We talk about football as we have learned to. And in terms of tactics,
this means shapes. From TV commentary or apps displaying line-ups in a formation,
to more complex looks at why a 4-3-3 can overwhelm a 4-4-2 in midfield,
a team’s formation is the simplest way to begin understanding how it approaches a game.
These numbers, of course, mean something. A 4-4-2 means four defenders,
two of them central and two wide, two wider players flanking two central midfielders,
and two forwards or strikers. A 4-3-3 starts the same, but has
three midfielders and three forwards, perhaps one striker and two wingers.
And it’s natural to break these numbers into something, and that something is positions.
These positions’ names, full back, midfielder, and so on, come from a basic description of where they
spend much of their time during a game, and some, like full back, show how the game has developed.
Originally full backs were the furthest back, defensively. As defences added first one player,
then two, they were shunted wider to the flanking defensive positions we know today.
But football has developed and become more tactically complex,
and our understanding has grown too. And positions, while still helpful in basic terms,
are actually obscuring our understanding of how teams and individuals play. But why?
Simply put, each position might ask players to perform a number of different functions.
These functions combine into a role.
Let’s look at a few examples. While Trent Alexander-Arnold, Matty Cash, and Takehiro
Tomiyasu are all right-backs, they do different things on the ball. In a low-block under sustained
pressure, they will be found in roughly the same part of the pitch, on the right-hand side of their
defensive third, so it makes sense to call them right backs. But their roles are very different.
With the ball, Alexander-Arnold is arguably Liverpool’s prime creative outlet, tasked with
overlapping, finding room in the right half space to bend in deeper crosses, and even tucking into
midfield sometimes. Cash is a more orthodox modern full-back, who gets deep into the opposition
half to take on the left back and get past to deliver crosses but stays tighter to the by-line.
And Tomiyasu sits much deeper, almost like a wide centre-back on the right to maintain a more solid
defensive shape while the Arsenal left back pushes higher. This creates an asymmetrical
attacking structure that sees Tomiyasu venture into attacking positions much more rarely.
In midfield, things are more confusing. While Wyscout or FBref will divide
players up into defence, midfield, and forwards for ease, no one would actually say that Rodri
and Kevin De Bruyne have the same roles or are the same type of player. And while it’s
common to find people referring to a defensive midfielder, this might mean a central midfielder
in a two who sits back deeper and has better tackling numbers, for example Wilfried Ndidi,
or a creative player who plays close to the centre backs and who is shielded by two ball winners,
like Andrea Pirlo at AC Milan. Same ‘position’, totally different roles.
And up front, strikers have different roles too.
Ellen White tends to play right on the shoulder of the centre backs, using her strength and movement
to find space in crowded areas to score predatory goals in the box as her team’s focal point.
Vivienne Miedema can do this, but also drops off a lot to play almost as a second striker,
stroking through balls along the ground for others to run onto. And Sam Kerr likes to pull
into wide areas, or make curved runs through the space between full back and centre back,
exploiting space in behind with her pace and anticipation. Again, all would be classified
as centre forwards, but how they play and how they score most of their goals varies widely.
The reason for this is obvious: different players are good at different things. But,
we also need to find a simple way of discerning roughly between different groups on the pitch
so that when we talk about football, it’s not needlessly complex and doesn’t
obscure anything fundamental: this player is expected to score, this one is expected to
tackle in this part of the pitch, this one is expected to defend the box, and so on.
However, we also need to recognise that different tactical systems,
say a high pressing 4-3-3 as opposed to a blocking, countering 4-4-2, ask different things
of players who in terms of basic language stand in the same part of the pitch some of the time.
Why does any of this matter? Because it can lead to misunderstanding. Alexander-Arnold gets
criticised for not defending that well, when it’s not his primary role in that Liverpool set-up.
It means that we can have expectations of what a player should be, rather than pay attention
to what they actually are, and this is compounded when other types of lazy stereotyping are added.
It also means that we become absolute in our assessment of players. “They are a winger”,
rather than they play out wide and are expected to get close to the goal line before crossing.
This means we don’t take changes in system into account when judging players, or the fact
that some managers want players to do things they haven’t previously been doing. A manager can even
‘unlock’ a player by changing their position, when in fact that’s the role they’ve always been best
at, but a shift makes it obvious. If we understand this, we can be fairer to players and managers,
more honest in our assessments, and increase our understanding of the game.
There is, of course, an argument that overcomplication ruins things.
The use of computer game terminology can add a layer of explanation that helps or hinders,
depending on how thoughtfully or accurately it’s used. And no one wants to make the game so full of
complex terminology that it stops being fun. The point is not to start using terms like mezzala or
libero gratuitously. It is instead to recognise that players are asked to do lots and lots of
complicated and different things even if they play the same position. These things change game by
game, depending on opposition, or season by season depending on teammates, manager, or moving clubs.
To better understand and explain the game,
thinking about roles rather than positions makes sense.