In my humble opinion, biased by my love for chess, and military history......not to mention my experience at goalie, sweeper and striker. 1. CM 2. Striker 3. Center Back 4. Keeper Obviously, I think the middle is key. Is it possible to gauge statistically?
Goalkeeper's the most important position. Everyone else having a bad day, you can compensate. Goalkeeper,s having a bad day, you concede multiple soft goals and lose.
Gotta agree with MatthausSammer. How many times have you seen defenses get crapped on and get bailed bout by a goalkeeper in good form? Dan Kennedy comes to mind.
Goalkeepers can lose you a match. But they can't win a match as there still has to be someone to score. So strikers? They score most of goals. But they usually need midfielders to create chances for them. And when they score two goals, goalkeeper's two mistakes can kill it all. And we are back on the start...
for field players, I think defensive mid is very important since they serve as a link between the attack and defense.
the most important position is whichever position you're weakest at...and that's the one to concentrate on
CM by miles I think. When you have a good CM you can control the middle of the pitch exposing less of your Defense and GK and providing balls for your offense. Zidane comes to mind. When you have 2 great CMs.. you have Xaviesta and we know how good they make people look.
Yes I agree. If you win the central midfield battle everything else opens up.....and your opponent is constricted. Suprised so many here picked the goalie, since he can only affect the offense a few times a game.
The rationale behind that being that if a CM has a bad game, other players can pick up the slack. When the goalkeeper has a bad game, you've almost certainly lost.
A GK might only have a few opportunities to have a good or bad game. Meaning a lot of times he might be having a bad day letting something in, but then his defense steps up and nothing else gets to him. Or he maybe came off crosses very badly and didn't get scored on but his defense again shuts down the opposition. It's a team sport hard everyone picks up the slack for some other player one way or another.
Fair point, but a GK is the player who can most easily lose you a match on an off day, whereas if a striker or midfielder is a bit off you've got other players who can pick up the slack. Even on a phenomenal day for a defensive line there are regularly chances that get through.
I think the most important position is the one where your best player is better than the competitors comparable challenging players that are going against them. If your forward is head and shoulders better than the opposing defenders that try to match up on them, then the answer is forward. Same for any other position IMO. If your center mid, can win balls in midfiend and also slice and dice through the midfield and deliver excellent through balls to the forwards to shoot with then its center mid. All reletive to the competitor where you have lopsided differential is where you'll have greatest success.
I think CM because you need that midfield engine to dictate the tempo. This is the unique positional link that can generate quality chances for your forwards and keep the pressure off your back line and keeper. Obviously you need your forwards to convert those chances and your back line and keeper to come through when called upon but for me, the CM can truly influence the outcome of the game. Win the midfield battles consistently and you give your side confidence and a better chance to win the war.
well not in reality ... according to salary and transfer fee; 1- Creative Forward/playmaker (AM) 2- Striker/Good Winger (wide man) 3- CM/CB 4- GK and fullbacks If GK is so important, why most team unlerlooked and pay them much less? At Barca Messi (Xavi, Iniesta, Cecs ..) costs >>>>> Valdez At Real, CR7 Ozil Kaka > Cassilas
I did an analysis on Arsenal from their "invincibles" season (as well as a season employing an Ordered Probit where players were coded as a "1" when they played at least 15 minutes and a "0" when they played less than 15 minutes. In this, I was trying to capture the concept of having been in a match long enough to have an effect on it. The players in order of their importance for creating a next higher order outcome (moving from a loss to a tie, or a tie to a win) were: 1. Silva (Defensive Midfield) 2. Lauren (Right back) 3. Henry (Striker) 4. Eboue (another Right Back... filled in for Lauren once he was injured) 5. Gallas (center back) 6. Adebayor (Striker) 7. Clichy (left back... who actually was the second choice for Cole) 8. Cole (another left back) Last place was Lehmann (GK) While this is only one team in one year, it would seem that for that special season Arsenal's most important players were on defense. After that, there was need for strikers, but the GK didn't matter as much. In other words, maybe if your team is great enough, you do not need a good GK. Would be interesting to carry this out with a much larger data set (like all teams for several year).