Quite often a defensive midfielder playing deep is combined with a central midfielder higher up the pitch.

Toni Kroos of Real Madrid can often be seen in this position. If a #6 doesn’t just play in front of the defense, but rather further down the pitch, it is commonly referred to as a “#8,” or central midfielder. Currently the best defensive midfielder in the world is the Frenchman N’Golo Kanté of Chelsea. This requires finding the right balance between covering their teammates in counter attacking situations and playing their own role in any offensive phases. In addition, defensive midfielders have important roles in build-up play, as they are required to distribute the ball further up the field, which subsequently creates scoring opportunities. The #6 can be positioned as a “holding midfielder” to cover the opposition’s attacking midfielder. Teams usually play with one or two defensive midfielders (which is called a “double six”). In the 2013-2014 season where they won la Liga, they only conceded 26 goals.Ī defensive midfielder is traditionally the #6 in soccer and has the position just in front of the defensive line. One of the best pair of center backs recently has been Diego Godin and Mirando at Atlético. Central defenders are often quite tall and strong It’s especially important how fast these players are, as they should be able to at least keep up with attacking strikers. Players in this position must be good at tackling, as well as being technically adept in passing. In addition, central defenders are a huge part of build-up play as they move the ball down pitch to midfielders and attackers with passes or advancing from defense with possession. These players are responsible for stopping the opposing strikers from scoring and stabilizing the defense. When playing with a back four there are two central defenders and when a back three is deployed, there are as many as the name would suggest. The best keepers of 2019, who were all in the running for FIFA’s Best Goalkeeper Award, were Alisson Becker (Liverpool), Ederson Moraes (Manchester City), and Marc-André Ter Stegen (Barcelona).Ĭentral defenders, or center backs, are – as the name suggests – the central players of the defensive line. All of this requires excellent goalkeeping techniques (catching, punching, kicking, diving, picking up and throwing the ball), as well as the passing skills of outfield players and preferably that they are as equally strong with both feet.

In order to do this, a keeper must move further away from his/her own goal to be able to complete long passes to the defenders, who in turn can then move the ball down the pitch. However, in modern soccer, their positional remit has become more complex and now includes steering build-up play from the back and giving directions to the defense. In the past, this was their sole responsibility. The primary job of a goalkeeper is to prevent the opponent from scoring goals. This article explains the primary responsibilities of individual positions.

Each positional category (goalkeeper, defenders, midfielders, forwards) has its own distinctive traits and presents its own technical, tactical, and conditional demands. Apparently, players with excellent dribbling skills at younger age are more likely to be selected to play as a MF, although, one might conclude that the typical physical characteristics for different positions at senior level are not yet fully developed among young soccer players between 8 and 14 years.Īerobic fitness anaerobic fitness motor coordination sport specialisation talent.Every position in soccer has certain responsibilities, which enable a team to function and be successful. These results suggest that inherent physical capacities (i.e., speed, power, agility) might select players in or reject players from an attacking position, which is still possible from U15-U17. In the U17-U19 age groups, ATTs seemed to be the most explosive (with GKs), the fastest and the more agile field players. Further, between U9-U15, no significant differences in functional characteristics were found, except for dribbling skill, which MFs performed the best. The main findings of the study were that GKs and DEFs were the tallest and heaviest compared with MFs and ATTs in all age groups. MANOVA and effect sizes were used to examine anthropometrical and functional characteristics between all positions in all age groups. Players were assigned to six age groups (U9-U19) and divided into four playing positions (goalkeeper (GK), defender (DEF), midfielder (MF) and attacker (ATT)). The present study aimed to investigate positional differences in 744 high-level soccer players, aged 8 to 18 years.

Soccer number 8 position