Позиция полузащитника в футболе

Association football position
the association football position

In the sport of association football, a midfielder is an outfield position which plays primarily in the middle of the pitch. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundaries, with mobility and passing ability, they are often referred to as deep lying midfielders, play makers, box to box midfielders, or holding midfielders. There are also attacking midfielders with limited defensive assignments. The size of midfield units on a team and their assigned roles depend on what formation is used; the unit of these players on the pitch is commonly referred to as the midfield. Its name derives from the fact that midfield units typically make up the in between units to the defensive units and forward units of a formation. Managers frequently assign one or more midfielders to disrupt the opposing team's attacks, while others may be tasked with creating goals, or have equal responsibilities between attack and defence. Midfielders are the players who typically travel the greatest distance during a match. Midfielders arguably have the most possession during a game, and thus they are some of the fittest players on the pitch. Midfielders are often assigned the task of assisting forwards to create scoring opportunities.

Central or centre midfielders are players whose role is divided mostly equally between attacking and defensive duties to control the play in and around the centre of the pitch. These players will try to pass the ball to the team's attacking midfielders and forwards and may also help their team's attacks by making runs into the opposition's penalty area and attempting shots on goal themselves. They also provide secondary support to attackers, both in and out of possession. When the opposing team has the ball, a central midfielder may drop back to protect the goal or move forward and press the opposition ball carrier to recover the ball. A centre midfielder defending their goal will move in front of their centre backs to block long shots by the opposition and possibly track opposition midfielders making runs towards the goal. The 4–3–3 and 4–5–1 formations each use three central midfielders. The 4−4−2 formation may use two central midfielders, and in the 4–2–3–1 formation one of the two deeper midfielders may be a central midfielder. Prominent central midfielders are known for their ability to pace the game when their team is in possession of the ball, by dictating the tempo of play from the centre of the pitch.

The term box to box midfielder refers to central midfielders who are hard working and who have good all round abilities, which makes them skilled at both defending and attacking. These players can therefore track back to their own box to make tackles and block shots and also carry the ball forward or run to the opponents' box to try to score. Beginning in the mid 2000s, the change of trends and the decline of the standard 4–4–2 formation (in many cases making way for the 4–2–3–1 and 4–3–3 formations) imposed restrictions on the typical box to box midfielders of the 1980s and 1990s, as teams' two midfield roles were now often divided into "holders" or "creators", with a third variation upon the role being described as that of a "carrier" or "surger". Some notable examples of box to box midfielders are Lothar Matthäus, Clarence Seedorf, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Steven Gerrard, Johan Neeskens, Sócrates, Yaya Touré, Arturo Vidal, Patrick Vieira, Frank Lampard, Bryan Robson, Roy Keane and more recently Jude Bellingham.

In Italian football, the term mezzala (literally "half winger" in Italian) is used to describe the position of the one or two central midfielders who play on either side of a holding midfielder and/or playmaker. The term was initially applied to the role of an inside forward in the WM and Metodo formations in Italian, but later described a specific type of central midfielder. The mezzala is often a quick and hard working attack minded midfielder, with good skills and noted offensive capabilities, as well as a tendency to make overlapping attacking runs, but also a player who participates in the defensive aspect of the game, and who can give width to a team by drifting out wide; as such, the term can be applied to several different roles. In English, the term has come to be seen as a variant of the box to box midfielder role.

The number 8 generally, refers to the heartbeat of the team, like a box to box midfielder, having both offensive and defensive duties, but their main role to control the tempo of the game. For example, Xavi was the Number 8 in the Spanish national team during its highly successful period between 2008 and 2013; in this role, he could act as a double pivot or controller in a box midfield, and in a positional play system. The tiki taka era of the Spanish national team was where the "Number 8" thrived. These midfielders require a sense of 'what' and 'when,' depending on the phase of buildup, opponent, and the team's style of play. For example, under a manager such as José Mourinho, the number 8's role would be to speed up play, so that the offensive transition is quick and hard to catch up, and would generally be played as a wide midfielder; however under a manager such as Pep Guardiola, Vicente del Bosque, Johan Cruyff, or Zinedine Zidane, the number 8 would be played as a deeper or more central midfielder whose job is to slow down play, hold and pass, or create small breaches to open more passes. Examples under these managers would be Xavi, Guardiola himself during his playing career, and Luka Modrić, respectively.

Left and right midfielders have a role balanced between attack and defence whilst they play a lot of crosses in the box for forwards. They are positioned closer to the touchlines of the pitch. They may be asked to cross the ball into the opponent's penalty area to make scoring chances for their teammates, and when defending they may put pressure on opponents who are trying to cross. Common modern formations that include left and right midfielders are the 4−4−2, the 4−4−1−1, the 4–2–3–1 and the 4−5−1 formations. Jonathan Wilson describes the development of the 4−4−2 formation: " the winger became a wide midfielder, a shuttler, somebody who might be expected to cross a ball but was also meant to put in a defensive shift." Two notable examples of wide midfielders are David Beckham and Ryan Giggs. In Italian football, the role of the wide midfielder is known as tornante di centrocampo or simply tornante ("returning"); it originated from the role of an outside forward, and came to be known as such as it often required players in this position to track back and assist the back line with defensive duties, in addition to aiding the midfield and attacking.

The historic position of wing half (not to be confused with mezzala) was given to midfielders (half backs) who played near the side of the pitch. It became obsolete as wide players with defensive duties have tended to become more a part of the defence as full backs.

Defensive midfielders are midfield players who focus on protecting their team's goal. These players may defend a zone in front of their team's defence, or man mark specific opposition attackers. Defensive midfielders may also move to the full back or centre back positions if those players move forward to join in an attack. Sergio Busquets described his attitude: "The coach knows that I am an obedient player who likes to help out and if I have to run to the wing to cover someone's position, great."

These players typically serve as the offensive pivot of the team, and are sometimes said to be "playing in the hole", although this term can also be used as deep lying forward. The attacking midfielder is an important position that requires the player to possess superior technical abilities in terms of passing and dribbling, as well as, perhaps more importantly, the ability to read the opposing defence to deliver defence splitting passes to the striker. This specialist midfielder's main role is to create good shooting and goal scoring opportunities using superior vision, control, and technical skill, by making crosses, through balls, and headed knockdowns to teammates. They may try to set up shooting opportunities for themselves by dribbling or performing a give and go with a teammate. Attacking midfielders may also make runs into the opponents' penalty area to shoot from another teammate's pass. Some examples of the advanced playmaker would be Zico, Francesco Totti, Kevin De Bruyne, and Michel Platini. There are also some examples of more flexible advanced playmakers, such as Zinedine Zidane, Rui Costa, Kaká, Andrés Iniesta, Juan Riquelme, David Silva, and Nécib. These players could control the tempo of the game in deeper areas of the pitch while also being able to push forward and play line breaking through balls. Mesut Özil can be considered as a classic 10 who adopted a slightly more direct approach and specialised in playing the final ball.

The false attacking midfielder description has been used in Italian football to describe a player who is seemingly playing as an attacking midfielder in a 4–3–1–2 formation, but who eventually drops deeper into midfield, drawing opposing players out of position and creating space to be exploited by teammates making attacking runs; the false attacking midfielder will eventually sit in a central midfield role and function as a deep lying playmaker. The false attacking midfielder is, therefore, usually a creative and tactically intelligent player with good vision, technique, movement, passing ability, and striking ability from a distance. They should also be a hard working player, who is able to read the game and help the team defensively. Wayne Rooney has been deployed in a similar role, on occasion; seemingly positioned as a number 10 behind the main striker, he would often drop even deeper into midfield to help his team retrieve possession and start attacks.

The "false 10" or "central winger" is a type of midfielder, which differs from the false attacking midfielder. Much like the "false 9", their specificity lies in the fact that, although they seemingly play as an attacking midfielder on paper, unlike a traditional playmaker who stays behind the striker in the centre of the pitch, the false 10's goal is to move out of position and drift wide when in possession of the ball to help both the wingers and fullbacks to overload the flanks. This means two problems for the opposing midfielders: either they let the false 10 drift wide, and their presence, along with both the winger and the fullback, creates a three on two player advantage out wide; or they follow the false 10, but leave space in the centre of the pitch for wingers or onrushing midfielders to exploit. False 10s are usually traditional wingers who are told to play in the centre of the pitch, and their natural way of playing makes them drift wide and look to provide deliveries into the box for teammates. On occasion, the false 10 can also function in a different manner alongside a false 9, usually in a 4–6–0 formation, disguised as either a 4–3–3 or 4–2–3–1 formation. When other forwards or false 9s drop deep and draw defenders away from the false 10s, creating space in the middle of the pitch, the false 10 will then also surprise defenders by exploiting this space and moving out of position once again, often undertaking offensive dribbling runs forward towards goal, or running on to passes from false 9s, which in turn enables them to create goalscoring opportunities or go for goal themselves.

An inverted winger is a modern tactical development of the traditional winger position. Most wingers are assigned to either side of the field based on their footedness, with right footed players on the right and left footed players on the left. This assumes that assigning a player to their natural side ensures a more powerful cross as well as greater ball protection along the touch lines. However, when the position is inverted and a winger instead plays inside out on the opposite flank (i. e., a right footed player as a left inverted winger), they effectively become supporting strikers and primarily assume a role in the attack. As opposed to traditionally pulling the opponent's full back out and down the flanks before crossing the ball in near the by line, positioning a winger on the opposite side of the field allows the player to cut in around the 18 yard box, either threading passes between defenders or shooting on goal using the dominant foot. This offensive tactic has found popularity in the modern game due to the fact that it gives traditional wingers increased mobility as playmakers and goalscorers, such as the left footed right winger Domenico Berardi of Sassuolo who achieved 30 career goals faster than any player in the past half century of Serie A football. Not only are inverted wingers able to push full backs onto their weak sides, but they are also able to spread and force the other team to defend deeper as forwards and wing backs route towards the goal, ultimately creating more scoring opportunities. Other midfielders within this tactical archetype include Lionel Messi and Eden Hazard, as well as Megan Rapinoe of the USWNT. Clubs such as Real Madrid often choose to play their wingers on the "wrong" flank for this reason; former Real Madrid coach José Mourinho often played Ángel Di María on the right and Cristiano Ronaldo on the left. Former Bayern Munich manager Jupp Heynckes often played the left footed Arjen Robben on the right and the right footed Franck Ribéry on the left. One of the foremost practitioners of playing from either flank was German winger Jürgen Grabowski, whose flexibility helped Germany to third place in the 1970 World Cup, and the world title in 1974. A description that has been used in the media to label a variation upon the inverted winger position is that of an "attacking", "false", or "goalscoring winger", as exemplified by Cristiano Ronaldo's role on the left flank during his time at Real Madrid in particular. This label has been used to describe an offensive minded inverted winger, who will seemingly operate out wide on paper, but who instead will be given the freedom to make unmarked runs into more advanced central areas inside the penalty area to get on the end of passes and crosses and score goals, effectively functioning as a striker. This role is somewhat comparable to what is known as the raumdeuter role in German football jargon (literally "space interpreter"), as exemplified by Thomas Müller, as well as Dele Alli and Tim Cahill, namely an attacking minded wide player, who will move into effective central attacking areas to find spaces from which they can receive passes and score or assist goals, while other teammates create space for their runs by drawing opponents away from them.

The "false winger" or "seven and a half" is a label which has been used to describe a type of player who normally plays centrally, but who instead is deployed out wide on paper; during the course of a match, however, they will move inside and operate in the centre of the pitch to drag defenders out of position, congest the midfield and give their team a numerical advantage in this area, so that they can dominate possession in the middle of the pitch and create chances for the forwards; this position also leaves space for full backs to make overlapping attacking runs up the flank. Samir Nasri, who has been deployed in this role, once described it as that of a "non axial playmaker".