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I've always seen CFs positioned BEHIND the striker, almost synonymous with a SS. Shouldn't the front-most position just be called striker (ST)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rockslideproductions ( talk • contribs) 00:35, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
Thank you finally someone who agrees Bubbless009 ( talk) 12:17, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
Does anyone, who is an expert, want to discuss hybrids in terms of football positions? By this I mean that there can be players in football that do not entirely fit the role of a winger, but does play on the sides. For example, Messi is not a person who really sticks to the touchline; he fits the role of a right-attacking-midfielder who plays on the side and dribbles towards the center when approaching his team's attack third, and he definitely does not really fit the role of central player or a playermaker. Messi seems to be in a classification of a player who is a mix between a attacking-midfielder and a winger; it would be acceptable for this to be considered. ( talk)( Lord Shivan ( talk) 00:26, 12 July 2008 (UTC))
Seeing that centre forward and striker are (rightly) separated into two positions, these two should be also. Sweepers are defensive players who "sweep up" behind the defence, where liberos are attacking players who attack from the defensive line - Der Kaiser was often shown on lineups as being between defence and midfield for this purpose. I would do this separation myself, but I wasn't sure which players to put into each section. 198.49.174.82 ( talk) 21:19, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
I think the attack section of this page is particularly good. With the centre forward/striker/support striker breakdown, it provides an in depth analysis of the roles of forwards. There are quite a lot of examples of players, this in general on the article, should be kept at a limit. Bobbyfletch85 14:35, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
The article has been listed at Wikipedia:Duplicate articles#L for a while, and it had an inconsistent name for a long time and no links... -- Joy [shallot] 12:51, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
If you ask me "goal keepers of renown" does not sound too english to me. -- Differentgravy 14:40, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
A much-needed article, with good information. However, if you ask me, the style is a bit on the long-winded side. I expect something more pithy for an encyclopedia. It also isn't exactly accurate. Example: "In addition, they should be strong in the tackle" - I've never seen Zidane do a tackle, is he a good midfielder? Franz Beckenbauer, the chief exemplar of a libero, becomes a midfielder, Nedved becomes a side midfielder, Puskas plays in the Hole. Someone is also very entrenched with the idea that the modern fullback should be short, with no good reason (does Maldini, Cafu, Liliam Thuram look anything but short? Or maybe they are not very good fullbacks?) "Stereotypical centre back is slow and lumbering" is not very accurate either. "Occasionally, a goalkeeper will temporarily become an extra striker if his team is a goal behind in a game they must win" can be criticized, obviously this only becomes of use in a game towards the end or in injury time, reasons apparent to anyone with brains.
Lots of controversial info. This article should properly be more descriptive than prescriptive. Seemed to work of one enthusiastic writer. I expect the person to come back and make changes or discuss them out here. Football articles need not be long, but they must be accurate. Mandel 13:55, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
I agree with the original comments made. The article just needs to be made clearer. Often full backs are short but it it doesn't matter if they're short or tall. This kind of oberservation need not be in the article. Most of the ammendments have already been made. Bobbyfletch85 13:37, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
I think the language in this article is often too gender specific, i.e. masculine. Given the fact that Women's football is a major sport, the article should reflect this by staying as gender neutral as possible. For example, the 'Goalkeeper' section repeatedly refers to the goalie as 'he', 'him' etc.
Bowerski
It seems to me that the author is not English, it´s not just gender specific - the problem is wider...maybe? Petr Náhlý
I returned the reference on Jorge Campos as a striker. It is a well documented fact and in several occasions a sub was made chaging a foward for the second goalkeeper so Campos could take the position at the front. -- Threner 02:30, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
As it is right now, it seems to me that people are just adding in whatever players they happen to like right now. While I don't disagree that most of the players listed are good, I think that this article should ony list the very cream of the crop. Now, in order to keep this as objective as possible, some criteria are needed. I suggest that a mimimum of 15 national team caps, and, for strikers/attacking midfielders only, at least 500 career goals for retired players, or 5 national caps and 300 goals. Anyone got other measures of a player's talent? Or am I barking up the wrong tree entirely with this? -- Sam Pointon 17:52, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Suggested criteria for inclusion
Reduce the list to 3 for goalkeepers and 5 for outfield positions since many players can meet the above criteria. The list currently takes up about half of the article's vertical space, and adds almost nothing to the article, which is Football (soccer) positions rather than List of renowned football players. Better yet, scrape the list and work the players into the prose as example of specific playing styles. -- Dodo bird 17:23, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
Why the hell is Peter Crouch on the centre-forwards list, while other players such as Fernando Morientes aren't? And when I add Morientes, why does someone delete him? He's won much more than Crouch, while at Madrid he was way better than Crouch, and he's much better than Crouch at using his head, which is one of the criteria listed.
For being such a long article, this article really needs some type of images, football diagrams, etc.?
unsigned comment by
User:Cardshark04
I'm sure the diagram on the upper-right corner of the article is unquestionably clear to those familiar with such diagrams, but to me, who knows nearly nothing about this topic and thus is probably a great example of your target audience, the diagram makes almost no sense. The article tells me there are 11 positions in this game, however, there are 18 positions shown on the diagram. This is too many to comprise one team's positions, and too few to be showing both teams. I guess, being a novice on the subject, I would expect to see either 11 or 22 dots (players) on the image. I'm sure this is probably some standardized diagram, but, at least to me having only played this sport at a very young age, showing the starting positions of the players might be a little easier to understand. Then I could see exactly where the 11 players are on the field at the onset of the game. Barring this option, an explanation of the seemingly confusing diagram, as shown with 18 players, would be greatly helpful in explaining this topic to a general, unfamiliar audience. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.21.154.122 ( talk) 17:04, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
There are quite a few articles in the Category:Football (soccer) positions [1], some specific to football(soccer), some non-specific but with a section on the usage in football(soccer). Is it a good idea to redirect the football specific articles here(since all apart from Midfielder are very short articles not much more detailed than what is found here and don't really warrant their own article) and merge the content and add a disambiguity link here for the non-football specific articles(eg. for goalkeepers in football(soccer), see football(soccer) positions).
Another possibility is to merge some positions into their main ones. Eg. wingbacks and fullbacks go into defenders. and/or split non-football specific articles like Goalkeeper into Goalkeeper (football). --[[User:Dodo bird|Dodo bird]
I'm confused. I always thought that full-back and defender were one and the same. Could someone sort me out, please?
A check back to this article after half a year. It is now very bloated. If you have info but they pertain not to footballing positions, put them in their respective pages, not here. Reserve this for football positions.
Definitely too bloated. Some copyedit is necessary. Mandel 17:21, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
There's no reason for this to be dublicated Travelbird 00:53, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Recently I've heard about the term "deep-lying second playmaker". Can anyone tell me what it is? I suspected that it is like a creative midfielder playing in the defensive midfield position. KnucklesEchidna 10:42, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
What about explanations of old positions ie. Inside-right, Outside-right etc.? Ben davison 10:52, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I think that's basically the definition of the old positions, but notable players could be mentioned, as well as maybe the reasons for the lack of these terms nowadays. Ben davison 22:04, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Most probably old positions are not mentioned because they tend to be redundant. For example, someone mentioned above as "inside-right is a central midfielder playing slightly to the right" etc, and it's no use to talk about it since "inside-right" is no different to central midfield in terms of playing styles. So there. KnucklesEchidna 13:41, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
If I was a complete newbie to football and read this article as an introduction to it, I'd be very confused. Regarding players mentioned twice as examples for different positions. So Pele is a great example of a centre forward but also a great example of a deep-lying forward? (notice in the article these are two distinct categories) And Maradona is both an attacking midfielder and a deep-lying forward? I know these are arguably the two finest players in history, but if their position in the field is somewhat hard to distinguish, then in my opinion they shouldn't be used as examples of stereotypes. -- Noikeee 21:17, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree. It's a small detail but it should be changed. Frank Lampard or Michael Ballack could be replacements as attacking midfielders with Maradonna represented only in the 'deep lying forward' field. We all know Maradonna was a good player but not worth mentioning twice.-- Bobbyfletch85 18:52, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
There were too many references to Roberto Carlos so I chose different examples. It seemed odd to have him mentioned three times in the article. Bobbyfletch85 13:34, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
It should be noted that there is a difference between a centre forward and a striker and these two roles should not be confused, although they do share similarities. A centre forward is a player who leads the front line, typically they are strong, good in the air and are sometimes known to defend from the front. Examples of these are Alan Shearer, Gabriel Batistuta and Didier Drogba. A striker is better known for making runs to beat defenders, trying to beat the offside trap and play close to the goal area. They are typically recognised as quick, with good reaction speed and given few defensive responsibilites. Examples of these are Michael Owen, Obafemi Martins and Samuel Etoo. -- Bobbyfletch85 02:18, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Why exactly does it matter if it is 'heavy' on the credit request? -- Tiresais 21:28, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
As an editor of a multitude of player biographies I often link to this page when describing a players' position. There is one huge issue I have with this article. People keep on changing the section titles, and thus break huge amounts of links, for example Football (soccer) positions#Winger worked the other week, now it doesn't. This is a big problem.
Section names need to be sorted out once and for all. I do not think that abbreviations belong in section titles, It looks messy. Also most articles use the older style. However I'm happy to go with concensus if people really believe it should be this way. aLii 20:13, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I've just read through the entire article for the first time in a long time and to me there are some indefensibly poor parts. I'll highlight some of the worst
Finally, does anyone else see the problem with this sentence:
er... lol. anyway there's some suggestions on what needs to be changed. aLii 01:49, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree with most of your points apart from mentioning examples of players. I think it's helpful to point out the best players in each position to better explain what each role is. The only problem here is that people keep updating it with their favourite players which is a pain in the arse. I think the sentences you pointed out need to be re-written better, It all seems rather vague and generalised. A better football critique should be applied. The Beckham bit should just go - it's a contradiction, how can he be a good example of a winger yet... not. Also though, I wouldn't say that strikers are normally the quickest, I think it's more often wingers. If anyone has some time to spare, it'd be good if they could sit down and go through the article and fix the problems. Bobbyfletch85 14:19, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
I think references should be made impartially. Rather than saying "the best" just say "well-known" or "good examples are..". With regards to naming legendary player, perhaps phrase instead as "former well-known players". This page is full of bias and needs a lot of cleaning up. Bobbyfletch85 13:11, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
The Thierry Henry picture could be better. If anyone can find a picture of a well-known striker in action, rather than posing, then that would be better. Bobbyfletch85 18:46, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
It says in the beginning that "A team is made up of one goalkeeper and ten outfield players who fill various defensive, midfield and attacking positions depending on the formation deployed. These positions describe both the player's main role and their area of operation on the pitch."
I would add that one could divide "area of operation on the pitch" into two parts: area of operation when defending and area of operation when attacking. For example, in the Portuguese national team, Maniche defends quite far back on the midfield, but when attacking, he is the one of the central midfielders that most often runs into the box, and he scores quite a few goals from inside the penalty area. Now is he to be called an offensive or defensive midfielder? There is no obvious way to go here.
Moreover, "area of operation on the pitch" is more or less synonymous with "position". Thus "these positions describe both the player's main role and their area of operation on the pitch" becomes "these positions describe both the player's main role and his position" which doesn't make sense to me.
I would instead say that each player has a "role" which consists of three elements: playing style - where such things as skill with the ball, ability to steal the ball, etc. are included -, position when attacking and position when defending. For example, Andrea Pirlo is a creative player who works from a deep position. He isn't accurately described as either an offensive or a defensive midfielder. Likewise, as I said, it is not easy to know whether Maniche is to be described as an offensive or a defensive midfielder.
Thus, I'd suggest that one creates a new page: "Football player roles" (or something similar) where these considerations are described and players are given a more fine-tuned classification. Settembrini 14:00, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Someone sure wasn't exactly objective in the choice of representative players for each position, Arsenal tend to have ALOT of players, some of which not exactly very representative (Senderos, Clichy, Hleb, WALCOTT!?!)
Arsenal names in the article:
Jens Lehmann
Kolo Toure, Philippe Senderos
Gael Clichy, Emmanuel Eboue
Francesc Fabregas
Tomas Rosicky, Freddie Ljungberg, Robert Pires, Alexander Hleb, Theo Walcott [i know, Pires isn't at Arsenal anymore, but he got famous as an Arsenal star]
Thierry Henry
Dennis Bergkamp [also, former Arsenal star]
The fact is even more obvious as usually the Arsenal players are first in their lists...
Also:
"Good examples of centre-backs in the modern game include Kolo Toure, Philippe Senderos, Alessandro Nesta, Rio Ferdinand, John Terry, Fabio Cannavaro, Lilian Thuram, William Gallas, Lúcio, Carles Puyol, Kolo Toure and Roberto Ayala."
Toure is there twice, which makes me think someone just decided to add the names from Arsenal in the beginning...
The choices for players should have a better ballance...
(...and the sad part is that the whole thing is so obvious it offended me, an Arsenal fan...)
Oh, and btw, a great player like Ronaldinho isn't listed anywhere...
Exeprime 20:59, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
A "continental term"? From which continent? It's a wrong term, a wrong definition. These are different positions. The abbreviation "SS" is wrong as well. — Lesfer (t/ c/ @) 16:43, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
A glaring omission from the early tactical evolution is the Scottish short passing game and the pioneering 2-2-6 formation. Queen's Park FC pioneered this intricate passing system and Scotland played 2-2-6 against England in the first official international match of 1872. The Scottish short passing game revolutionised football and many great international sides including Austria and Uruguay (1930s), Hungary and Brazil (1950s) developed their short passing style from the "Scottish System". In England the pioneering Scottish players were referred to as "Scotch Professors" and many of them were signed by leading English teams during the 19th and early 20th centuries (the Preston Invincibles team is a particularly good example). The passing game did not significantly develop amongst London's elitist amateur clubs through any influence from the Royal Engineers and the rudimentary 1-2-7 system but rather through the Corinthians team - set up in 1882 in order to practise and master the short passing game because of the dominance of Scotland over England at international level during the period.
could this section be a separate article? 13thfloor ( talk) 03:30, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Hubschrauber729 ( talk) 01:56, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
There is a contradiction in this article, RW and LW are shown as forwards in the graphic but are explained in the midfield section. I think RW and LW are forwards and not midfielder. So, I'd like to move the explanation to the forward section.--
ClaudioMB
01:50, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Also some people are using the code WI for some players because they play as RW and LW, like Cristiano Ronaldo. So, I'll add that code in the article.-- ClaudioMB 16:39, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
OK, I realise that the article currently states "what a winger is/isn't". However, I believe that the article, in its current state, is wrong, and I have therefore been trying to fix it. The fact of the matter is that a winger/wing forward is just that, a forward, and should therefore be listed with the other forward positions. Case in point, in the 1999 Champions League Final, Bayern Munich played with two wing forwards in a three-man forward line. Jancker took up the centre forward position, while Basler and Zickler supported him from either flank. Similarly, in last season's Premier League, Wayne Rooney often played as a lone striker, with Ronaldo and Giggs up front with him, but in wide positions. As you can see, there is a clear difference between a winger and a wide midfielder, so please, don't block progress. – Pee Jay 19:01, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
what about wingers who dont play as far forward as messi or kalou? both would be classed more as wing forwards than wingers. a winger is an attacking midfielder who plays on the wing, they have as many defensive duties as attacking midfielders, and all conventional thinking have them as midfielders. as ive said more than once now, if you want to write a new section for wing forwards, do so. Dead-or-Red ( talk) 14:52, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Surely Garrincha was not a midfielder! Should reference be to Didi? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.229.235.218 ( talk) 21:08, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
The picture showing all the positions does not show all the positions. the striker is missing. they have the SS and the CF, but no S. Underneath it says that the centre forward can interchange with the striker, yet in the actual article in the section on strikers and centre forwards it clearly states that the roles are not the same Can someone fix this?
[2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] for more [16] --neon white talk 23:12, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
The article currently claims that the last major tactical development was in the early 90's. This is pretty absurd. It also claims that "These days, the 4-4-2 formation is very much the predominant tactic in world football" which is nonsense. 4-4-2 is not even the predominant tactic in English football any more let alone the rest of the world. At the highest level the most popular tactic is probably 4-2-3-1 with 4-3-3 running in second place.
The article then contradicts itself by saying that "new tactics are being pioneered all the time" and cites the 4-3-3 formation that Barcelona have used since the early 1990's and which was inspired by the Dutch 4-3-3 of the 60's as an example of a recent tactical innovation. Misodoctakleidist ( talk) 14:35, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
References
Assocation football is american term - Wikipedia is international, not american. The articel title should be changed to Football! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Raelpl ( talk • contribs) 09:13, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
To whoever added the stuff about him being the inventor of the sweeper: Sorry, but this site doesn't seem very trustworthy. That being said, I have no idea if Apolzan invented it or not, but there definately needs to be a better source for advocating such a claim Teh hackz0r ( talk) 08:54, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
Is that a real position? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jacob Koopa ( talk • contribs) 05:57, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
needs more cites
citation needed
Geraldshields11 (
talk)
01:23, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
The current positional diagram – while pretty good – is too regular (with positions in a neat rows and columns) and doesn't really reflect the content of the article. I've mocked up a possible replacement which reflects the positions named in the article's TOC. Any thoughts, criticisms or suggestions? If there's no objections, I suggest replacing the current diagram with this. Cheers! Charlie A. ( talk) 00:19, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
First of all, there's a 3rd type of goalkeepers - safe goalkeeper. These are rather the opposite of the sweeper-keeper type, tend to stand on the goal line more and have perfect positioning and handling. They also would prefer to catch the ball.
Second, I suggest you in the player types section to add an example for each type, if possible - an active player. For example:
Safe Goalkeeper - Buffon; Shot Stopper - De Gea; Sweeper-Keeper - Neuer; Attacking Fullback - Dani Alves; Libero (sweeper) - they're rare nowadays but maybe Vermaelen will do; Stopper - Kompany is the best example; Ball Winner - Khedira; Defensive Midfielder - Nigel De Jong; Creative Midfielder - Diego; Box-To-Box Midfielder - Vidal; Pulls Wide - Oscar; Playmaker - Fabregas; Midfield General - Yaya Toure; Dribbler - Christiano Ronaldo; Counter Attacker - Bale; Clinical Finisher - Rooney; Target Man - Giroud; Poacher - Berbatov, Diego Costa; False 9 - Messi.
Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.72.183.69 ( talk) 22:41, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
I'm sure I know about that type from a reliable source but not from the Internet. I'll try hard to do it but may take a lot of time. Anyway, I'd still like you to add those players as examples. Again, thank you.
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In German spoken countries (Germany, Austria, German part of Switzerland) there are, since a few years, position of outfield players are given with numbers (in many cases, maybe in all cases ?, with those, like the numbers on the back of the shirts were before the 1970ies). Wings are indicated as "the right seven" or "the left seven", centre forward as "the nine", midfielders as "the six" (a system with two defensive midfielders as "double sixs") a.s.o.. Indeed, there are indication like "false seven“ if the player changes his position meanwhile with other players. 213.225.38.186 ( talk) 14:11, 28 November 2016 (UTC).
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Can someone please explain to me the differences between a Striker (ST), a Center Front (CF), and Second Striker(SS)? I've always seen the ST in front of the CF - and looking from the diagram at the front page, the SS is behind the CF? Or are is the ST and CF the same thing?
Azko777 ( talk) 15:11, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
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I've always seen CFs positioned BEHIND the striker, almost synonymous with a SS. Shouldn't the front-most position just be called striker (ST)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rockslideproductions ( talk • contribs) 00:35, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
Thank you finally someone who agrees Bubbless009 ( talk) 12:17, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
Does anyone, who is an expert, want to discuss hybrids in terms of football positions? By this I mean that there can be players in football that do not entirely fit the role of a winger, but does play on the sides. For example, Messi is not a person who really sticks to the touchline; he fits the role of a right-attacking-midfielder who plays on the side and dribbles towards the center when approaching his team's attack third, and he definitely does not really fit the role of central player or a playermaker. Messi seems to be in a classification of a player who is a mix between a attacking-midfielder and a winger; it would be acceptable for this to be considered. ( talk)( Lord Shivan ( talk) 00:26, 12 July 2008 (UTC))
Seeing that centre forward and striker are (rightly) separated into two positions, these two should be also. Sweepers are defensive players who "sweep up" behind the defence, where liberos are attacking players who attack from the defensive line - Der Kaiser was often shown on lineups as being between defence and midfield for this purpose. I would do this separation myself, but I wasn't sure which players to put into each section. 198.49.174.82 ( talk) 21:19, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
I think the attack section of this page is particularly good. With the centre forward/striker/support striker breakdown, it provides an in depth analysis of the roles of forwards. There are quite a lot of examples of players, this in general on the article, should be kept at a limit. Bobbyfletch85 14:35, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
The article has been listed at Wikipedia:Duplicate articles#L for a while, and it had an inconsistent name for a long time and no links... -- Joy [shallot] 12:51, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
If you ask me "goal keepers of renown" does not sound too english to me. -- Differentgravy 14:40, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
A much-needed article, with good information. However, if you ask me, the style is a bit on the long-winded side. I expect something more pithy for an encyclopedia. It also isn't exactly accurate. Example: "In addition, they should be strong in the tackle" - I've never seen Zidane do a tackle, is he a good midfielder? Franz Beckenbauer, the chief exemplar of a libero, becomes a midfielder, Nedved becomes a side midfielder, Puskas plays in the Hole. Someone is also very entrenched with the idea that the modern fullback should be short, with no good reason (does Maldini, Cafu, Liliam Thuram look anything but short? Or maybe they are not very good fullbacks?) "Stereotypical centre back is slow and lumbering" is not very accurate either. "Occasionally, a goalkeeper will temporarily become an extra striker if his team is a goal behind in a game they must win" can be criticized, obviously this only becomes of use in a game towards the end or in injury time, reasons apparent to anyone with brains.
Lots of controversial info. This article should properly be more descriptive than prescriptive. Seemed to work of one enthusiastic writer. I expect the person to come back and make changes or discuss them out here. Football articles need not be long, but they must be accurate. Mandel 13:55, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
I agree with the original comments made. The article just needs to be made clearer. Often full backs are short but it it doesn't matter if they're short or tall. This kind of oberservation need not be in the article. Most of the ammendments have already been made. Bobbyfletch85 13:37, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
I think the language in this article is often too gender specific, i.e. masculine. Given the fact that Women's football is a major sport, the article should reflect this by staying as gender neutral as possible. For example, the 'Goalkeeper' section repeatedly refers to the goalie as 'he', 'him' etc.
Bowerski
It seems to me that the author is not English, it´s not just gender specific - the problem is wider...maybe? Petr Náhlý
I returned the reference on Jorge Campos as a striker. It is a well documented fact and in several occasions a sub was made chaging a foward for the second goalkeeper so Campos could take the position at the front. -- Threner 02:30, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
As it is right now, it seems to me that people are just adding in whatever players they happen to like right now. While I don't disagree that most of the players listed are good, I think that this article should ony list the very cream of the crop. Now, in order to keep this as objective as possible, some criteria are needed. I suggest that a mimimum of 15 national team caps, and, for strikers/attacking midfielders only, at least 500 career goals for retired players, or 5 national caps and 300 goals. Anyone got other measures of a player's talent? Or am I barking up the wrong tree entirely with this? -- Sam Pointon 17:52, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Suggested criteria for inclusion
Reduce the list to 3 for goalkeepers and 5 for outfield positions since many players can meet the above criteria. The list currently takes up about half of the article's vertical space, and adds almost nothing to the article, which is Football (soccer) positions rather than List of renowned football players. Better yet, scrape the list and work the players into the prose as example of specific playing styles. -- Dodo bird 17:23, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
Why the hell is Peter Crouch on the centre-forwards list, while other players such as Fernando Morientes aren't? And when I add Morientes, why does someone delete him? He's won much more than Crouch, while at Madrid he was way better than Crouch, and he's much better than Crouch at using his head, which is one of the criteria listed.
For being such a long article, this article really needs some type of images, football diagrams, etc.?
unsigned comment by
User:Cardshark04
I'm sure the diagram on the upper-right corner of the article is unquestionably clear to those familiar with such diagrams, but to me, who knows nearly nothing about this topic and thus is probably a great example of your target audience, the diagram makes almost no sense. The article tells me there are 11 positions in this game, however, there are 18 positions shown on the diagram. This is too many to comprise one team's positions, and too few to be showing both teams. I guess, being a novice on the subject, I would expect to see either 11 or 22 dots (players) on the image. I'm sure this is probably some standardized diagram, but, at least to me having only played this sport at a very young age, showing the starting positions of the players might be a little easier to understand. Then I could see exactly where the 11 players are on the field at the onset of the game. Barring this option, an explanation of the seemingly confusing diagram, as shown with 18 players, would be greatly helpful in explaining this topic to a general, unfamiliar audience. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.21.154.122 ( talk) 17:04, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
There are quite a few articles in the Category:Football (soccer) positions [1], some specific to football(soccer), some non-specific but with a section on the usage in football(soccer). Is it a good idea to redirect the football specific articles here(since all apart from Midfielder are very short articles not much more detailed than what is found here and don't really warrant their own article) and merge the content and add a disambiguity link here for the non-football specific articles(eg. for goalkeepers in football(soccer), see football(soccer) positions).
Another possibility is to merge some positions into their main ones. Eg. wingbacks and fullbacks go into defenders. and/or split non-football specific articles like Goalkeeper into Goalkeeper (football). --[[User:Dodo bird|Dodo bird]
I'm confused. I always thought that full-back and defender were one and the same. Could someone sort me out, please?
A check back to this article after half a year. It is now very bloated. If you have info but they pertain not to footballing positions, put them in their respective pages, not here. Reserve this for football positions.
Definitely too bloated. Some copyedit is necessary. Mandel 17:21, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
There's no reason for this to be dublicated Travelbird 00:53, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Recently I've heard about the term "deep-lying second playmaker". Can anyone tell me what it is? I suspected that it is like a creative midfielder playing in the defensive midfield position. KnucklesEchidna 10:42, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
What about explanations of old positions ie. Inside-right, Outside-right etc.? Ben davison 10:52, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I think that's basically the definition of the old positions, but notable players could be mentioned, as well as maybe the reasons for the lack of these terms nowadays. Ben davison 22:04, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Most probably old positions are not mentioned because they tend to be redundant. For example, someone mentioned above as "inside-right is a central midfielder playing slightly to the right" etc, and it's no use to talk about it since "inside-right" is no different to central midfield in terms of playing styles. So there. KnucklesEchidna 13:41, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
If I was a complete newbie to football and read this article as an introduction to it, I'd be very confused. Regarding players mentioned twice as examples for different positions. So Pele is a great example of a centre forward but also a great example of a deep-lying forward? (notice in the article these are two distinct categories) And Maradona is both an attacking midfielder and a deep-lying forward? I know these are arguably the two finest players in history, but if their position in the field is somewhat hard to distinguish, then in my opinion they shouldn't be used as examples of stereotypes. -- Noikeee 21:17, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree. It's a small detail but it should be changed. Frank Lampard or Michael Ballack could be replacements as attacking midfielders with Maradonna represented only in the 'deep lying forward' field. We all know Maradonna was a good player but not worth mentioning twice.-- Bobbyfletch85 18:52, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
There were too many references to Roberto Carlos so I chose different examples. It seemed odd to have him mentioned three times in the article. Bobbyfletch85 13:34, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
It should be noted that there is a difference between a centre forward and a striker and these two roles should not be confused, although they do share similarities. A centre forward is a player who leads the front line, typically they are strong, good in the air and are sometimes known to defend from the front. Examples of these are Alan Shearer, Gabriel Batistuta and Didier Drogba. A striker is better known for making runs to beat defenders, trying to beat the offside trap and play close to the goal area. They are typically recognised as quick, with good reaction speed and given few defensive responsibilites. Examples of these are Michael Owen, Obafemi Martins and Samuel Etoo. -- Bobbyfletch85 02:18, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Why exactly does it matter if it is 'heavy' on the credit request? -- Tiresais 21:28, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
As an editor of a multitude of player biographies I often link to this page when describing a players' position. There is one huge issue I have with this article. People keep on changing the section titles, and thus break huge amounts of links, for example Football (soccer) positions#Winger worked the other week, now it doesn't. This is a big problem.
Section names need to be sorted out once and for all. I do not think that abbreviations belong in section titles, It looks messy. Also most articles use the older style. However I'm happy to go with concensus if people really believe it should be this way. aLii 20:13, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I've just read through the entire article for the first time in a long time and to me there are some indefensibly poor parts. I'll highlight some of the worst
Finally, does anyone else see the problem with this sentence:
er... lol. anyway there's some suggestions on what needs to be changed. aLii 01:49, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree with most of your points apart from mentioning examples of players. I think it's helpful to point out the best players in each position to better explain what each role is. The only problem here is that people keep updating it with their favourite players which is a pain in the arse. I think the sentences you pointed out need to be re-written better, It all seems rather vague and generalised. A better football critique should be applied. The Beckham bit should just go - it's a contradiction, how can he be a good example of a winger yet... not. Also though, I wouldn't say that strikers are normally the quickest, I think it's more often wingers. If anyone has some time to spare, it'd be good if they could sit down and go through the article and fix the problems. Bobbyfletch85 14:19, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
I think references should be made impartially. Rather than saying "the best" just say "well-known" or "good examples are..". With regards to naming legendary player, perhaps phrase instead as "former well-known players". This page is full of bias and needs a lot of cleaning up. Bobbyfletch85 13:11, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
The Thierry Henry picture could be better. If anyone can find a picture of a well-known striker in action, rather than posing, then that would be better. Bobbyfletch85 18:46, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
It says in the beginning that "A team is made up of one goalkeeper and ten outfield players who fill various defensive, midfield and attacking positions depending on the formation deployed. These positions describe both the player's main role and their area of operation on the pitch."
I would add that one could divide "area of operation on the pitch" into two parts: area of operation when defending and area of operation when attacking. For example, in the Portuguese national team, Maniche defends quite far back on the midfield, but when attacking, he is the one of the central midfielders that most often runs into the box, and he scores quite a few goals from inside the penalty area. Now is he to be called an offensive or defensive midfielder? There is no obvious way to go here.
Moreover, "area of operation on the pitch" is more or less synonymous with "position". Thus "these positions describe both the player's main role and their area of operation on the pitch" becomes "these positions describe both the player's main role and his position" which doesn't make sense to me.
I would instead say that each player has a "role" which consists of three elements: playing style - where such things as skill with the ball, ability to steal the ball, etc. are included -, position when attacking and position when defending. For example, Andrea Pirlo is a creative player who works from a deep position. He isn't accurately described as either an offensive or a defensive midfielder. Likewise, as I said, it is not easy to know whether Maniche is to be described as an offensive or a defensive midfielder.
Thus, I'd suggest that one creates a new page: "Football player roles" (or something similar) where these considerations are described and players are given a more fine-tuned classification. Settembrini 14:00, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Someone sure wasn't exactly objective in the choice of representative players for each position, Arsenal tend to have ALOT of players, some of which not exactly very representative (Senderos, Clichy, Hleb, WALCOTT!?!)
Arsenal names in the article:
Jens Lehmann
Kolo Toure, Philippe Senderos
Gael Clichy, Emmanuel Eboue
Francesc Fabregas
Tomas Rosicky, Freddie Ljungberg, Robert Pires, Alexander Hleb, Theo Walcott [i know, Pires isn't at Arsenal anymore, but he got famous as an Arsenal star]
Thierry Henry
Dennis Bergkamp [also, former Arsenal star]
The fact is even more obvious as usually the Arsenal players are first in their lists...
Also:
"Good examples of centre-backs in the modern game include Kolo Toure, Philippe Senderos, Alessandro Nesta, Rio Ferdinand, John Terry, Fabio Cannavaro, Lilian Thuram, William Gallas, Lúcio, Carles Puyol, Kolo Toure and Roberto Ayala."
Toure is there twice, which makes me think someone just decided to add the names from Arsenal in the beginning...
The choices for players should have a better ballance...
(...and the sad part is that the whole thing is so obvious it offended me, an Arsenal fan...)
Oh, and btw, a great player like Ronaldinho isn't listed anywhere...
Exeprime 20:59, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
A "continental term"? From which continent? It's a wrong term, a wrong definition. These are different positions. The abbreviation "SS" is wrong as well. — Lesfer (t/ c/ @) 16:43, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
A glaring omission from the early tactical evolution is the Scottish short passing game and the pioneering 2-2-6 formation. Queen's Park FC pioneered this intricate passing system and Scotland played 2-2-6 against England in the first official international match of 1872. The Scottish short passing game revolutionised football and many great international sides including Austria and Uruguay (1930s), Hungary and Brazil (1950s) developed their short passing style from the "Scottish System". In England the pioneering Scottish players were referred to as "Scotch Professors" and many of them were signed by leading English teams during the 19th and early 20th centuries (the Preston Invincibles team is a particularly good example). The passing game did not significantly develop amongst London's elitist amateur clubs through any influence from the Royal Engineers and the rudimentary 1-2-7 system but rather through the Corinthians team - set up in 1882 in order to practise and master the short passing game because of the dominance of Scotland over England at international level during the period.
could this section be a separate article? 13thfloor ( talk) 03:30, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Hubschrauber729 ( talk) 01:56, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
There is a contradiction in this article, RW and LW are shown as forwards in the graphic but are explained in the midfield section. I think RW and LW are forwards and not midfielder. So, I'd like to move the explanation to the forward section.--
ClaudioMB
01:50, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Also some people are using the code WI for some players because they play as RW and LW, like Cristiano Ronaldo. So, I'll add that code in the article.-- ClaudioMB 16:39, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
OK, I realise that the article currently states "what a winger is/isn't". However, I believe that the article, in its current state, is wrong, and I have therefore been trying to fix it. The fact of the matter is that a winger/wing forward is just that, a forward, and should therefore be listed with the other forward positions. Case in point, in the 1999 Champions League Final, Bayern Munich played with two wing forwards in a three-man forward line. Jancker took up the centre forward position, while Basler and Zickler supported him from either flank. Similarly, in last season's Premier League, Wayne Rooney often played as a lone striker, with Ronaldo and Giggs up front with him, but in wide positions. As you can see, there is a clear difference between a winger and a wide midfielder, so please, don't block progress. – Pee Jay 19:01, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
what about wingers who dont play as far forward as messi or kalou? both would be classed more as wing forwards than wingers. a winger is an attacking midfielder who plays on the wing, they have as many defensive duties as attacking midfielders, and all conventional thinking have them as midfielders. as ive said more than once now, if you want to write a new section for wing forwards, do so. Dead-or-Red ( talk) 14:52, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Surely Garrincha was not a midfielder! Should reference be to Didi? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.229.235.218 ( talk) 21:08, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
The picture showing all the positions does not show all the positions. the striker is missing. they have the SS and the CF, but no S. Underneath it says that the centre forward can interchange with the striker, yet in the actual article in the section on strikers and centre forwards it clearly states that the roles are not the same Can someone fix this?
[2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] for more [16] --neon white talk 23:12, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
The article currently claims that the last major tactical development was in the early 90's. This is pretty absurd. It also claims that "These days, the 4-4-2 formation is very much the predominant tactic in world football" which is nonsense. 4-4-2 is not even the predominant tactic in English football any more let alone the rest of the world. At the highest level the most popular tactic is probably 4-2-3-1 with 4-3-3 running in second place.
The article then contradicts itself by saying that "new tactics are being pioneered all the time" and cites the 4-3-3 formation that Barcelona have used since the early 1990's and which was inspired by the Dutch 4-3-3 of the 60's as an example of a recent tactical innovation. Misodoctakleidist ( talk) 14:35, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
References
Assocation football is american term - Wikipedia is international, not american. The articel title should be changed to Football! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Raelpl ( talk • contribs) 09:13, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
To whoever added the stuff about him being the inventor of the sweeper: Sorry, but this site doesn't seem very trustworthy. That being said, I have no idea if Apolzan invented it or not, but there definately needs to be a better source for advocating such a claim Teh hackz0r ( talk) 08:54, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
Is that a real position? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jacob Koopa ( talk • contribs) 05:57, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
needs more cites
citation needed
Geraldshields11 (
talk)
01:23, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
The current positional diagram – while pretty good – is too regular (with positions in a neat rows and columns) and doesn't really reflect the content of the article. I've mocked up a possible replacement which reflects the positions named in the article's TOC. Any thoughts, criticisms or suggestions? If there's no objections, I suggest replacing the current diagram with this. Cheers! Charlie A. ( talk) 00:19, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
First of all, there's a 3rd type of goalkeepers - safe goalkeeper. These are rather the opposite of the sweeper-keeper type, tend to stand on the goal line more and have perfect positioning and handling. They also would prefer to catch the ball.
Second, I suggest you in the player types section to add an example for each type, if possible - an active player. For example:
Safe Goalkeeper - Buffon; Shot Stopper - De Gea; Sweeper-Keeper - Neuer; Attacking Fullback - Dani Alves; Libero (sweeper) - they're rare nowadays but maybe Vermaelen will do; Stopper - Kompany is the best example; Ball Winner - Khedira; Defensive Midfielder - Nigel De Jong; Creative Midfielder - Diego; Box-To-Box Midfielder - Vidal; Pulls Wide - Oscar; Playmaker - Fabregas; Midfield General - Yaya Toure; Dribbler - Christiano Ronaldo; Counter Attacker - Bale; Clinical Finisher - Rooney; Target Man - Giroud; Poacher - Berbatov, Diego Costa; False 9 - Messi.
Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.72.183.69 ( talk) 22:41, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
I'm sure I know about that type from a reliable source but not from the Internet. I'll try hard to do it but may take a lot of time. Anyway, I'd still like you to add those players as examples. Again, thank you.
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In German spoken countries (Germany, Austria, German part of Switzerland) there are, since a few years, position of outfield players are given with numbers (in many cases, maybe in all cases ?, with those, like the numbers on the back of the shirts were before the 1970ies). Wings are indicated as "the right seven" or "the left seven", centre forward as "the nine", midfielders as "the six" (a system with two defensive midfielders as "double sixs") a.s.o.. Indeed, there are indication like "false seven“ if the player changes his position meanwhile with other players. 213.225.38.186 ( talk) 14:11, 28 November 2016 (UTC).
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Can someone please explain to me the differences between a Striker (ST), a Center Front (CF), and Second Striker(SS)? I've always seen the ST in front of the CF - and looking from the diagram at the front page, the SS is behind the CF? Or are is the ST and CF the same thing?
Azko777 ( talk) 15:11, 3 July 2018 (UTC)