Association football is famously known as The Beautiful Game; yet its language, at least among the English-speaking peoples, must by now have become the ugliest attached to any sport anywhere. I refer not to the rude words roared at each other by spectators and players alike, of which I myself make liberal use during matches, but of the technical vernacular of the game itself, in particular the terms used to describe playing positions. These, it seems, have been growing progr
