Explanation of the Different Positions in Soccer

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Soccer is a mile-a-minute game of skill, passion, and stamina. Each soccer team has 11 players, so, in a game, there are 22 people on the field all trying to kick the ball into the oposition team’s goal. That’s a lot of people. What would happen if all 22 people were just running around chasing the ball? They’d all crash into each other, and fall down in a big pile, and nobody would accomplish anything. That’s no fun. So, to minimize crashing and maximize fun, every player on the team has a position. That means each player has a special place on the field to be and a special job to do there. As you know, there are 11 players on a team, so there are 11 positions. Let me tell you about each position. They are easy to remember because their names tell you where they play.

GOOOAAAALLL!!!

Imagine you are looking down at a big green soccer field and all the players are there.

Let’s start with the player standing in front of the goal. That’s the goalkeeper, or goalie. The goalie stays close to the goal. He or she has to keep the ball out of the net. He is the absolutely last line of defense, just one, little person trying to guard a great big net (24 feet long and 8 feet tall) and a ball can come really fast. The goalie has to be able to see a ball coming and react instantly, jumping up or sideways to block it before it gets in the net. Luckily, the goalie is the only player who can use his hands and arms, he can only grab the ball when it is inside the penalty box or penalty area, which is 18 yards deep and 44 yards wide surrounding the goal net itself, and he can’t use them to catch a ball kicked to him by his own teammate. Nicole Barnhart and Doug Warren are two great US soccer team goalies.

Now, looking down at the field, we move forward from the goalie out onto the field. In front of the goalie is a row of defenders. They are called full-backs because they’re all the way back at the goal. There are usually four defenders. To the left of the goalie is the left full back, to the right of the goalie is the right full back. In the middle is the center back. They all work to stop the other team’s attackers from scoring. The center back needs to be the strongest defender.  Just behind the center back is often (but not always) the sweeper. The sweeper’s job is to stop any attack that gets by the other three defenders. He’s the last protection for the goalie. Nandie Price is an outstanding defender on the US Women’s Team.

Now, we move forward to the midfield. The midfield is a row of three or four players that work between the defenders and the forwards. Since they’re in the middle, they’re called midfielders, half-backs, or halfs for short. There is a left-half, and right-half. The center-half, is like the midfield leader, and is also called a midfield general, or midfield maestro; he is responsible for organizing the midfield players and creating scoring opportunities when his team attacks the other team’s goal. The terrific French player, Zizou, is a midfielder.

Now move forward again. The front line is made of three or four players called attackers or forwards. Out to the sides there are the left-wing and the right-wing. The wings are often the fastest and best dribblers. They are excellent passers and can accurately send the ball across to other attackers so they can try for a goal. David Beckham is a right-winger. Between the wings, in the center, are the center-forwards or strikers. Mia Hamm, the leading scorer in the history of international soccer, is a forward. A striker is sometimes called a finisher, and is often the team’s most important scoring threat. He is called the striker and is usually the team’s best scorer. A forward called a stopper defends him. Pele, the brilliant Brazillian was a great striker.

So, now you know there are 11 players on a soccer team. You know that there is always one goalie, and usually there are 4 defenders, 3 midfielders, and 3 forwards; that’s called a 1-4-3-3 configuration (1 goalie-4 defenders-3 halfs-3 forwards). But, depending on its strategy, the team can mix up those numbers. For example, if the team needs to score, it can move a take out a defender and add a forward, making a 1-3-3-4 configuration. In the same way, if the team needs to add muscle to its defense and protect its leading score, it can take away forwards and add defenders, to make a 1-4-4-2 configuration. But, the team can’t substitute players anytime it wants to. It can only substitute 3 new fresh players in the whole game; so that usually only happens at the end of a game when everybody else is exhausted and sweaty and a team’s score needs to be improved or defended. 

As you can see, the team and the entire game are well orchestrated. Each position does an important job and the entire game depends on teamwork. Soccer is played in nearly every country in the world mostly because anybody can play it, just about anywhere: in the street, on the beach, in your yard, or in an old field. You only need shorts, a shirt, and shoes, although the professional goalie is pretty heavily padded and some people wear shin guards, but, overall, you don’t really need special equipment – just a little bit of space, a lot of stamina, a sense of humor, and a ball. Even then, although a professional ball has to be an exact size and perfect hardness, one of the world's great soccer players, Diego Maradona, grew up playing soccer with his friends using a knotted bundle of rags. Their ball was smaller than the professional balls Maradona used when he grew up, and he says his amazing footwork and dribbling skill comes from first learning with the smaller ball.

Soccer has been called “the beautiful game” because when all the teammates are playing their positions well, it’s like a wonderful, athletic dance. Soccer also has a colorful history. The name ‘soccer’ is a nickname that came from its long name: “Association Football”. Some say that the first soccer game was played by Roman soldiers in Derby, England in 217 A.D, but others note that the Chinese military played a coordination building game that involved kicking a ball into a net more than 3000 years ago! In Europe in the Middle Ages soccer games were horribly violent with lots of gouging and kicking. Towns played against eachother. Hundreds of people played. It was mayhem. Kings from the 1300s on tried to stop them. In the 1500s, Queen Elizabeth I made a rule that threw soccer players in jail for a week and made them say penance at church. But soccer lovers could not be stopped and in 1863, The Football Association was created. The Football Association followed Cambridge Rules that don’t allow handling the ball, but some people liked the game to be rough. So, Rugby Football was formed following Rugby rules that allow tripping and kicking and carrying the ball.