One of the most important factors for winning football matches is to score goals. At the field level, one important attack strategy is to use the gap between the opposing defender (DF) and midfielder (MF) (DFMF gap). An attack strategy using the DF-MF gap is one of the challenges of Japanese football, but little research on this strategy has been done and its effectiveness is currently unknown. In the present study, therefore, using notational game performance analysis, we aimed to clarify the effectiveness of attacks using the DF-MF gap, and the characteristics of this strategy in the J League (JL) and the German Bundesliga (BL). The sample consisted of a total of 20 games: 10 in the JL (2015 season) and 10 in the BL (2015/2016 season). For statistical analysis, independent t test and chi-squared tests were conducted. In both the JL and BL, it was observed that for attacks using the DF–MF gap, the frequencies of shots, penalty area intrusions, and scoring were higher than for side attacks, suggesting that attacks using the DF–MF gap were more effective. Furthermore, a lower ratio of attacks using the DF-MF gap was observed in the JL than in the BL. Also, the success rate of play in the DF-MF gap and the occurrence rate of play in a “forward” direction was significantly lower for the JL than for the BL. These observations suggest that the difference between the JL and BL lies in the frequency of attacks using the DF–MF gap and in play within it. One of the challenges for the JL is to increase the frequency of play that carries the ball forward into the DF–MF gap without losing possession, in order to increase the occurrence rate of play in that area, and eventually the success rate of attacks using the DF–MF gap.

This research aims to relativize the sports industry with contemporary society, with its continually-increasing pressures from the state and capital, through an analysis of German sports based on Habermas’ typology of publicness.

Habermas, insisted that the realization of the democratic state relies on the function of public discourse within the public sphere, sees civic public sphere of the late 18th century as its model. The clubs responsible for literary and artistic publicness (Verein) created “places for equality and public debate practice.” The bourgeoisie, the “debating masses,” with the backing of a spirituality that came from the intimate sphere that is the household, planted the seeds of critical publicness and political publicness against the public authority that regulated commodity trade, thus forming a unique public sphere within civil society (bürgerliche Gesellschaft). Calisthenics and sports in 19th century Germany also spread through their support by clubs that acted as “places for equality and public debate practice.”

However, there was a structural shift from critical publicness to receptive publicness as the 19th century wore on, and German football clubs also became incorporated into state and corporate advertising. A shift back to critical publicness happened in the second half of the 20th century, which is when Habermas recognized the potential of sports clubs that supported the new civil society (Zivilgesellschaft). Their dialogue with their Nazi and commercialism past gained energy from a system where the administration, corporations, and local residents negotiated centered on the non-profit registered associations (eingetragener Verein) that originated in these clubs. Even today, as the pressure of capitalism increases, an arena where receptive publicness and critical publicness struggle for supremacy is being formed in the Bundesliga.