Soccer Positions and What They Mean
All you need to know about Goalkeepers, Defenders, Midfielders, and Forwards
Welcome back to Print the Legend. This week, I’m taking a break from the history of the World Cup to explain some of the basics of soccer tactics. Goalkeeper, Defenders, Midfielders, Forwards. You might have heard these terms before, but you might not know exactly what they mean or what they do. This post includes a lot of information that could be very useful in understanding the full scope of what will be talked about in future posts as we get into the tactical innovations of the sixties and seventies, and especially when I start previewing the teams that will be playing at next year’s World Cup. So, if you’re reading this and there’s something that is confusing or about which you want more information - let me know in the comments! I know that y’all have been reading these posts, but it’s also felt pretty quiet as I publish a new post and don’t really hear much from those who read it. I just want to remind you, the reason I’m writing this is to find people with whom I can share in my love of soccer, so let me know if you’d like to share in it too!
With that out of the way, let’s get into it shall we?
An Important Prologue About Shirt Numbers
Unlike in other sports, the number a soccer player wears on his shirt means something. Or, at the very least, can mean something. In American sports, certain numbers become associated with specific athletes - like Michael Jordan’s 23 or Jackie Robinson’s 42 - but in soccer, there is no such thing as retiring a jersey, and numbers are associated not with individual players, but certain kinds of players. The number 1, for example, is reserved almost exclusively for goalkeepers. It is also common to refer to a certain type of player by the number associated with their role in the team instead of their position. For example, people say “this team needs to find a new number 9” to mean “this team needs to find a new center forward.” The easy way for an American to think about this (I think) is to imagine quarterbacks or point-guards used to all wear the same number, and so the number and the position became synonyms.
As I’m getting deeper into the history of the World Cup in these posts, I’m encountering the need to write in more detail about soccer tactics in order to convey the full significance of major historical innovations. This is why I’m taking this week to write a (hopefully) comprehensive explanation of the positions in a soccer pitch, the roles that each of the players in these positions are expected to perform, as which as what are the shirt numbers most associated with these positions. Now, before we get started, an important disclaimer: the numbers that I’m going to talk about are most associated with these positions, but that doesn’t mean that every player who plays in said position will wear that number. After all, there are 11 positions on the pitch but 23 players in a national team. Depending on the team, the numbering can be a little all over the place, but most of the time, the number on a player’s back can be a huge help in determining what role they play in a team.
The reason why certain positions became associated with certain numbers has to do with how players were originally organized on the pitch. When it was decided that each player should have a number on their back in order to identify them during the games, the numbering was distributed uniformly from back to front and from right to left, starting at the goal line and finishing at the attacking line. At the time when this was done, the most common formation was a 2-3-5 - meaning one goalkeeper, two defenders, three midfielders, and five forwards. You can see this formation, as well as the resulting numbering in the picture below. The Goalkeeper is at the bottom of the picture, and the forwards at the top.
Over the years, as soccer tactics developed, the 2-3-5 formation became inevitably outdated. As different coaches and managers started to experiment with different formations, players were re-arranged around the pitch, meaning shirt numbers were also re-arranged around the pitch. The most consistent development in soccer tactics across the first half of the twentieth century is an embrace of the importance of defensive solidity. As the game evolved, it became clear that defending well was just as important (sometimes more so) than scoring goals. A more defensive approach meant pushing some of the midfielders to the back, which in turn ended up with some of the forwards pushing back to the midfield. By the end of the century, the most common formation had reverted from a 2-3-5 that overloaded on attacking players into a more balanced 4-3-3 with much more attention to the defense. This tactical shift is reflected in the name of Jonathan Wilson’s book, Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Soccer Tactics, one of my key reference texts as I write Print the Legend.
The arrows in the above picture show which players were moved were, and the picture below shows the resulting formation with the numbering that most people associate with the key soccer positions to this day.
Now that we’ve covered the background, let me talk a little bit about each of these positions, about what these players do, and the numbers that are associated with each of them…
Goalkeeper (number 1)
The most recognizable of all soccer positions. Goalkeepers have been a part of soccer from the very beginning. As long as soccer has been a codified sport, it has featured a goalkeeper, and there’s mentions of goalkeeping dating as back as the early 1600s, suggesting that they were present even in the earliest mob-like versions of the game.
The goalkeeper is easy to spot because they wear a different color uniform from the rest of the team, they hang out close to the goal, and they are the only players on the field allowed to touch the ball with their hands. In fact, their main purpose is to use their hands (or whatever body part they choose to) to keep the ball from going inside their goal. While goalkeepers can handle the ball with their hands, they’re only allowed to do so inside the “penalty area”, which is the area inside the bigger rectangle that is drawn directly in front and around the goal.
What is a good goalkeeper? Traditionally, goalkeepers are usually very tall and have freakishly long arms and legs that help them block shots. A good goalkeeper knows when to come off the goal-line and push forward to close down on incoming players - closing down on attacking players by approaching them and extended their limbs so they occupy as much space as possible limits the angles through which their opponent can shoot at goal. In more recent decades, there’s been an emphasis on training goalkeepers who are also very good at handling the ball with their feet. Someone like Germany’s Manuel Neuer was a revolutionary player in that he was more comfortable using his feet than the average goalkeeper, and this made him more willing to rush out of the goal-line and anticipate incoming players more aggressively.
Goalkeeping is one of the hardest, as well as one of the most unglamorous positions in soccer. When a team loses, the keepers are often blamed for the goals they didn’t block. On the other hand, there are times when a goalkeeper becomes a hero by seemingly blocking every shot that comes at him - and a good goalkeeper is crucial when you find yourself in a penalty shoot-out.
Some of the most memorable moments in World Cup history have involved goalkeepers blocking - or failing to block - a shot. The saddest example is that of Brazilian goalkeeper Moacir Barbosa, who never recovered after he was accused of costing Brazil the World Cup of 1950 for his inability to block the winning goal. On the brighter side, you have someone like Spain’s Iker Casillas - if he hadn’t blocked a seemingly unblockable shot from Dutch forward Arjen Robben, Spain might have never won the World Cup. Similarly, Argentina’s Emiliano “Dibu” Martínez was crucial at the most recent World Cup, successfully leading his country through two penalty shoot-outs, and blocking another seemingly unblockable shot - this one by France’s Randal Kolo Muani - in the last few seconds of the final.
As shown in the diagram above, goalkeepers are associated with the number “1” on their jerseys. Not every goalkeeper will sport the number 1 (substitute goalkeepers can’t wear the 1 since it’s already taken, for example), but if a player is wearing the number 1, they’re most definitely a goalkeeper.
Center-Back (numbers 2-4)
Center-Backs play the most strictly defensive role in a soccer squad other than the goalkeeper. They are usually positioned close to or inside the penalty area, in front of the goal, and their main job is to prevent opposing players from scoring goals. Since they cannot handle the ball with their hands like a goalkeeper, they will usually either intercept passes between incoming players, or sometimes simply tackle them. Since a key way to prevent the opposition from scoring is by contesting headers, Center-Backs tend to be tall, high jumpers, and good at heading the ball, qualities which in turn make them good players to come forward to head balls during corner kicks - one of their few purely attacking tasks. A good Center-Back is tough, but smart about when and how to tackle a player. If a defender commits a foul inside the penalty area, it will cost him a red card (that will send them off for the rest of the match, and usually will prevent them from playing the next match as well), and it will also cost the team a penalty kick (which the opposing team is likely to score). Every soccer team has either two or three Center-Backs depending on their style of play.
A Sweeper or Libero is a modified version of a Center-Back, usually one that has been given the flexibility to move more freely around the pitch allowing him to “sweep” the ball from incoming attackers and run forward to quickly build-up the counter-attack. This role was first developed in Italy, which has a long history of fostering highly defensive soccer. In this context, the idea of having an extra player behind the defense, a “last man” who could sweep the ball and restart the attack was a huge advantage (the term libero is Italian for “free”). Despite the Italian origins of the term, the player most responsible for popularizing the role of sweeper and attack-minded Center-Backs was Franz Beckenbauer, who led his club Bayern Munich and the West German national team to unprecedented success in the nineteen-seventies.
As per the diagram above, the Center-Back positions are usually associated with low numbers. In South America, they traditionally wear numbers 2 and 3, in Europe it’s most often 3 and 4.
Left-Back and Right-Back (numbers 2, 4, 5 or 6)
These two positions are collectively known as “Full-Backs” and they pretty much perform the same role on opposite sides of the pitch. Traditionally, these players would play on the left or right side of the defense and perform pretty much the same defensive role as the Center-Backs. The most celebrated Full-Back of my lifetime is the Brazilian Roberto Carlos, who was described by The New York Times as the “most offensive-minded left-back in the history of the game.” He actually started out his career playing as a forward before being moved to the role of defender where he kept his attacking mentality to push forward and become more involved in the attack. He was also an excellent shot, responsible for some of the most unbelievable kicks of all time (like the free kick he scored against France in the video below - watch the slow motion replay at the end of the video to see the unnatural way in which the ball curves on its trajectory toward the goal.)
Ever since Roberto Carlos, the Full-Back positions have become much more involved in the attack. Formations that play with three Center-Backs, allow for the role of the Full-Backs to become even more attack-minded as having an extra central defender means they don’t have to come back to defend as often or intensely. In such cases, people will often use the term “Wing-Back” instead, but what they mean by that is basically a “Full-Back” who doesn’t have to worry as much about defending and can dedicate himself to the attack instead.
Full-Backs, like all defensive positions, are mostly associated with low numbers on their shirts. But since the role originated when midfielders were pushed back to the defense, the numbers associated with these positions vary from one region to another. After all, it’s not like all these coaches and managers from different countries where phoning each other asking which number they were gonna move where. As such, in Latin America, the Full-Backs usually wear numbers 4 and 6, while in Europe the Full-Backs are often numbers 2 and 5. I did a hybrid of both versions in the diagram.
Defensive Midfielder (number 5 or 6)
Now we arrive at the midfield, the most complicated and crucial part of soccer strategy. It’s easy to convey what a defender or an forward is supposed to do, they either attack of defend, but the role of midfielder is something much more open to interpretation. The defensive midfielder is sometimes called the “holding midfielder.” In South America, we also use the term “volante,” which means “steering wheel” and can give you a sense of the role they’re expected to perform. Above all, they’re tasked with holding things together in the middle of the pitch, steering the game back toward attack or defense depending on the situation.
There are several ways to perform this role. A midfielder who is strictly devoted to the defense can be as ruthless as a Center-Back at keeping any attackers from passing through him - the most famous example of this kind of player is France’s Claude Makélélé, who was so notorious for his combative style that people in England began referring to defensive midfielders as “the Makélélé role.” Italy’s Andrea Pirlo, meanwhile, was an expert at creatively setting up attacking opportunities for his team whenever he intercepted the ball. Celebrated manager Carlo Ancelotti said of him: “Pirlo spots a pass in a split-second that lesser players could spend a whole lifetime waiting to see.” The most balanced approach to the role would probably be that of Spain’s Sergio Busquets, who set the template for most contemporary defensive midfielders being a key player in the Tiki-Taka system that revolutionized soccer tactics at the turn of the 2010s.
As is the case with the Full-Backs, the numbering for this role depends on which players were sent back from the midfield to the defense. In South America, we associate this role strongly with the number 5, while in other regions this is most often the role of the number 6.
Central Midfielder (number 8)
Central midfielders are some of the most versatile players on the pitch, in as much as they alternate between defensive and attacking duties more than any other player. Most often, they’re expected to follow the action all around the pitch, to join in on the attack when the team has the ball, and to come back and defend when they lose it. Sometimes, these players are described as “box to box” midfielders, referring to the fact that they’re players who are expected to follow the action all around the pitch, from their own penalty box for defending duties all the way to the opposite team’s penalty box when they’re attacking. Obviously, this one of the most demanding roles on the team, as it requires big levels of stamina, quick judgment, and technical ability.
When I think of the defining midfielders of my lifetime, my mind goes back to the Spanish “tiki-taka” team of the early 2010s, which was built around keeping possession of the ball at all costs under the philosophy that your opponents can’t score goals if they don’t have access to the ball. Under this system, the midfield, which is already crucial at every match became even more pivotal, so it’s no surprise that the most lauded members of this generation where its central midfielders: Xavi Hernández and Andrés Iniesta. Both of them were incredibly gifted at receiving the ball and quickly spotting where to send it next in order to avoid the opposition, as well as finding open spaces where they could receive the ball in return. During the height of “tiki-taka,” the team could spend minutes passing the ball between them while the opposition stewed in frustration, and Xavi and Iniesta where at the center of such maneuvers.
Attacking Midfielder (number 10)
The number 10 shirt is the most famous and iconic in all of soccer. Going through the history of how this happened would be its own essay, but the most important thing of all - the thing that practically every player who sports the number 10 has in common - is creativity. Imagine you have an incredible creative player like the central midfielders we talked about before, but who exploits that creativity not only to set the tempo of the game, build up play, or keep possession of the ball, but to create attacking opportunities. These players are the ones that take the “steering wheel” tasks of the midfield and press on the gas pedal to reach maximum speed. I am nowhere near knowledgable about American football, but I think the number 10 in soccer is most comparable to the Quarterback in terms of both the importance of this player on the field and the prestige that is associated with the position.
The reason why I lead this description with the number 10 and not with the term “attacking midfielder” is because it’s hard to define who exactly fits this liminal position between midfield and attack. Nobody would call France’s Zinadine Zidane a forward, as his role was clearly to open up play in the midfield, but he was a very attack-minded player, and one of the most creative ones I’ve ever seen. Above is a compilation of some of the French legend’s greatest moment. Argentina’s Lionel Messi, meanwhile, is so incredibly good at scoring goals that he’s always been fielded as a forward, even if his talents fit the historical assets of this position, and he’s worn the number 10 practically his whole career.
Wingers (numbers 7 and 11)
I'm lumping the wingers together because they pretty much perform the same role, just on opposite sides of the pitch. Number 7 is usually a right winger, and number 11 is usually the left winger. It is not uncommon, however, for a player that starts out playing on one side to move to the other side throughout their careers, and there’s also several wingers who can play on either side. For example, France’s Ousmane Dembélé and Argentina’s Ángel Di María can play on either band. A “band” is either the leftmost or rightmost section of the pitch going from the back to the front. The winger’s role is to turn these sections of the pitch into a sort of “corridor” through which they can run toward the opposition’s goal.
Wingers have to be pretty creative, technically precise, and above all, incredibly fast and nimble. They are very often the fastest players in a team. They are expected to find unexpected and skillful ways to move past the opposing team’s defensive players on their march toward goal. Wingers are traditionally very good at scoring goals, but also very good at providing assists for other players in their team to score. They are often the most exciting players to watch - seeing a young player run through the band past several defenders fooling each of them one at a time before providing an incredible precise assist or even scoring a goal themselves is something very impressive to behold. Some of the most celebrated players in the world tend to be wingers, or to have played as wingers at one point or another in their career. Since playing as a winger requires so much running, some players who started out playing as a winger end up transitioning to more of a center-forward role, as is the case with this century’s two most famous players: Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Center Forward or Striker (number 9)
The center forward, as the name suggests, is the player who stands furthest forward and at the center of the attacking line. Sometimes, this position is also called a striker. The terms are pretty interchangeable, with the difference being one of degree rather than king. In general, both these positions are basically goal scorers. They are expected to play higher up the pitch than any other player, focusing on exploiting every possible chance to score. The difference is that a striker is traditionally given instructions to stay as far up the pitch as possible at all times, whereas a center forward is expected to be more involved in linking play and creating chances for other players. Both positions are deeply associated with the number 9, and perhaps because there are two ways of naming these players, it is very common for people to say “number 9” instead when referring to them. As you’d expect, the best number 9s are great kickers, both in terms of power and aim, and they also tend to be really tall (which helps them to score headers). Some of the most popular strikers playing today are England's Harry Kane and Poland's Robert Lewandowski.
There is also something called a “false 9.” This term became popular in the early 2010s when Pep Guardiola was the manager at FC Barcelona and decided to play Lionel Messi in the center forward position. Even though Messi is an incredibly prolific goal scorer, he is by no means a traditional number 9 - in the sense that, at that point in his career, he did not stay at the front waiting for the ball to come to him so he can score. Instead, in the 9 position, Messi played like he always did: he still came down to the midfield to get the ball, and he still ran up the bands and maneuvered around the opposition’s defenders. He scored as much as he provided assists. After that, the term “false 9” came to convey a formation where, even though a player is technically lining up in the number 9 position, he is not going to be playing like a traditional number nine. Still, this is not a very common occurrence, and happens most often when a team doesn’t have a more traditional number 9 available, either because their regular 9 is injured, sanctioned, or because they just happen to not have a great 9 among their ranks. For context, Messi went back to playing closer to the wing when FC Barcelona hired Luis Suarez (one of the best 9s in recent memory).
That is all for this week, but join me next time as we turn our attention to the greatest soccer nation of them all. I’ll be writing, of course, about Brazil.
If you enjoy reading about soccer, global politics, and how they intersect, I recommend subscribing to “Global Currents.” On top of being a great read, many of the soccer posts published so far touch on topics we will be covering in future installments of ‘Print the Legend’.
