How the 2000s changed tactics #2: Classic Number 10s struggle
The decade started with the most attacking, open tournament in modern football, at Euro 2000. The four semi-finalists all played ‘classic’ Number 10s in the hole between the opposition defence and midfield. France, Italy, Portugal and Holland had Zinedine Zidane, Francesco Totti, Manuel Rui Costa and Dennis Bergkamp respectively – it almost seemed essential to have a player in this mould to be successful – helped by trequartista-less England and Germany’s early exits.
Manuel Rui Costa
Today, the past two World Players of the Year – Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo – have been primarily wide players who cut inside. Messi and Wayne Rooney would surely have been deployed as trequartistas (or enganches, if you prefer) had they started their career a decade earlier. Indeed, almost every player that would have expected to spend their career behind the front two has had to redefine their game, generally being stationed out wide. As always, playing in a wide role generally requires a fair degree of pace, and in that respect the likes of Messi, Rooney, Andriy Arshavin or Franck Ribery have no problems, and have their place in the modern game. Ronaldo, Rooney, Arshavin, Messi and Totti also been the most prominent five to have filled a false nine role when required.
But what of the players who have neither the necessary qualities to play upfront, nor the pace and trickery to play out wide? Investigating Argentina’s production of “New Maradonas” also takes you down a path that could equally be “Players that failed to live up to their potential“: Juan Riquelme, Pablo Aimar, Andres D’Alessandro and Javier Saviola. That is not to say that they have not been successful for periods – Aimar and Saviola in particular were great for Valencia and Barcelona respectively – but it is undeniable that none of that quartet have achieved what we expected of them.
Juan Riquelme
This is possibly a problem with South America and Europe differing in tactical terms. The ‘enganche’ is still a major role – THE major role – across most of South America, but Europe has largely moved away from the use of a No 10 behind the forwards. It is surely no coincidence that so many “New Maradonas” have come from Argentina and struggled to make a long-term impact in Europe, but the one Argentinian who has (already) achieved the most – Messi – arrived in Europe at the age of 13 and therefore had a distinctly ‘European’ footballing education.
Jonathan Wilson describes Riquelme as “the last of the old-style playmakers”, contrasting him with Luka Modric, a busier, more adaptable and reliable player as “the first of the new”. He makes the point that by having a ‘designated’ playmaker, the side becomes too dependent upon him. The players in this role are genuinely thought of (especially in Argentina) as enigmatic artists who produce individual moments of genius, and yet they are expected to be the most consistent players in the side. That was perhaps possible when 4-4-2s played each other, and there was a simple ‘destroyer v creator’ midfield battle, but with the popularity of 4-3-3s making the centre of midfield increasingly congested, it’s simply not possible for players to play the role Zidane, Rui Costa or Totti did around the turn of the century.
Yoann Gourcuff
How many old-style No 10s currently play for a major club in one of the top leagues in Europe? Kaka is one, certainly, although he’s spent most of his career playing in a Milan side that simply played a different style of football to every other club in Europe. Their tendency to pack the midfield with central playmakers – up to 4 of them – meant that Kaka was not the only creative outlet in the centre of the side, and Milan still played well even when Kaka had a poor game. Indeed, even at his peak Kaka was relatively inconsistent – certainly more so than Ronaldo or Messi were when winning their World Player of the Year trophies. He doesn’t have quite such a luxury at Real Madrid, and has struggled so far.
His fellow Brazilian Diego of Juventus is another – a wonderfully-talented player, but has hardly been at his best since signing for Juve, whilst Totti today plays more as a forward than as a trequartista. Wesley Sneijder has thrived playing as a No 10 this season, but equally can play on the flank if needed, much like Pavel Nedved was able to. Other sides play central playmakers – Cesc Fabregas, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard – but they are all more complete, busier players than the likes of Riquelme. Yoann Gourcuff is probably the closest to a top-class European old-style playmaker - but with due respect to Ligue 1, he’ll have to perform either in a better league, or in a major international tournament, before he is truly considered a world class player.
And so we are left with the conclusion that there are no New Rui Costas or New Dennis Bergkamps for the time being – unless there is a shift back towards Classic Number 10s, we’re more likely to hear about the New Cristiano Ronaldo or the New Wesley Sneijder.
As usual, my comment is linking your article to Celtic! We had a chap called Lubo Moravcik at Celtic who was a trequartista but when Martin O Neill arrived in 2000 he couldn’t find a place for him in his 3-5-2 (preferring a busier Stan Petrov). That was a sign that role would become defunct because not only is 3-5-2 a good formation to play a trequartista, but Lubo was a really good player (as an aside, it still mystifies he didn’t get to a really big club, apart from Celtic!, in his career – he wasn’t at the Zidane or Rui Costa level but, in my humble opinion, he wasn’t far off).
Bizarrely, Martin O’Neill then replaced him with Junhino and, surprise surprise, he couldn’t find a place for him in the team. I’ve never really been sure why he replaced a player he rarely played anyway!
The trequartista is probably my favourite type of player but I agree with the point that if you rely on your attacks to go through one man then that tactic is susceptible to that one man either been off form or being man marked out the game. But surely if a young Zidane, Rui Costa or Lubo was coming through now, they’d find a role in a major team?
I think the development of the holding midfielder in the ‘makelele’ role this decade has probably contributed to this also. With many top clubs having outstanding specialist players in excactly that space between defense and midfield the classic no10 preferred to operate in, they have been forced to start from a wider position.
I’m not sure of what a new Zidane would be in modern football, but I can easily imagine about a modern Rui Costa because of what happened to him whilst at Milan. He was tried at a more “regista” role (same as for Pirlo) and also in a more advanced position. One of the reasons why Kaká may have taken his position was his greater capability to play as a “trequartista”.
Zidane is a completely different case. He might have been converted in a deep-lying playmaker or a second forward (I incline myself to the first option). This because he was simply so good he could probably carve out his own role.
I agree, I think Zidane would be a deep-lying regista.
I haven’t much to reply about tactics. Just wanna say that I’m delighted that you mentioned Moravcik. As a kid in France, he was my absolute idol and the fans’ favorite when he played in St. Etienne. The story ran that the big dog European Marseilles made an offer, but he refused it, out of loyalty for the club.
The fact that O’Neil couldn’t find a spot for such class players as Lubo and Juninho tells about the bad opinion UK football still had at the time for “continental fussy football artists”
Agree that the shape of midfields, with one or two defensive midfielders stationed pretty much permanently in front of the defence, creating the fourth band mentioned elsewhere in this website is the main reason for the demise of the number 10.
The no. 10’s favourite domain was the gap between the back four and the midfield, hoping to drag the back four out of shape and create an opening for the likes of a speedy striker (such as the young Nicolas Anelka) to run into. These days it seems the defensive midfielders are more than ready for them.
Perhaps the opening and closing matches of Euro 2004 provided the epitaph, with Rui Costa, then Deco, bringing the Portugal offence to a grinding halt, deprived of the time and space they needed to get their heads up and do damage.
That the decisive players have moved up and wide seems logical if you think about the shape of a 4-1-3-2/4-2-3-1/4-3-2-1 – it’s the only place left against these formations where there’s a bit of time on the ball before a zonal system will have you covered. Further, attacking wide defenders are the most likely members of the defensive units to be out of position so it makes sense to set up in their area.
Finally, as Veron at Man United, Riquelme at Villareal/Argentina, Rui Costa at Milan et al have shown, when things go badly, the no. 10 can easily become a graveyard where all attacks end, an easily identified bottleneck of supply that can be stopped through fair means or foul. The development of the deep-lying playmaker was probably a response to this, adding another player with license to play the killer ball.
That kind of make sense for offensive players to go wide, as midfields are now packed with the likes of Mascherano or Cambiasso. And the full backs tend to turn into some kind of “deep wingers” (and they seem sometimes the only wingers on the pitch, as wide attackers cut inside).
I can imagine in the future some manager starting to cut the channels to stop by putting “watchdogs” on the sides. And then maybe, attacking from the center could turn into the new fad. It’s weird how quickly tactics change in football. Some 10 years ago, notions like “winger” or “4-3-3″ seemed to be found only in history books.
Great topic, folks.
@ PC
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Jorge Valdano made exactly that point in relation to the Argentinian attack and Riquelme, whom he described as “a toll booth” through which all attacking moves must flow.
As ZM has stated, when your No.10 is this kind of conduit working in a very limited central area between the opponents’ midfield and defence, it becomes much easier for opponents to mark him out of the game.
THat is why certain coaches like Arsene Wenger, Ricardo LaVolpe or Manuel Pellegrini have attempted to remodel their No.10s into nominally wide-midfielders playing on their ‘weaker foot’ in an attempt to make their offensive movement more elusive. This, I should point out is not the same as playing outside-forwards like Messi or Robben cutting in, since that particular strategy occurs higher up the pitch.
The example of Wenger et al usually occurs in four-man midfields, and so the No.10 then faces a dilemna. Unless he can adjust to playing behind just one forward in the 4-2-3-1, and if he prefers to continue feeding two strikers then he will have to reinvent himself.
We have seen this with Zidane at Madrid (starting from wide-left midfield), Pires at Arsenal and Modric at Spurs (or Krancjar for Croatia).
This last point leads me to another observation; since Krancjar starts from the wide-left birth for Croatia, Modric is asked to start more centrally but, crucially, more deeply – practically as an orthodox central midfielder – a further example of reinvention that we also have seen with Deco going from Porto to Barcelona- and which in turn implies extra defensive duties and the absence of a free role.
Regards the enganche, LaVolpe (whom you may remember was Mexico coach at World Cup 2006)provoked quite a debate when he returned to Argentina to manage Boca Juniors, since he wanted to do away with the traditional fixed-enganche role and play with a 4-4-2 (becoming 4-2-2-2) that featured an offensive midfielder on either flank. This, he defended against the traditionalists, was a necessary compromise with the demands of modern football and the only feasibel means to maintaining some imaginative movement from your playmakers. So, in the Argentinian case we see that some players like D’Alessandro and Pablo Aimar could at least use their fleet-footedness to adapt to less centralised roles, whereas Riquelme (and proabably the similar Rui Costa by extension) would find it hard to adjust their laconic styles to the flank. Perhaps the Pirlo role would be best for such types?
Another example of a No.10 is the more direct, goal-scoring player in the mould of Kaka, who as Santiago Segurola has said, is a “striker playing as an advanced midfielder”. Kaka’s game is most definitely not about slowing the attack down. Therefore, he really doesn’t face the same limitations as the enganche when it comes to the modern game. So he is ideally suited for the 4-2-3-1.
But look at what happened to a similar player, Mati Fernandez of Chile when he was at Villarreal. Fernandez faced the following dilemna: he was much too direct to become a wide-playmaker in the Pires mould (neither was his defensive discipline much good) in Pellegrini’s 4-4-2. Neither was he elaborative enough to play as an enganche behind two strikers in a diamond, a formation which Pellegrini was not fond of in any case. So he either had to play as a second-striker to the main men (with a long list of specialist strikers ahead of him) or wait for Pellegrini to adopt a 4-2-3-1 which was usually only in difficult away games against superior opposition. So, he never managed to bed down into a regular pattern of playing.
Great read as always, Roberticus!
Mati Fernandez may be a different case altogether. Now at Sporting in Portugal, ha hasn’t been able so far to solidify himself because he doesn’t seem to have a defined position. Sometimes Sporting plays with a diamond midfield where he may be the tip (but not always) or the second striker (together with Liedson, although this is a very lightweight attacking option) or he can play as a “fake-wide attacker” in a 4-3-3. I certainly don’t see him at all as a Riquelme or Rui Costa type of player.
The big problem of the classic number 10 nowadays is defining where they would play, but that’s not exactly new. Platini kind of had the same problem when he appeared and carved out his own role (the “nine and a half, as was called). This tends to happen in cycles, I think. With the increase of anchor men in midfield, the classic number 10 has to be either a trequartista with two strikers up front (Kaká in Milan), a wide attacking midfielder (Ronaldinho or Messi) or a deep-lying playmaker (Pirlo or Deco at Barcelona). This is more effective when there are two of these players to link up the game (Milan with Pirlo and Kaká or Barcelona with either Deco and Ronaldinho or Xavi and Messi).
In the future I actually see the classic number 10 coming back as the anchor men start converting in slightly more advanced centre-backs. This is because they will have to keep on dropping deeper to deal with the trequartista who is in fact a deep-lying forward (Kaká, Gerrard at Liverpool); or with wingers who cut inside (Ronaldo or Messi). That will create a space there which will probably be re-occupied by the creative players. Just a bit faster ones, though.
I kind of view it the same way. Italy’s success back in 2006 was when they had Totti at trequartista and Pirlo as the deep-lying playmaker. To a lesser level, back in euro 2000, italy had Fiore in Pirlo’s role and Totti as trequartista.
It is probably why Italy have struggled back in 2004 (Totti alone) and 2008 (Pirlo alone).
Inter’s use of Sneijder in that role this season has been excellent though. At Stamford Bridge in the CL tie he was noticeably the go-to man in the Inter midfield, sending Eto’o and Milito away time and again with incisive through balls. Clearly too much for Mikel to handle- I was really surprised that Ancelotti didn’t try and get him closed down some more. I’ll be really curious to see how he’s handled throughout the rest of the CL.
I think one of the problems with having a specialist playmaker in this position is that ties teams down to certain tactical systems. Whereas if your playmaker is someone like Sneijder or van der Vaart or Arteta (a classic 10 for mine, who has adapted beautifully to never playing in that position) who can play in that role and be shifte elsewhere and still be effective then the manager is onto a winner and might be more keen to use him and then experiment with systems and ways of playing.
Great article. Didnt quite manage to guess it!
Probably the biggest reason for the death of the trequartista is the emergence of the destroyers who nullify their impact. The midfield is becoming increasingly crowded and it is hard for the trequartistas to find space to run the game. After that, we saw more deep lying playmakers(Pirlo obviously) and those type of midfielders who run from deep to initiate counter attacks(De Rossi), pack the midfield. To counter the deep lying playmakers, we are now seeing CAMs, whose primary aim is to mark the deep lying playmaker(Park, Anderson).
I still think we will see players in the hole. But their functions will keep changing and they need to be versatile.
Just to clear some stuff up about Rui Costa. Rui at different points in his career attacked from the flank and also played deeper as well. The Golden Generation of Portugal “before Scolari” played a 4-2-3-1 with Rui, Figo and Joao Pinto playing behind a few different strikers. Those 3 were completely interchangeable, sometimes Pinto would play central closer to the striker.
And at Fiorentina, I know there was 2 periods where he played deeper than his usual #10 spot I know one of them was around the time Edmundo was in the team, the other is where I am struggling to remember.
Hmm.. for both the examples you have mentioned i.e both Joao Pinto and Edmundo were sort of inside forwards.
João Pinto was essentially a deep-lying forward, who was so quick thinking and executing that he played more in front then the playmaker but who, due to being lightweight and fragile, couldn’t be a striker.
In the portuguese national team, the main problem was how to deal with the three players. Figo was a winger who could cut inside, but wasn’t a playmaker. Rui Costa would pull the strings and João Pinto would create spaces around the box, but there was an intrinsic lack of wide depth on the team, since the full-backs were not attacking enough. This was partially solved around 2000, when Portugal had Sérgio Conceição on the right, who could do the flank as an old fashioned winger and Figo would play as an inside-left midfielder who would look for the wing or the middle (in which case João Pinto would move to the wing himself).
At Fiorentina, Rui Costa had also the one or two years when Nuno Gomes was in the team to link with Chiesa. Nuno Gomes would create spaces with his clever moving and Chiesa would score (plenty of goals). Still, the system was not a success (having only one goal-scoring striker was too limiting) and Gomes departed. But Rui Costa played almost all his career as a classic number 10, with the limitations that this would bring later.
This innovations segment is a great idea. I’m not sure whether you could call it a 21st century invention, but could you include zonal marking at set pieces in this section? Its certainly only become a talking point in England since Liverpool have adopted it during Benetiz’s reign. As someone who can see benefits in both zonal and man-to-man marking at corners, it would be interesting to discover the rationale and technical set-up behind the zonal system and if both systems can be employed together.
[...] How the 2000s changed tactics #2: Classic Number 10s struggle “The decade started with the most attacking, open tournament in modern football, at Euro 2000. The four semi-finalists all played ‘classic’ Number 10s in the hole between the opposition defence and midfield. France, Italy, Portugal and Holland had Zinedine Zidane, Francesco Totti, Manuel Rui Costa and Dennis Bergkamp respectively – it almost seemed essential to have a player in this mould to be successful – helped by trequartista-less England and Germany’s early exits.” (Zonal Marking) [...]
I miss Rui Costa !
I think the emergence of the Premier League as the most lucrative league has also been a major influence in this. Premier League managers have traditionally preferred a counterattacking strategy and so deep lying playmakers are common there. Besides, they insist on playing with 2 central midfielders with good defensive ability. Stick this in their 4-4-2 formation(of the early 2000s) and the only way to accomodate the playmaker was by pushing him onto the flank.
Veron is the classic example. I think his first match at Lazio was the Super Cup match against Man Utd. Everything but everything was picked up and redistributed through him. Then Fergie went and bought him and played him on the flank, a role which he never managed to fully adapt to. Wenger converted Pires who used to be the playmaker at Marseille into a winger or to be more accurate a wide midfielder and has done the same with Rosicky. Joe Cole would I guess be the equivalent at Chelsea.
I’ll happily declare here that Rui Costa is my all-time favourite footballer
we have something in common.
Count another one
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Zonal Marking, Minzo and Zonal Marking, Zonal Marking. Zonal Marking said: NEW ON ZM: How the 2000s changed tactics #2: Classic Number 10s struggle http://bit.ly/bb9j5F What happened to all those New Maradonas? [...]
I’m a bit lost. I don’t think you’ve made a good case for the death of the classic Number 10. Is your point that teams don’t depend on their playmakers anymore, or that playmakers don’t necessarily have to play centrally these days?
Well, mainly the second point I suppose. I’m not quite sure what part you’re lost about so I’m not sure I can explain fully. But as the start of the article outlines, at the beginning of the decade, almost every major country played a No 10 centrally between the opposition defence and attack. Today, there are very few of these players around – they are stationed out wide, deep in midfield, or as a false nine.
I don’t understand why you think Gerrard, Lampard & Fabregas are not classic number 10s.
Because they are all much more all-round players than the likes of Riquelme, all can play deeper roles in the midfield and all possess a lot more physical characteristics. All are probably players who would have been box-to-box midfielders 15 years ago, rather than trequartistas.
Great article. The emergence, first, first of the box to box midfielder and then the defensive midfield destroyer is what killed the No. 10. I think Zidane adapted best by occupying that fluid left midfield role at Real, he would wander when he needed to and was not hampered by a true defensive midfielder following him. I think another example is Paul Scholes. Now he was never a true No. 10 but he has had to adapt his game because of the emergence of the holding midfielder. He know lives off of the deeper playmaking role and regularly collects the ball from the back four and distributes from there. I think he had to do this because as his physical gifts declined he now has to rely on his exquisite technique. He can no longer burst late into the box unnoticed and only rarely do we see him find space to score or even shoot from 20-25 yards. Ultimately I like the way he has adapted to the modern game, it is a testament to his football IQ.
PS. This killed me to right as I am a Liverpool fan!
I miss Classic Number 10s – there aren’t many sights in football as beautiful as a player like Riquelme (my all-time favourite) pulling the strings and slipping balls through defensive lines. That his career in Europe never really delivered on his undoubted talent was partly his fault and partly circumstantial – being told by Van Gaal upon arrival at Barca that he was a political signing and not wanted by the coach, then played out wide when he was chosen at all, seems a sinful waste of his gifts. What he achieved at Villareal is relatively impressive considering the squad around him and the nature of the opposition in Spain at the time.
Why no mention of Ronaldinho, surely the most notable enganche-out-wide success of the last decade, who opened the door for Messi?
My hopes for a new Number 10 lie with Ruben Micael, but he’ll have to get out of Portugal before we can tell how good he really is…
Great article, by the way.
I agree about the joy of watching Riquelme at his best, but the 2007 Copa America perfectly illustrated Wilson’s critique.
With time and space he was divine in Argentina’s Copa America run…until the final where Argentina met Dunga’s well-organized side with two defensive midfielders, and Riquelme became exactly the limited player Wilson describes in a lopsided 3-0 loss.
Riquelme’s Argentina, needless to say, was infinitely more watchable than Dunga’s functional (and Kaka and Ronhaldindo-less) Brazil.
If I remember that final rightly, Riquelme hit the post in the first 10 minutes and his contribution was limited not just because of tight marking, but because he was systematically fouled. Almost every time he had the ball, Brazil kicked him and the referee let them.
But I take your and Wilson’s point.
Thanks for the article. Argentina with Riquelme in a 4-1-2-1-2 might have been easy to choke, but how they’ve struggled without him. Alfie Basile made the point that when Riquelme was injured, the whole formation had to be changed. Now Riquelme’s retired, the formation’s changed forever but at what cost to Messi?
I saw Argentina beat Venezuela in the qualifiers and Veron came on for the last twenty minutes and played some #10 football. It may have been so-last-century but you saw the difference in Messi’s play when Veron was playmaker.
To paraphrase what I asked you earlier this week, if the era of the #10 is over, what’s the optimum way for Argentina to play so they get the best out of Messi?
You mention the failed potential of Saviola and Aimar, a point I agree on.
Now both of those Argentines find themselves in the same team at Benfica. They can’t both be the Trequartista, even though Benfica has a good history of using such a role.
The Number 10 goes to Aimar. Here’s the interesting part. You’ve highlighted similar players being pushed wide, but Saviola has adapted perfectly to being a conventional second striker, playing off Cardozo. Just recently he’s pushed off competition for his place from Keirrison; a player I think can go places.
I think this could be the fate of those who would be the Engance. To have to play forward ten yards, or be pushed out by more natural forwards.
Yeah, Saviola’s more of a deep forward and has adapted his game well to play alongside Cardoso. However, few sides in major leagues are playing two upfront (and you can’t imagine him playing as a lone striker) so it’s hard to see where he would fit in at most clubs.
As Joao Andre says, Aimar’s role is very fluid, and the fact that Benfica play something more like a 4-1-3-2 (rather than a 4-3-1-2) means he’s not the only creative outlet – he’s got Ramires, Di Maria and of course Saviola creating from the centre – even Javi Garcia too, I suppose.
In a way Aimar has demonstrated that the role of the No 10 might be irrelevant at the very highest level – in the Liga Sagres he’s fine, but in away European games he’s been omitted at the expense of Martins, a more defensive-minded player.
Whereas Aimar plays indeed a more classical number 10 role, it is also not that specifically so. Saviola is a deep-lying striker, with plenty of license to roam, but not a creator of plays, more a finisher either with the final pass or with the goal. Mostly he creates space with his moving off-the-ball.
On the other hand, Aimar frequently finds space by drifting to the right, because Di María occupies the left flank. This leaves the dee-lying players having to cover either Aimar slightly to their left, Di María far right or Saviola wherever he might be at the moment. In this sense, the system is way too fluid to say that Aimar is a classical 10.
Sorry, I had written a comment asking for a definition of trequartista. Then I saw Glossary on the menu bar
[...] How the 2000s changed tactics #2: Classic Number 10s struggle Manuel Rui Costa “The decade started with the most attacking, open tournament in modern football, at Euro 2000. The four semi-finalists all played ‘classic’ Number 10s in the hole between the opposition defence and midfield. France, Italy, Portugal and Holland had Zinedine Zidane, Francesco Totti, Manuel Rui Costa and Dennis Bergkamp respectively – it almost seemed essential to have a player in this mould to be successful – helped by trequartista-less England and Germany’s early exits.” (Zonal Marking) [...]
I think you may be overstating the ‘classic’ nature of the number 10s, and I’m a little surprised that most people here seem to be accepting your assumptions so unconditionally.
Mostly, I don’t understand the correlation you make between number 10s and trequartisti. This statement…
“Wesley Sneijder has thrived playing as a No 10 this season, but equally can play on the flank if needed, much like Pavel Nedved was able to. Other sides play central playmakers – Cesc Fabregas, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard – but they are all more complete, busier players than the likes of Riquelme.”
…strikes me as false rhetoric. The 90s include plenty of great number 10s who were capable of drifting to the flanks, who were technically versatile and who were not necessarily playmakers/trequartisti. Roberto Baggio comes to mind, as does Del Piero (they famously played on the flanks when Vialli took the centre). Same for Rivaldo or Maradona (or even Gullit going further back), whom I wouldn’t really call trequartisti. Conversely, it is possible to find great number 10s of the 2000s playing centrally both in the first half of the decade (Totti, Ronaldinho, Riquelme) as in the second half (Kaka, Sneijder, Gourcuff), suggesting that the tradition is far from dying out.
And disqualifying someone from being a classic number 10 because he ‘can equally play on the flank’ is a notion which strikes me as bizarre. Likewise your use of Euro 2000 is selective – just because one tournament featured a prominence of teams based on trequartisti doesn’t mean that it was a ‘trend.’ This highlights a problem throughout – your failure to distinguish between the alternating appearance of exceptional players in specific roles and real tactical evolutions (i.e. if we don’t have another Totti, that’s not necessarily because the tactics discouraged him, but perhaps because players equally gifted simply did not appear).
I think the equation “number 10 on the shirt” = “specific tactical role” is a myth (or, more broadly, the idea that creativity implied playing centrally in the 90s). You may have a better case if you were arguing for the decline of the trequartista, but even then your arguments would have to be refined – weeding out the straw men and non sequituurs, and amplifying some of your statements.
Mind you, this is meant as no more than constructive criticism (I may be asking too much, but it’s still worth stating). I’m very impressed with the site and articles, and you’re clearly far more knowledgeable about football than I.
Cheers for the comment.
Firstly, I’m surprised you think the use Euro 2000 is ’selective’. Well – it as actually, but for good reason, the feature is all about how tactics changed throughout the decade, from 2000 to 2010. Therefore it’s surely logical to use Euro 2000 as the basis for comparison?
The point about being able to play on the flank is not disqualifying them from being a classic number 10, but it is a salient point. Because so few sides play someone behind the forward, it is fairly important that players are able to be able to play in a different role. If Inter were to be taken over by a manager who didn’t want to play someone in the role Sneijder currently occupies, he would be fine switching to the flank. If it was Riquelme instead of Sneijder, he would be out of the team, and probably out of the club. The opportunities at top clubs for the likes of Riquelme and Aimar are limited.
Also, I don’t think that you can take “because players equally gifted simply did not appear” as the endgame, this simply doesn’t make sense. It could happen within one country, perhaps, but certainly not continent-wide. Ten years ago we had the likes of Rui Costa, Zidane, Bergkamp, Totti, Boban, Valeron, Scholes etc. I simply don’t see players like that coming through at clubs – either they play deeper in midfield in more of an all-round role, or they are stationed out wide. Indeed, two of those three players still active – Scholes and Totti – have both had to find new roles, Scholes as a deep-lying playmaker, Totti as more of a striker than previously.
Valeron is displaying the problem with a classic No 10 brilliantly – the last 7 games he has started, Depor haven’t won. Whereas the last 3 games he hasn’t started, they have won. Circumstantial evidence, but still…
You can’t just say that equally gifted players are failing to emerge when it’s such a widescale sample (ie across the whole of Europe) – there must be a reason for it, and I think the reason is that clubs aren’t looking to utilize the players in the role they would have been in ten years ago.
I cannot speak for the whole of the European continent because I don’t have the time to follow more than one league at a time. But in the championship that I do follow, Serie A, I’m not sure that your arguments are so watertight. Since you still refer to the number 10 as a tactical role, there’s several players which could be said to fit under their categories. Seedorf will play tomorrow and Miccoli played today, and they both play centrally, like the aforementioned Sneijder. There’s also Jovetic, and Bologna’s Gimenez, Cagliari’s Cossu, Chievo’s Pinzi, and of course Diego, though none of these players bear the shirt number 10. Pandev played as trequartista with Lazio last year, and there’s some shady cases to keep in mind – Menez played on the flank against Inter, yes, but his previous two games (Bologna and Udinese) saw him playing centrally in a very orthodox trequartista position. Then there’s Candreva, who may not be as talented as some of his peers, but who could be called a ‘modest number 10′ (he played as treq even with the national team if memory doesn’t fail me).
Of course, I don’t know whether this is relevant to the point you’re making because you still haven’t clarified what exactly you mean by a ‘number 10′ – whether it’s just a synonim for trequartista, and if so, why so many number 10s from past and present do not play in that position and why so many trequartisti, such as those I’ve mentioned, do not wear the shirt number 10. Again, and until you qualify it further, the connection between number and tactical role strikes me as mythic. A very popular myth, but a myth nonetheless.
It should also be noted that ‘trequartista’ is itself a term which needs specification, as different football cultures and players interpret the role differently (some trequartisti base their skill on speed, others on technique, others on versatility, though I think a general consensus would point to vision as the primary quality).
But my elencation does suggest that the trequartista role is still very much in use in Italy. Granted, some of those players are meeting trouble (Diego), but others are flourishing (Jovetic, Miccoli). I should also point out that a similar development is apparent in the youth academies, with a number of very promising trequartisti either struggling or doing well (Federico Carraro, Andrea Russotto, Davide Petrucci).
Finally, I seem to recollect that Sneijder was specifically requested by Mourinho for his central abilities, suggesting that using a trequartista was part of the original plans, regardless of how future Coaches would want to employ him.
Anyway, these are just my impressions about Italy. The situation may well be as you describe it in the rest of Europe. I just have this lingering impression that we’re mistaking irregularities in the distribution of ‘talent by role’ for real tactical evolutions – putting the cart before the donkey, as it were. Case in point for the Euro 2000 – it’s a good base, yes, but tournaments are often too epiphanic for us to draw long-term conclusions over a single one of them. A more accurate argument would compare the semi-finalists from 1998-2000-2002 to see if the argument holds over a gentle four-year slope. We must keep in mind that football is an arena which changes very rapidly, and that it’s bound to show ups and downs in certain sectors simply because the players themselves are replaced with new ones. This is the case with the so-called decline of number 10s. There’s a difference between fashion and evolution and I don’t think it’s clear enough that we’re looking at the latter.
Thanks for the interesting discussion. (it’s a testimony to how much I liked the article that I’ve just spent so much time on this bloody post).
Italy is certainly seeing more use of a player in this position than most other leagues – but Italy has always been more tactically diverse than any other league (you can say the same about the three-man defence which is dead in the Premiership but still going strong with some Serie A clubs).
I’m not sure I’d say Jovetic and Miccoli were players in this position as such – I’d think of them both as forwards (as a Fiorentina fan I know them both fairly well). Miccoli, for example, was fielded upfront alone for much of his season with us and Jovetic too has occasionally played high up the pitch.
Perhaps the issue is that what Italians define as a No 10 / trequartista is slightly different to what, say, Argentines would define as a No 10 / enganche. In Italy the classic examples (Baggio, Zola, Totti) were essentially forwards, in Argentina (Riquelme, Aimar) they were rather more midfielders.
But I do think both types of players have seen their stock fall in recent years.
The phrase “Number 10″ was used as much as anything, because in England/English there is such a limited vocabulary for positions – we don’t have a ‘trequartista’ or ‘enganche’ phrase, only ‘attacking midfielder’, ‘deep-lying forward’ or ‘in the hole player’ which are all pretty crap phrases. Most viewers of this site are from UK/Ireland and I can imagine might be put off by the use of ‘trequartista’ etc, so used ‘No 10′.
But it’s a fair point that the article doesn’t actually clarify what that is, but I would hope it covers players that play centrally inbetween the traditional lines of midfield and attack. The use of 4-3-3 means you don’t get these players – there is room for them in a 4-2-3-1, but often they are players like Gerrard, who is not what I would define as a ‘classic’ number 10 as he has an all-round game, rather than being purely a ‘creator’.
And you’re certainly right that it may be fashion over evolution. Whereas other articles in this series were titled ‘the decline of…’ or ‘the death of…’ this article is merely ‘the struggle of…’. It could be that in three years time the world will be awash with No 10s playing at the top of their game (indeed, the last piece in this series is about the fall and rise of a certain type of player within the decade) but I think it’s fair to say that we have more talented ‘wide’ creators than ‘central’ creators, which was certainly not the case ten years ago.
Anyway, it’s a great debate, I set the site up for this kind of thing so I’m glad to see it in action!
Definitely a great debate. And Italy does make for something of a special case. It’s interesting to compare the idea that there are more wide than central creators around with the total drought of wingers in the Italian national team, which may be the reason why they’re performing so poorly. Of course, you’re not speaking about wingers, but then the fact that fantasisti have taken nest on the wings may have implied a decline of traditional wingers – more so than it caused the extinction of trequartistas, who are still around. Notably, the one player Lippi really should have called, Cassano, is such a case of a wide creator.
On the subject of fashion over evolution, you’ve set yourself an extraordinarily ambitious task with this site. The analyses are (mostly) excellent, but it has to be said that you ask questions the depth and implications of which go well beyond the realm of football. This article is a prime example, as it necessarily invokes an exegesis for the problem of evolution, and it overlaps with questions of how we read and understand our history (plus the special relation that sports have with the act of reading and making sense of history). I applaud your ambition, and it’s a good thing you enjoy these debates, cause several of the things you ask are never going to get a final answer (even though they’ll open a lot of perspectives).
Before I go, this may be of interest to you. It’s an article I wrote some time ago on some aspects of the Italian game. It focalises on aesthetics rather than on tactics, but it closely relates to the question of creative players and classic number 10s in Italian perception. It was written when I was just beginning, so I hope you’ll excuse some crudities of style: http://www.footballitaliano.co.uk/article.aspx?id=100
There’s a whole series of them. If you want to look further, here is the latest article: http://www.footballitaliano.co.uk/article.aspx?id=889 Scroll down, and at the bottom it links all the past entries in the series. There’s even a bunch of four articles detailing the terminology that’s used in Italian football.
Thanks for the discussion. Keep up the good work!
Personally I try not to look too far into rpecise definitions of roles: “Number 10″, “Trequartista”, “Playmaker”, “Second striker”, whatever.
It’s almost counter-productive to try and find a catch all term for positions in the great teams that great players make their own. In fact it’s a fascinating part of football.
Does anyone else play the Dennis Bergkamp role that he trademarked at Arsenal? Or Totti for Roma? Or anything like any of these players listed in this thread?
I think speaking in more vague terms (or labels) about the individual in individual teams is much more productive. The difficulty to define the position accurately mirrors the mystique of the player themselves. They are unpredictable, creative and artistic, not at all formal/mathematical.
Speaking broadly, I think in the UK at least most football fans will understand the role of the creative/attacking midfielder (or number 10, or “trequartista”, not a common term though). They will look at the player and team and activity on the pitch and judge themselves the role.
I am strugglnig to articulate what I’m trying to say so I apologise, but really the reason there is no catch-all term is because each mentioned player is so different, and that’s what makes them standout.
Andrea,
good point about how there has never been a universally-accepted definition of “the No.10″.
In Brazil, the No.10 used to be a second-striker (like the French neuf-et-demi) in a four-man front line, but nowadays we’ve reached the point where even Brazilians used No.10 to designate the more Argentine-styled ‘enganche’. Back then the Brazilian No.8 was generally the playmaker, like a midfield general (perhaps similar to Xavi or Fabregas today…or maybe to Antognoni in the 80s) and therefore the Brazilian teams played without a specific enganche. So maybe it is fair to say that the classical Argentine enganche was a fusion of the two styles of the No.8 and the No.10 (second-striker) as football went evolving.
Then I’ve read Carlos Bianchi say that “Veron is a No.8, not a No.10″…so this opens a whole can of worms, because in Argentine football, the No.8 played even deeper and often took on box-to-box duties.
I’m not sure I fully agree with the notion that the ‘classic No 10′ enganche is being phased out in European football. There is Misimovic at Wolfsburg, who won the German league last season and at Palermo in Italy you have Javier Pastore, who has thrived since being moved in the central attacking midfielder role since the turn of the year and is already being linked with bigger clubs. Valencia have David Silva, who although he can play wide, always looks more effective in the centre and possesses all the skills one would associate with the role.
Roberticus – Veron has never really been considered a number ten in Argentina, playing the roles of eight and eleven (right and left of the diamond respectively) earlier in his career, and then as a box-to-box midfielder in Europe and now with Estudiantes. It was only really in Bielsa’s Argentina side that he was nominally the number ten, but even then they played such a high-energy game that there was little opportunity for him to put his foot on the ball and act as a classic enganche.
But that’s only three players, none of whom are currently playing for clubs who are either title-contenders or who got to the UCL knockout stages. There’s certainly no doubt they are still about, but they’re certainly not playing key roles at top clubs like they were ten years ago.
I was just wondering if you could do an analysis on the Italian National Team, say like what tactical aspect caused them to reap such different results in the course of the ‘noughties.
Great article yet once, but i’d like to point out that you’ve forgotten to mention one of the greatest number 10 players in South America lately. Alex who has been playing for Fenerbahçe for the last years. He is a classic number 10!
The most playmakeresque European as of today has to be Toni Kroos and I’m suprised he’s not mentioned in this piece. He’s your textbook No.10 ( the Argentinian midfielder variety ) but had to play most of the season as a wide midfielder. Kroos’ tendency to cut inside and his sometimes suspect work rate have posed somewhat of a problem for Leverkusen, the left back Kadlec was quite often on his own in defense.
It will be interesting to see if and how Joachim Löw will use Kroos at the World Cup. If you remember the German side in 2006 they already fielded two busybee players in the centre. Frings and Ballack were covering an enormous amount of ground and most of the creativity was shifted to the wings in Schweinsteiger and especially the often underappreciated Bernd Schneider. The latter was pretty much a concealed playmaker and Kroos could easily fit into that function.
After Klinsmann left Löw seems to prefer actual wingers over the 2006 approach of using essentially 4 central midfielders, so I doubt we’ll see that again.
I have so much to say about this subject and think about it all the time, but I can’t really talk much about it now. What I will say though is that I think this struggle is a shame; I’m really trying hard not to let any personal favouritism regarding positions, certain types of players or nostalgia get in the way, but I really struggle thinking that football isn’t worse off without these classic number 10s.
I will have a hard time being convinced that the best area for the game’s most decisive players – generally those who can score AND create very well – isn’t central (and fairly unhinged, positionally and/or by defensive workrate). Again I don’t have time to expand on that further, but in a time when inverted wingers appear to be such a success, I think it’s quite pertinent that Messi has moved on to yet another level by playing in a more central/free role this season.
Euro 2000 for mine hasn’t yet been matched by any international tournament played since – it was fantastic, not just entertaining, or technically excellent, but also great value tactically in terms of teams taking to games more proactively than reactively (there was a lot of hype about Euro 2008 I thought, and while I’m as much a fan of a good counter-attack as anyone, there can be too much of a good thing).
Anyway my main point I think is that football at its best has plenty of room for players who can tip the balance whatever the situation, and that they’re best at doing that from the middle/not stuck cutting in from out wide in a fairly counter-attacking system.
People can say “oh, Bergkamp (for instance) wouldn’t survive today or maybe he would playing deeper, because the game’s moved on” but I don’t think it’s necessariy moved forward. Football at its best will always have plenty of room for someone like Bergkamp in the role he was renowned for, but I’m not sure if it’s been at its best a great deal in the past several years or so. It just annoys me reading in a lot of places (not here) about “the death” of number 10s and whatnot and how people so easily go along with apparent trends and taking tactical adaption automatically as evolution and naturally means football is getting better. I’m not so sure that it just gets weaker sometimes and in any case, football has a funny history of bucking its own trends.
I’m also not saying the likes of Bergkamp, Litmanen, Michael Laudrup, Rui Costa etc. shouldn’t have to evolve by the way – the big athletic development in the ’90s for mine was the increased upper body strength of players, and that’s great, we got to see such players continue to flourish in such roles. I’m more willing to call that evolution rather than some of the more recent trends, which to me appear more like compromises.