There are various individual skills and team tactics needed to play effective Association football. Football is in theory a very simple game, as illustrated by Kevin Keegan's famous assertion that his tactics for winning a match were to "score more goals than the opposition". However, well-organised and well-prepared teams are often seen beating teams with supposedly more skilled players, even over time.

Football tactics diverges from that of many other sports because the sport has a large degree of continuous action (i.e. it is not divided into single plays, as in American football, or points, as in tennis)