Language, Truth and Logic on the Football Pitch

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 progressively less logical for at least the last half-century. Rarely do I read a match report or other football-related newspaper article without encountering at least one example of their debasement. When I watch a match on television, I am guaranteed several.

Full-back, centre-half, centre-forward; Number 6, Number 8, Number 10 — players, coaches, journalists, commentators, summarisers and studio analysts throw these terms around thoughtlessly, in ways which demonstrate that they either do not know or do not care where they came from. The common fan, trusting that these people know what they’re talking about, follows their habits in his casual conversation about the game. The result is that the terms themselves are increasingly removed from their initial, intelligent meaning; and that what was once the closest thing to a perfectly logical language this side of binary code becomes ever further removed from reality.

This, admittedly, irritates me more than it does most football fans of my generation — partly because I am more informed about the game’s history and partly because, being part-Irish, I am also familiar with a code of football in which the terms full-back and half-back are still used to mean what they say. Nevertheless, if the trend annoys even someone as young and as enthusiastic about the game as myself, it must be far more annoying, and quite confusing, not only to that ever-dwindling proportion of the population which remembers a time in which these terms made sense but also anyone new to the game. When my father first explained to me that when the ITV commentator said “centre-half” he meant “central defender,” my nine-year-old self couldn’t make sense of it. Now, on the rare occasions when my sister joins me for an international match, I wonder what she makes of the language employed by Sam Matterface. She doesn’t ask what he means, and I don’t bother to translate. If I did, I’d probably only confuse her further. Probably, she knows better than to pay attention to the commentary anyway.

More seriously, it may also restrict the flow of logic in our thinking about the game as it is played today — even for our professionals. This may be a fanciful notion, and I wouldn’t dispute that the initial chain of causation runs the other way. The English have historically been famously reluctant to think abstractly about anything, let alone something as trivial as sport, and this reluctance is a great part of what got us into this linguistic mess. (This is, after all, a country that calls its most expensive private schools “public schools.”) “But,” as George Orwell wrote on the subject of the relationship between language and politics, “an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.” Is it really so absurd to suggest that the same thing might have happened, and be happening, in the world of football? We came to reflexively call wide defenders full-backs because we were used to seeing them stay back. Now, they advance aggressively in attack, yet our persistence in giving them the wrong name plays its part in leading us to expect the wrong things from them. Is it any wonder that there are few, if any, English coaches among the world’s best? I certainly wouldn’t say that the confused language of our game was a major factor in retarding its tactical development, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it had played some part in the process.

“The point,” Orwell went on to say, “is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly…” I do not wish to say, as Orwell said of the English language, that modern English football in general is declining. The standard of play in the Premier League is as high as that in any league in the world, and our national team is doing better now than it has been doing for some time. But it is doing better in large part because English football culture is overcoming its resistance to thinking. This is a process which is occurring in spite of, rather than because of, the obstacles to thinking that language is putting in its way.

So, let us clear those obstacles as well as we can. For the sake of the sanity of the old, the comprehension of the young, and the future of our football, let’s look at the language we use to describe it. Perhaps we should not be using the traditional designations of full-backs, half-backs and forwards at all. Certainly, if we were to stick to speaking of defenders, midfielders and attackers we would be speaking with more consistency. But this consistency would come at the cost of elegance accuracy as well as the historical continuity I have already mentioned. When we use the more modern terms, we obscure two important facts about the game: first, that a player’s position is relative rather than absolute; and second, that attack and defence are determined less by positions on the pitch than by possession of the ball. Not only that, but most of the modern terms do not allow for as much precision as the classical ones without the use of an ungainly number of qualifiers. Purely on literary grounds, “right-half” is a lot less clunky than “right-sided defensive midfield player.” For these reasons, I would consider it a loss if the traditional terms for playing positions were forgotten; but if we are to keep using them, let us at least take the trouble to use them correctly. Before we refer to the positions of the pyramid in a contemporary context, let us map them onto the more modern formation in which a team is playing. Below is a guide to assist with the process.

Traditional Positions and Numbers

1. Goalkeeper

2. Right Full Back

3. Left Full Back

4. Right Half Back

5. Centre Half Back

6. Left Half Back

7. Outside Right

8. Inside Right

9. Centre Forward

10. Inside Left

11. Outside Left

W-W/4–3–3

2–3–5 seems absurdly aggressive by today’s standards, yet one of the most commonly used formations in modern football is not very different from the classical formation at all. The difference between the pyramid and a point-down 4–3–3 with twin wingers appears to be largely one of notation. The former is simply the attacking form of the latter; and when one reads first-hand descriptions of the way football was played before the offside law changed in 1925, the latter seems like a defensive version of the former.

Even in those days, wing-halves had to shadow the opposing wing-forwards as well as assist the centre-half in midfield, and inside-forwards had to link the front line to the middle. Today, wide defenders and advanced midfield players have the freedom and the obligation to support their wide attackers in movements that call to mind dead men’s descriptions of triangular wing play.

Look at average position or passing network graphs of a team in this formation, and those listed as wing-backs when the formation is printed will be found more or less level with their holding midfield player, with the central defenders noticeably behind. It is these central defenders, commonly misidentified as “twin centre-halves” by British commentators, who are the true full-backs in the original sense of the term - those who play "fully back."

Meanwhile, the attacking centre-half, or pivot, has been revived under the noses of these commentators. That British football has either failed to notice the fact, or forgotten the language necessary to express it, is one reason why discussions about soccer tactics can seem so complicated to outsiders. That a formation with four defenders can often be less defensive than one with three can seem paradoxical. Conceptualise the difference between 3–4–3 and 4–3–3 as that which exists between an attacking centre-half with advanced wingers and a defensive centre-half with withdrawn wingers, and it becomes a lot less confusing. For illustration, we can look to Latin America. There, the classical centre-half never went away; and while British commentators often refer to the midfield pivot as the “Number 4” or “Number 6,” South American national teams still tend to give him the Number 5 jersey. In Britain, the centre-half became in practice a third full-back after the offside law changed; but in Argentina and Brazil, it was a wing-half who became the third back, with the full-backs shifting to the opposite side, and the other wing-half who later became the fourth defender. The Uruguayans skipped the third-back stage of development, going straight from two at the back to four. Both wing-halves fell back to flank the full-backs, with the centre-half remaining in midfield. In all the fuss about Latin American countries having great attacking full-backs, Europeans have often forgotten that often these players were never considered full-backs in the first place.

This W-shaped defence forms the foundation of many modern formations. With the centre-half sitting at the base of a midfield triangle and three strikers upfield in the centre and wing-forwards, we have a revival of the W-W, or metodo, formation with which Italy and Uruguay won each of the first four World Cups. This is not quite the original form of the pyramid but the modified, slightly more conservative version that emerged after the offside law changed, with the inside-forwards playing more as advanced midfield men than secondary strikers. What starts out as a 4–3–3 in defence becomes a 2–3–5 in attack, as the wing-halves and inside-forwards push on. (This is the advantage of using letters rather than numbers to denote formations: that they can more easily express the elasticity in a team’s shape.) When one inside-forward plays noticeably deeper than the other (think of Kobbie Mainoo playing deeper than Bruno Fernandes but in advance of Casemiro), the lop-sided formation that results is referred to as a 4–2–4, 4–4–2, 4–2–1–3 or 4–2–3–1. It has historically been common for the more advanced inside-forward to play on the left, which is why he is frequently called the “Number 10” and his deeper, more defensive counterpart the “Number 8,” but this is not necessary. By the classical numbering system to which those who use these terms refer, a 10 playing on the right is an 8, and an 8 on the left is a 10. Similarly, a 4 on the left is a 6, a 6 on the left is a 4, and a 4 or 6 in the centre is a 5. Yes, Robbie Savage, I’m talking to you.

W-M/3–2–5

So, how did our football language become so muddled from such logical beginnings? How did “centre-half” become synonymous with “centre-back?” How did “full-back” become a pseudonym for “wing-back?” I have alluded to a change in the offside law; but for those who don’t know what I’m talking about, here is the place to explain it more fully. When forward passing was legalised in 1866, it was permitted only if either the most advanced attacking player were in his own half of the pitch or had no fewer than three members of the defending team between him and its goal-line. The 1925 amendment reduced the minimum to two, making the offside trap harder to employ and leaving the full-backs exposed.

Teams’ responses to this change differed. In Southern Europe and Latin America, the usual response was the W-W formation described above. With the effective playing area stretched, the inside-forwards began to drop deeper to maintain the link between midfield and attack. The centre-half began to play slightly deeper and to hold his position a little more firmly.

In Britain, full-backs and half-backs began to shift to a greater extent. The withdrawal of the inside-forwards was accompanied by the centre-half dropping so deep that he became in effect a third back. As he withdrew, the wing-halves moved infield to cover for him while the full-backs moved outwards. The W of the classical defence had become an M. At this stage, full-backs were still very defensive; but when three at the back became four, and wingers started to play deeper and narrower, the conditions emerged for wide defenders to gradually become de facto half-backs again.

It was the W-M formation and its gradual maturation into 4–2–4, 4–3–3 and 4–4–2 that gave British football its unusual positional lexicon. Although the W-M formation had been invented in Britain and was ubiquitous here for approximately thirty years from the early 1930s, the nation’s football culture did not acknowledge the fact off the pitch. The centre-back was still referred to as the centre-half; Match programmes, newspaper reports and television broadcasts all showed line-ups in the classical formation; and the Football League’s shirt numbering system required that players be numbered by their positions in the pyramid. Only when England won the World Cup in 1966 using Alf Ramsey’s 4–4–2 did the nation’s sporting press start attempting to reflect the use of more modern formations. “We must” explained a Southampton director when his club changed the format of its match programme, “educate the public away from the old-fashioned notion of two backs, three half-backs and five forwards.” Had this been done thirty years earlier, this might have been an excellent idea; but by the mid-sixties, it seems to have been too late. Instead, people started to speak as if that intermediate hybrid of the W-M and the 4–4–2 were the basis for the terms they were using. The effects are still noticeable almost sixty years on.

But it is not solely out of historical interest that I note the W-M formation here. I have devoted a section to it because it appears to be making a comeback. Perhaps it never entirely went away. In Britain, it didn’t take long for the wing-half who followed the centre-half into the rear-guard to forget that he had been a midfield player. Bobby Moore, John Hurst and Nobby Stiles would all cautiously advance into their old midfield positions when defence became attack; but their successors, perhaps themselves influenced by the fashion of depicting their formation as a “flat back four,” almost never did. However, in Dutch Total Football, and the Mixed Zone system that became popular in Italy in the late seventies, the attacking role of the sweeper was retained and refined. It’s not too much of a stretch to see their lop-sided 4–3–3 formations as slightly skewed versions of the W-M, with one wing-half defending in a deeper position than the other but often attacking in a more advanced one. Johann Cruyff’s 3–4–3 diamond formation, also used by Louis van Gaal, can be considered in the same light, with the centre-half taking on the sweeper’s role. Josep Guardiola, once a half-back in Cruyff’s system at Barcelona, has used both the W-W and the W-M at each of the three clubs he has managed; and although he has used the former more frequently, the latter was Manchester City’s default setting during the second half of their recent triple crown season. Ruben Dias played as the stopper centre-half/centre-back, Rodrigo as the holding half-back on the left, and John Stones as a roving right-half who glided between the back and the middle of the team like a latter-day Franz Beckenbauer. In this system, calling the wide defenders full-backs was not a misnomer, for they mostly held their positions in order to give Stones the security he needed to go forward.

Other teams keep their central defenders back, but have their wing-backs operating asymetrically, with one staying back to make a back three and the other advancing in attack. Usually, if only one midfield player holds his position while the others advance, the more aggressive wing-back will play an "inverted" role alongside him to make up the M-shaped rest defence. If there are two holding midfielders, the aggressive wing-back can be more aggressive still, becoming a false winger as the forward ahead of him moves inside. Leif Davis took on this overlapping role for Ipswich Town in their promotion season of 2022-23; while Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal team, though their formation is usually depicted as a 4–3–3 and their average positions those of a W-W formation, tend to favour the inverted approach. What makes their formation look like a W-W on average is that both wing-halves are capable of playing conservative or the aggressive role.

A-M/3–4–3

Sometimes, the M-defence is used in conjunction with wide players who take almost complete responsibility for their entire flanks. Although these players are sometimes described as wing-backs, they are not usually part of their team’s rest defence. They flank their full-backs, a.k.a. wide centre-backs, when defending but attack as forwards while the deep midfield players hold their positions. Thomas Tuchel, when manager of Chelsea, insisted that Reece James and Ben Chilwell were not defenders, and their average positions were very often in advance of Kante and Jorginho. If they are to be assigned any position in the pyramid formation, it is that of a wing-forward, albeit what the Italians call a returning winger rather than a traditionally aggressive one.

In a system like this, describing the central defender as a centre-half is less of a misnomer than it is in most back four systems. With two narrow full-backs ready to cover the centre, he is free to advance into midfield when his team wins possession. If the opposing team is playing with the centre-forward up front on his own, at least one of the back three can advance knowing that his team still has two against one at the rear. Against a twin striker system, the full-backs can assume the duties of man-to-man markers, allowing the middle man to play as a sweeper, with the time and space to advance and direct the attack from the back. David Luiz adopted this approach in the Chelsea team coached by Antonio Conte, which won the Premier League in 2017. More recently, Ruben Amorim used Matthijs De Ligt in this way at Manchester United.

Deep Space 9

A narrow back three can also be used as a way to facilitate the use of twin strikers by one’s own side without sacrificing numbers in midfield. By making two men responsible for the width in attack, a coach can cram the centre of the field, playing two marking defenders, a sweeper, two holding midfield players and an advanced midfield playmaker, and still have room for two strikers up front. Sometimes, this is referred to as playing with “two centre-forwards,” but this is really a confusion of positions with roles. Taken literally, the term “centre-forward” does not necessarily mean “most advanced forward.” It simply means the middle man in the front line. Sometimes, this man is indeed one of the strikers; but sometimes, he is the man behind them.

The term “false 9” is one recent addition to our football lexicon that really has been useful, giving us a handy way to describe a centre-forward who drops off the front to create space for his inside and wing-forwards to exploit. G.O. Smith, Vivian Woodward, Matthias Sindelar, Adolfo Pedernera, Alfredo Di Stefano, Johann Cruyff and Michael Laudrup all played the role of what Di Stefano called a delantero retrasado — a delayed forward. Among active players, Harry Kane and Lionel Messi are the most famous examples. These men dropped back and contributed to build-up play; but at the height of the attack, they were still expected to be in the goalmouth to finish off the move. They led the forward line in an unorthodox way, but they still had to lead it.

It is possible, however, for a centre-forward to go further still, to play behind his inside men in an inverted forward line, leaving the leading responsibilities to them while he devotes himself to linking them with the rest of the team, although he may score several goals himself.

Nandor Hidegkuti introduced England to this style of centre-forward play when he visited Wembley with the Hungarian national team in 1953. Playing behind Ferenc Puskas and Sandor Kocsis, he was the chief architect of a 6–3 win, England’s first defeat at home to a team from outside Britain and Ireland, scoring a hat-trick in the process. When Manchester City adopted the tactic the following season, 1954/55, their deep centre-forward Don Revie was voted Footballer of the Year. Alf Ramsey, England’s right-back in that defeat to Hungary, must have been impressed by the Hungarian tactics, for he employed Bobby Charlton to replicate Hidegkuti’s role when England won the World Cup in 1966.

The deep centre-forward was always a rarity, but he is still out there. Like the attacking centre-half, he never disappeared entirely; and like the attacking centre-half, he is rarely recognised as such today. Ayoze Perez, Leicester City's playmaker in the FA Cup Final of 2021, may have been described as a “Number 10,” and he did indeed end up drifting off to the inside-left position with Vardy in the middle, but he started the final playing between and behind Vardy and Kelechi Iheanacho - a deep centre-forward if ever there were one.

A 4–4–2/4–3–3 diamond formation, in which the width at the front is generated by winger-striker hybrids and overlapping wing-backs, turns the centre-forward into a mixture of a false 9 and what one might call a Deep Space 9, the main striker among the inside trio but perhaps not among the whole forward line. Three years after Perez won the Cup with Leicester, Manchester United beat their neighbours to the Cup with Bruno Fernandes playing such a role. Roberto Firmino took a reserved centre-forward's role in a Liverpool team that won the European Cup in 2019 and the Premier League in 2020, content to focus on making chances for Mohammed Salah and Sadio Mane.

Not all modern formations are so easy to fit into the paradigm of the pyramid; but if we are to keep using its terms, let us at least make an effort to do so sensibly, being honest about where we run into difficulties. If sportswriters and commentators wait for professional players and coaches to take the lead in this, they will be disappointed. The habits are probably too ingrained in most of them; and in any case, they are not about to give up their own team’s secrets. But those who are paid to analyse the game from the outside would do well to clarify their language in order to clarify their thoughts. The more intelligible one’s work is to the layman, the more intelligible it will tend to be to oneself. Football will be a richer game for all of us if we apply to it G.K. Chesterton’s principle on tennis — “that it should be occasionally discussed at least as intelligently as it is played.”

Average Position Graphs

WhoScored provide detailed statistical reports of every game played in most major competitions in world football. Some of the formations I have discussed above are illustrated in the average position graphs available through the following links.

https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1842688/MatchReport/International-European-Championship-2024-Spain-England (W-W vs W-W)

https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1724207/MatchReport/Europe-Champions-League-2022-2023-Real-Madrid-Manchester-City (W-W vs W-M)

https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1634186/Live/England-FA-Cup-2021-2022-Chelsea-Liverpool (A-M vs W-W)