receives in the channel and is at the byline. The most common version.
The underlap into the channel. A run between full-back and centre-back, usually by a midfielder, which arrives closer to goal than an overlap and produces an even better angle for the cutback.
The winger going outside. One-versus-one, beat the full-back on the outside, byline. Requires a genuine dribbler and it's the highest-variance route, but when it works the defence is completely unset.
The through ball into the corner of the box. A striker or winger running onto a pass into the space behind the full-back. Often looks like a wasted chance because the angle for a shot is bad, which is precisely why the cutback exists.
The runs that make it work
The pass is only half of it. There's a specific pattern of runs that a well-drilled team makes, and the good ones do it every time.
Somebody attacks the near post. He usually doesn't get the ball. His job is to occupy the nearest defender and the goalkeeper.
Somebody attacks the far post, for the same reason on the other side — and because occasionally the pass goes long and he finishes it.
And the actual target arrives at the penalty spot, late, from behind the ball. Late is the key word. If he's already there when the crosser looks up, he's marked. If he arrives as the pass is played, nobody has him.
The fourth runner, the one who separates very good teams from good ones, arrives at the top of the box for the pull-back version — the pass that comes back even further for a first-time shot from 18 yards. Lower conversion, but it's the option when the penalty spot is crowded.
Why it isn't universal
Here's the question that bothers me. If it's this valuable and this coachable, why doesn't every team do it constantly?
Partly because getting to the byline is hard against a well-organised defence, and modern defending is specifically designed to prevent it — deep blocks, full-backs who don't dive in, cover from midfielders. The situation is valuable precisely because it's difficult to reach.
Partly because it requires four players to make coordinated runs into the box, which means committing bodies forward, which means transition risk. Teams that are cautious about counter-attacks send fewer runners and the pattern breaks.
And partly, I suspect, because players instinctively want to shoot when they get to the byline. The angle is terrible and they shoot anyway, because they've run forty yards and the goal is right there. Coaching the discipline to look for the pass instead is a genuine behavioural challenge.
The defensive answer
Briefly, since it's instructive. The best defensive response isn't to defend the cutback — by the time it's played you've lost. It's to prevent the byline.
Which is why modern full-backs are coached to show wingers inside rather than outside, and why so many defences prioritise blocking the outside route above almost anything else. Forcing a winger inside gives up a shooting chance from a bad angle. Letting him outside gives up a cutback. That's not a close call.
The second layer is a defensive midfielder dropping to occupy the penalty spot zone specifically. Not marking anyone, just standing where the ball is going. It looks passive and it's one of the more valuable things a holding midfielder does.