Attacking Midfielder vs Central Midfielder vs Defensive Midfielder

You're absolutely right. But in a 4 man midfield with two players wide, he would probably have to assume the DM role since he isn't a classic "#10". I know he is not your classic ball winner, but then again, he's not a classic attacking midfielder/playmaker either. If you read the whole post, you'll see that I emphasize he's best in a DEEP LYING position. Whether you want to call it DM or holding MF is up to you.

 

There are plenty of dmids who have good passing skills. It is just that the position requires a different type of passing that is not so "spectacular" as the passes that attacking/central midfielders make.

Defensive midfielders such as Hamann, Makalele and Gattuso are all very efficient passers:

1) They rarely turn the ball over
2) They have a good sense of tempo - after winning the ball they make a short quick pass to an advancing defensive player or a retreating attacking player so that the rest of the players have an opportunity to move to space and move into a more attacking shape
3) They are responsible for linking play between the defense and midfield

Teams with solid defensive midfielders do not lose so much possession in their own half of the field, because their defenders are not as responsible for linking play.

Teams with solid defensive midfielders often have excellent counterattacking characteristics, because the defensive midfielder is often good at making outlet passes to a player well-positioned to distribute the final ball - they don't press the attack so much making long passes themselves, rather they help build towards the final pass by making a simple, quick pass to a player who is moving into the offensive zone with space and time to make the final pass.

A guy like Steven Gerrard is a phenomenal ball-winners, excellent attackers, have high mobility, etc. But he really is not that good a defensive midfielder because he is too aggressive with his passing. His passing is better suited for an all-around midfield role if not an attacking midfield role.

A guy like Hamann was crucial for Liverpool during their best form over the last few years, because he controlled the linking between the back and the front, took up space between the defense and midfield without pressing too far forward or hanging too far back and because he freed other midfielders (Macca, Gerrard, Murphy, etc) to move forward more aggressively. The scheme lost its luster when Liverpool became overreliant on a single goalscorer (as opposed to two or three), as the central defenders lost a yard or two of pace and became more vulnerable to the counterattack, as Liverpool struggled to adjust to teams that shut-down the center of the pitch with a bunker and as Didi Hamann lost his fitness and form.

During Euro 2004, Trappetoni made a poor decision w/Italy to over-rely on attacking and central midfielders and eschewed giving significant playing time to Gattuso, Fiore and Zanetti in favor of a more attacking-minded midfield with Pirlo, Totti, Del Piero and Perotta. As a result, the Italy team struggled with their build-up and attacking shape.

The same situation has occurred with Real Madrid since Makalale moved on. He was not the primary playmaker by any means, but it was his possessions and passes that helped stabilize the very fluid box midfield of Madrid and unleashed the wing backs during a transfer of possession. Once he moved on, the lack of a true organizer/fulcrum in back made it difficult for Madrid to find its best shape.

 

Was thinking as I read that the difference between DM and CM is just one of ability. Davids, Vieira and Keane (c. 1998) are primary responsible for destroying, it just happens that they are so freaking talented that they can attack too.

Likewise Gerrard is an attacking mid who is just so damn good that he kills his opposing number defensively.

But I think Apoo ("thank you, come again") is right that when you're talking about mere mortals (the US team for example) you have to decide which skill set is more important to you when you field a team.

 

I think almost everybody in this thread has completely missed the point. There was one poster who touched on the need to apply descriptors based on formation, but that kind of blew past everybody.

Here's the gig:

A little more than six years ago, on this board and on SAG, posters finally attained a general level of sophistication that required a new set of descriptors to address what different players were doing.

That's it.

Up until then, everybody spoke in terms of #10s and sweepers and stoppers because that's what we'd all done in high school. Well, it doesn't work at a more advanced level. You need different descriptors.

A lot of it has to do with formational sophistication, and a lot of it has to do with sheer mindnumbing anal retentiveness on the part of certain posters, but there comes a time when you need a common language to distinguish among midfielders in a diamond-four, flat-four, box-four, classic 5, defensive 5, attacking 5 or the dreaded 3-6-1.

Here's the distinction:

Attacking Mid indicates a midfielder who plays high and attacks. DMB is the perfect example. It is not tied to the center of the pitch in any way, shape, means, fashion or form. It includes the classic #10, but goes far beyond it.

Ditto for defensive midfielder, because in a 3-5-2, we often play with two.

Central midfielder indicates a midfielder who plays in the center of the park. He may be attacking or defensive, but he's in the middle. This, as opposed to a:

Flank midfielder, who plays primarily near the sideline, and is more typically a one-side dominant player--though certain systems call for playing on your opposite side to emphasize inswinging crosses. Flank midfielders may be primarily defensive, primarily offensive, or true two-way players. Depends on the player.

Flank midfielders are distinct from classic wingers, because classic wingers are forwards. DMB occasionally fits this role, but is generally more effective from deeper in midfield to give him a chance to run at people and cut in.

Flanker or wingback is a subset of flank midfielders that specifically indicates an outside midfielder in a 3-5-2, because the defensive responsibilities are significantly different.

Finally, there's holding midfielder. That's the center mid in a classic 3-5-2. Ben Olsen fills this role for DCU. In a flat-four, it's usually the two guys in the middle--Ekelund and Mulrooney in San Jose, for instance. Holding mids are central mids who are tasked with the transition game, going from offense to defense and the reverse. They have to be two-way players, but don't clearly fit into either attacking or defensive roles. If you've got an unbalanced diamond or box, or box and one, the extra guy is almost always a holding mid.

Now.

What appooOnU is guilty of is confusing positional descriptors with players. You don't play systems, you play players. You use the descriptor to describe what the player is doing. It's not at all useful to apply these kinds of descriptors to the Men's Nats because we are not two and three deep at each positional description.

His point is valid, however, even if totally redundant. It might be a good idea to play Claudio against stronger sides that defend well against the break, because we'll need more possession, and Claudio provides that like no one else in our lineup. Against weaker sides, play the young guns, let them run on the break, and watch the goals pile up. Middling CONCACAF sides, such as we'll see in the Hex, should probably be played on an individual basis with adjustments in strategy as conditions, injuries and suspension dictate.

What an insight! You think that's exactly what il Bruce is doing?

 

Let me piggy-back on Sanguine's thoughts by saying the playing personalities of the outside midfielders can seriously influence the play of the central midfielders. I haven't seen this mentioned a lot on this thread yet, but I guess Sanguine might agree that this is an explanation of the offensive case where he used a defensive example.


If we play with two wing midfielders who cross well (Lewis and maybe Klein or Reyna on the right) and get back on defense the CMs can play more offensive because they don't have to cover wide very much. If we play with two wing midfielders who dribble better or use more short passes than they cross (DMB, LD) the central midfielders may play more like two DM or two way CMs. Or we could dedicate one DM who always stays at home. I am not saying that DMB and LD don't play defense they do but losing the ball while dribbling or while running for a through ball makes the counter-attack worse on that side than losing the ball by a bad cross.

Of course, our wing play may not be dictated by what we want to do offensively but because we need to negate some of the opponents offense. E.g. Lewis may play not because we really need his crosses but because we need a different kind of wing defender (Boca or Convey e.g.). Then the forwards and AMs need to remember what Lewis is looking to do when he gets the ball and adjust accordingly.

The box midfield works well when our defenders can get up to cross. Sometimes Bruce may play even asymmetrical with Frankie getting up to cross on the right and Boca staying at home on the left. Two CMs and two AMs is technically a box. But those two AMs could attack wide or central (and let the defenders get wide) or both or asymmetrical.

As an example of how important it is to practice subtle formation changes, in the game against El Salvador FRankie would get stuck up and wide and people would need to be marked both on that side and centrally on a counter attack. Sometimes the marking came late. Zavagnin had to go wider than perhaps is usual for a typical DM. And sometimes LD would be tracking back centrally because that is where he ended up and Mathis was left wondering whether he should come back at all or let LD do it.

I am not anti-formation I think that formations and playing styles are important to practice and they give general positional awareness to the whole team. However, formations are probably less important when the turnover in starting lineups are very small from game-to-game and when the players on the team know each others preferences, strengths, and weaknesses very well. They don't have to think oh "he is a left wide midfielder he should try and drive a cross 'on-a-rope' from there so I will set myself front post or back post for the cross". They will likely think that "Its the Bease, and he is going to try his speed move and then whip the ball in a bloop cross into the six yard box so I need to be either ready for that or get wider so he can drop it back to me on the ground if he can't whip the bloop cross in".

Several years ago Manchester United didn't go box or diamond but just flat back four in the midfield with whoever is available to attack wide does so (wing midfielder). whoever is open for a quick drop pass and then proceeds to knock it to the forwards behind the opposing defense (more like a CM or DM) does so. Whoever can dribble into the box or run to receive a through ball does so. It is easier to do this when Scholes, Beckham, Veron, Butt, Keane, (probably missing others) were in their prime and very comfortable playing with each other.

With a national team it is difficult to breed familiarity and build team chemistry because all of the players are part-time (except pre-1994). So, for new players, formation is really important so they can predict what their new teammates will do. Eventually national team regulars add their own personal angle onto the position they are put in. And when you have talented players that are so flexible in several positions (LD, Sanneh, and Reyna, Mastroeni and Boca) the task is doubly hard because teammates must adjust to how LD plays CM or how he plays forward. And remember what his trends are when he plays RM, too.

 

My gosh, Donovan can control the pace of the attack as well. It may be at a little faster pace than Reyna, but it's control nonetheless. I just got through watching the U.S. Panama game again - it was a fast, but well-controlled pace. And Donovan WAS available at any given time to receive the ball - they didn't always give it to him, but he was available. Plus, he was constantly running back getting in defensive position also. Bottom line - Reyna controlling the pace got us an unexciting 2-0 win at home and 2 very uninspiring 1-1 draws on the road. Donovan controlling the pace got us a well-controlled 2-0 win on the road (our only one) and an exciting, inspiring 6-0 win at home with one more game to go.

And why should we be afraid of anybody? Think of Arena's comments on the "Our Way" video. "These young guys (Donovan and Beasley) AREN'T AFRAID OF ANYBODY. They don't care."

I know you're trying real hard to get Claudio back on the field in a commanding role. Just keep trying, I guess.

 

That's right. I'm saying don't be afraid of Rooney, Dafoe, Owen, Lampard, Gerrard and Suan Wright-Phillips. Don't be afraid.

And I just absolutely respectfully disagree with your opinion about the Panama game and the El Salvador game. Donovan was responsible for deciding when to attack and when to play it back. Believe it or not, I saw him doing it. He obviously chose to attack more than Reyna has. But hey, you want Reyna pulling the strings, I guess we still beat Panama 2-0 at home.

 

I'm not really sure where you were going with this in regards to my post that you quoted. I think your description is pretty obvious. All I said was that just because a dmid has more skills than most doesn't change the fact that he's still a dmid.

 

I don't buy the whole Claudio knocking it back to the defense and getting us to hold possession idea. He only really does that against bad and average teams. When we play against more talented teams, the other team usually dictates the pace of the game and holds the possession and we just try to catch them out of position and counterattack furiously. Can our back line even string together three passes in a row against an elite team?

Until we get to the point where we can compete with elite teams in terms of possession, it's useless to try and hold the ball up, etc. We've got to take the chances that we get and make them mark us. I know it's a compromise between attacking and not getting caught out of position, but when you are getting few chances to begin with, you don't want a guy in there thinking negatively and wasting them. You want someone in there who will take it to the other team. If we're just sitting back real deliberate-like and letting them hammer us with nothing going the other way, we're making it easy for them.

 

Dan, I don't think we missed the point at all. People had a problem with some of the descriptions and the obvious tie in to the Reyna vs Donovan thread. Describing formations and strategies is fine. But you have to take into account each players abilities and what works as a team. You know this, and we know this. Back on page 1 I said "But (a player's) responsibilities are determined by their abilities and their teammates abilities, not just by position" and this has been repeated over and over. Appoo ignored this, I guess, to use his discriptions to further his Reyna arguement.

It all comes down to the fact that this thread is just a spinoff from the Donovan vs Reyna thread. The whole comments on C mids having "class" and "Generally thought of as the best soccer players in the world" was a bit over the top and it wasn't hard to see what was going on. I ran with it for a little while, acting like I didn't know what was up, but knew where this was heading.

If someone wants to have a real discussion on positions, tactics, and players strengths and weakness within the team concept then great. But this wasn't ever going to be that kind of a discussion. From the start Appoo said he "had an ulterior motive". It's already turned into the second coming of the Donovan vs Reyna thread.

It would be interesting to have a real discussion on the entire pool of US midfielders. How each player's abilities fit into team tactics.

 

I agree with you that dmid describes a position more than a player. There are destroyer type dmids that cannot pass well, but that is not true of most of the best dmids.

At the same time, some of the players that you mentioned are not really dmids or at least have not been for most of their careers. Roy Keane, Edgar Davids and Patrick Vieira are not classic dmids in the mold of Gennero Gattuso or Didi Hamann. They are more all-around center mids. Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira boss the entire field and play box to box - though Keane has cut this back some. They do make many of the passes that I am talking about, but they also hold possession far more than the average defensive midfielder, who is a linking player - not a possession player. Edgar Davids is cut from the same cloth, although I have no doubt that he could play as an orthodox defensive midfielder if that was required of him.

Most defensive midfielders have high work-rates, but they are more oriented around positional play than the style of these all-arounders you have mentioned who basically pursue the play wherever it is on the field. A defensive midfielder will often be involved, but he tends to play space more than an all-around central midfield player.

You never see Didi Hamann charging into the box - he may take a long shot or slide up to collect a long rebound or poor clearance on a set piece for instance. But he primarily serves in the middle of the field to help hold possession, switch the ball, and to cover for the defenders in the event of a counterattack. Particularly since a player like Sami Hyppia will frequently step up towards the box in a sustained attacking situation.

An all around central midfielder, on the other hand, which is more of what Xabi Alonso and Steven Gerrard are being asked to play as by Rafa Benitez, will pursue the play into the box and seek to be secondary scoring options at any point in the match. They will help out in the defensive end and they will cover for overlapping players. But a defensive midfielder views these attacking responsibilities much lower on his list of priorities, because they necessarily take him out of position on the field.

 

I would say that the simplest way to sum up would be: the US so far lacks the skill and often the size of the top world class teams but, on the other hand, it has speed and fitness as an advantage. To me that means that the team has to be built around the "run and run some more" concept. In most instances, this would probably mean going with 3 pure defenders, 5 midfielders and 2 forwards.

Where this gets harder to figure out is in the way for the US to actually score because crosses-into-the-box work well against the smaller in statue CONCACAF opponents but are roughly neutral against the others and a weakness against big teams like Germany and England.

Going back to midfield then, the "crossing" strategy would require Eddie Lewis and perhaps Steve Cherundolo in the midfield flanks with Donovan and Beasley in the middle and Zavagnin as the destroyer. It would also require McBride and/or Casey and/or Ching to be on top.

The "fast-break" approach might mean Beasley and Brian West as flank midfielders with Donovan in the "10" spot and two defensively minded mids in O'Brien/Zavagnin/Mastroeni/Sanneh/Spector where you'd need good outlets passes from the d-mids.

The "fast break" forwards could be Johnson, Wolff, Buddle and... perhaps a target striker or perhaps not.

 

I think the holding role necessarily involves a player who is comfortable in possession as well as in linking. There are plenty of good defensive midfielders who are not capable of beating other players on the ball or of holding the ball in traffic while other players move into position and make runs, before he distributes it.

I agree that Claudio Reyna is an ideal player against teams that emphasizes maintaining possession of the ball and/or is very attacking oriented (but only if we have to play defensively because we have trouble breaking that team down).

For instance, a team like El Salvador simply is not athletic enough to challenge us regularly on the counterattack. They are not physical/tall enough to kill us with corner kicks, set pieces and crosses in the box. They have to dominate possession and use lots of passing and technique to unbalance our defense and hope that they can finish. As a result, it is to our advantage to deny them possession or at least make it very hard for them to operate in our end (once we are a couple of goals up). But we would be stupid to play a conservative holding tactic against El Salvador, because it would negate our greatest advantage over them - our superior athleticism and speed. So a cerebral, slow-building attack of the style that Reyna favors is not that intelligent. I think that BA realized this in the game against Panama - we must be able to link much more quickly and transition the ball to our fleet attacking midfielders rather than try to carry the ball into the attacking zone with a holding midfielder.

On the other hand, against Mexico in the U23 match, our team suffered because Mexico (under Lavolpe) forced us to be creative by giving us possession. Mexico played a very counterattacking style and kept numbers back so that a "quick-strike" type counterattack through Beasley or Donovan was tough to maintain because the field was choked and the slightest loss of close control meant the ball was intercepted. We did not adapt. Our defenders continued to try to hoof the ball up to our quicker attacking midfielders and by-passed any semblance of a linking game. IIRC, Bobby Convey was very poor and just pressed, pressed, pressed from his central midfield role. This was a situation when a player like Reyna would have been very useful. He would have linked better with more conservative passes and he would have been able to hold the ball and carry it up field in a manner that forced the opponents to play the ball and potentially expose themselves to diagonal runs and being unbalanced as the attacking players cycled through the box.

You need holding players if your opponent bunkers and puts lots of pressure on your attacking players - especially when you don't have a clear athletic advantage that enables you to "break down the bunker" with speed, aerial prowess, etc.

If we play mid-to-strong European teams in WC2006, we will still need a holding player on the field. A more limited player like Armas, Zavignin or Mastroeni would not be able to advance the attack sufficiently and it would require Donovan to drop too deep, before receiving the ball, to be as effective as he can be receiving the ball about 40 - 50 yards out from the opponents goal. In this case, I would prefer to see a set-up with holding players like Reyna and O'Brien behind a pure attacking midfielder like Donovan. If one or the other was not available, I would hope that Danny Szetela, Rico Clark or Clint Dempsey have improved enough - as they have superior linking and holding skills to Mastroeni or Zavignin. If we are playing a technically limited side like South Korea or Japan or a less athletic side that we can dominate physically, than I would not be as concerned about the holding attributes of the central midfielders.

I guess for me the goal is making sure that whether you emphasize holding players or not in the formation, you are able to get plenty of touches for your attacking midfielders (the strength of our side) without forcing them to have to drop too deep or receive the ball too deep to be dangerous. And you definitely don't want to have to resort to bypassing the midfield with long passes from the back in a desparate attempt to get some service to isolated attacking players.

Sometimes you can get them the ball quickly and more directly (as we did in Panama) without players with solid holding skills. Other times it is going to require a bit more sophistication in terms of the holding and linking play. In that case a player like Reyna is critical.

 

And this is the interesting part. Some of this is about to change in the near future. in 2002, if you had named our top 5 midfielders (assuming everyone was healthy), it would have been quite reasonable to give this list (Beasley, Donovan, Armas, Reyna, O'Brien). 5 players. All 5'8" or below, despite some of their listed "official" heights that may say some of them are 5'9" or 5'10". We have some guys now who look promising for the future who while not giants by any means, will give us a little more bite and ruggedness in the midfield (Dempsey, Clark, Szetela, Gaven). Whether this influx of players whose game may not be about speed but who have a bit more size, influences the way we choose to play, and how so, will be an interesting watch.

 

We all know that Landon isn't going to be able to do all these jobs by himself. But neither can Claudio. Landon specializes in the attacking runs and attacking the box and Claudio specializes in being available to the ball all the time. They both have their strengths and weaknesses, but, as long as you are going with 4 midfielders you have to pick one or the other to play in the middle if you are playing against a decent team. I'm just saying that since we have to choose, Landon's attacking the box and attacking runs is a better option than Claudio's always being available routine.

Also, you don't need to have a player tell the team when to attack and when to defend. Just hire some guy off the street and have him yell "ATTACK" when we have the ball and "DEFEND" when the other team has it. That way, everybody will be on the same page.

 

Ever heard of the phrase "straw man"?

 

Quite the opposite. I find you entertaining.

 

Allosm, I'm not sure that "allowing oneself to be sidetracked" differs substantially from "missing the point", but for the purposes of this discussion, I'll accept the correction. And if we can steer it towards the discussion of players and strategies, well then we've hijacked a crappy thread and made it worth reading ...

Liverpool: You're right. Implicit in the notion of linking attack to defense and the reverse is maintenance of possession, but I should have said it explicitly. And Claudio isn't particularly defensive--he's the best holding midfielder we've got. And he's the closest thing to a world-class player at his position that we've got.

That doesn't mean he fits into the team particularly well.

And let me draw particular attention to a point that I want to emphasize: When we are playing a superior team that defends well against the break is when we need Claudio's skills. Even if we're facing a superior team, if they're vulnerable against the break, that's the way we should hit them. Costa Rica in Costa Rica jumps to mind immediately. Claudio is not a good fit for that game. We need much more speed and range against that team, and much less possession. Trying to hold the ball just plays into their pressing attack.

On the other hand, when we're facing Germany, he's almost ideal. They defend against the break extremely well. The way to beat them is to draw them out, and then attack down the spaces that are created in right-center and left-center channels. Hoofing down the sideline won't work, and neither will running up the gut. You need to pull them out and then move quickly into the space created. If we had slightly better finishing on the day, we would have been in the Semis, not Germany.

So I still think selection of players and perforce, the system in which they play, depends largely on the opponent. We are not yet strong enough or deep enough to impose our will on games, even in our own federation, let alone the world at large--or we wouldn't be slipping by El Salvador while we're capable of whacking Panama. I think that's coming, but a strategic approach of varying our tactics is still necessary.

With that in mind, I completely disagree with the notion that Donovan and Reyna can't play on the same field. I think they can, as long as there's a better understanding between them of what needs to happen with the ball and the runs that complement the passes.

 

I agree with your points and I certainly wouldn't call Roy Keane, Edgar Davids and Patrick Vieira classic "stay at home" dmids either. But I don't think that they are center mids like a Steven Gerrard. They usually have more defensive responsibilty than Gerrard even though they aren't stay at home Dmids. I would have to say that O'Brien is the only Nats player that I would even try to compare to these 3(certainly not on the same level).

As far as this applying to Reyna, I'd say Reyna is considered a holding mid mostly because he lacks the defensive skills to be a very good Dmid. If he had the defensive abilities of Keane or Davids in their prime, he would be the ideal Dmid for the US. There's nothing in his offensive game that would keep him from being the dmid. Even when he's paired with a Dmid he doesn't push that far forward. I wouldn't call him a center mid like Gerrard though either because I don't think he has those offensive abilities. I guess I'd describe a holding mid like Reyna as kind of a tweener from Cmid and Dmid.

Just for the record I do think Reyna can help the team out still and should have no problem in the midfield with Donovan.

 

It is possible to overthink things ya' know.