Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ManCity does not define all of soccer. They won last year; this year, it will be someone else. What about when Leicester City won, or Chelsea, or whomever?

You can't get hung up on one team's performance one single year and re-interpret all of soccer around that one time.

Agreed you cannot just use one team. Enter team 2. The USWNT - http://www.espn.com/espnw/sports/article/23042864/crystal-dunn-versatility-key-uswnt-moving-forward-win-mexico

Sorry buddy. I am just picking the best teams in the world as examples for how MFs are having success in the back.

Do you have a better explanation for how these teams brought MFs to the back and had such success? Money and luck? C'mon.

You can attack me all you want, I have thick skin so no worries. But explain the Inverted Full Back success...

Let me try to understand your logic. Fullbacks are having success as inverted fullbacks at ManCity. Some midfielders are able to play fullback position when they are deployed as inverted fullbacks. Therefore, the fullback position is easy to fill and unimportant. Your logic is flawed. ManCity spend over 100 million pounds on this position last year, so they clearly value position more than you do. Here's anther take on the importance of fullback position from a respected soccer journalist, it's a bit dated, but may of the basic concepts remain true. https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2009/mar/25/the-question-full-backs-football

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ManCity does not define all of soccer. They won last year; this year, it will be someone else. What about when Leicester City won, or Chelsea, or whomever?

You can't get hung up on one team's performance one single year and re-interpret all of soccer around that one time.

Agreed you cannot just use one team. Enter team 2. The USWNT - http://www.espn.com/espnw/sports/article/23042864/crystal-dunn-versatility-key-uswnt-moving-forward-win-mexico

Sorry buddy. I am just picking the best teams in the world as examples for how MFs are having success in the back.

Do you have a better explanation for how these teams brought MFs to the back and had such success? Money and luck? C'mon.

You can attack me all you want, I have thick skin so no worries. But explain the Inverted Full Back success...

It allows you to play more midfielders ...duh! If you convert a nature midfielder to another position they still are a midfielder. They will pass, increase speed of play and use the whole field. They will play better as a team because that’s what midfielders do. I have seen. Specially at the younger ages. The kids are having problems getting the ball out of the back on goals kick or when pressured. What do you do? You put a midfielder back a fullback.

+1 Exactly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ManCity does not define all of soccer. They won last year; this year, it will be someone else. What about when Leicester City won, or Chelsea, or whomever?

You can't get hung up on one team's performance one single year and re-interpret all of soccer around that one time.

Agreed you cannot just use one team. Enter team 2. The USWNT - http://www.espn.com/espnw/sports/article/23042864/crystal-dunn-versatility-key-uswnt-moving-forward-win-mexico

Sorry buddy. I am just picking the best teams in the world as examples for how MFs are having success in the back.

Do you have a better explanation for how these teams brought MFs to the back and had such success? Money and luck? C'mon.

You can attack me all you want, I have thick skin so no worries. But explain the Inverted Full Back success...

It allows you to play more midfielders ...duh! If you convert a nature midfielder to another position they still are a midfielder. They will pass, increase speed of play and use the whole field. They will play better as a team because that’s what midfielders do. I have seen. Specially at the younger ages. The kids are having problems getting the ball out of the back on goals kick or when pressured. What do you do? You put a midfielder back a fullback.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So we have agreed:

1. It is hard to find a left fullback.

2. If cannot find one, you can use a MF and win, even break records. Recent examples include best teams in the world like Man City and USWNT.

3. Therefore, one could reasonably conclude fullbacks are not really in demand or not critically important. Because a MF can do the role.

4. Unless your DS / DD plays fullback. Then they mean everything and they are impossible to find or replace. And don't make fun of Mendy.

That people still don’t know the difference between a fullback and a wingback. Vastly different positions requiring completely different types of players and teams employing them can use a midfielder because the wingback acts more forward/attack minded exactly like a midfielder. A midfielder can be converted to wingback due to game intelligence and ball skill. Traditional fullbacks are shitty midfielders and traditional midfielder don’t usually have affinity for old school fullback type play.

I think only a few people that really have studied the game and watch a ton of FIFA in different leagues can comprehend the differences. It’s like talking to a brick wall.

I agree. I think a lot of the comments are from people who watch their kids in travel soccer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So we have agreed:

1. It is hard to find a left fullback.

2. If cannot find one, you can use a MF and win, even break records. Recent examples include best teams in the world like Man City and USWNT.

3. Therefore, one could reasonably conclude fullbacks are not really in demand or not critically important. Because a MF can do the role.

4. Unless your DS / DD plays fullback. Then they mean everything and they are impossible to find or replace. And don't make fun of Mendy.

That people still don’t know the difference between a fullback and a wingback. Vastly different positions requiring completely different types of players and teams employing them can use a midfielder because the wingback acts more forward/attack minded exactly like a midfielder. A midfielder can be converted to wingback due to game intelligence and ball skill. Traditional fullbacks are shitty midfielders and traditional midfielder don’t usually have affinity for old school fullback type play.

I think only a few people that really have studied the game and watch a ton of FIFA in different leagues can comprehend the differences. It’s like talking to a brick wall.

Our forwards' parents keep blaming the lack of success of the team on the defense. The defense is completely over-worked---often holding top teams to 0-0 until half and feeding fantastic balls to the forwards who get eclipsed every time. None of our forwards can find the back of the net. They either dribble it into the ground---each waiting for dad's approval on the sidelines---or they hang so far back they are never where they need to be. And, they can be incredibly lazy--they never 'come to' a pass....they sit and wait for it to hit their feet...and forget about ever chasing the ball if they lose it--which happens 99% of the time. There is zero press or hunger for a goal.

In 4 games, the team has only scored 1 single goal. At what point, do the forward's parents think---hmmm---maybe we should stop pointing fingers? At what point do you think the coaches will start seeing this and make changes?

Anonymous wrote:ManCity does not define all of soccer. They won last year; this year, it will be someone else. What about when Leicester City won, or Chelsea, or whomever?

You can't get hung up on one team's performance one single year and re-interpret all of soccer around that one time.

Agreed you cannot just use one team. Enter team 2. The USWNT - http://www.espn.com/espnw/sports/article/23042864/crystal-dunn-versatility-key-uswnt-moving-forward-win-mexico

Sorry buddy. I am just picking the best teams in the world as examples for how MFs are having success in the back.

Do you have a better explanation for how these teams brought MFs to the back and had such success? Money and luck? C'mon.

You can attack me all you want, I have thick skin so no worries. But explain the Inverted Full Back success...

ManCity does not define all of soccer. They won last year; this year, it will be someone else. What about when Leicester City won, or Chelsea, or whomever?

You can't get hung up on one team's performance one single year and re-interpret all of soccer around that one time.

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11679/11347355/three-tactical-innovations-behind-pep-guardiolas-man-city-success

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So we have agreed:

1. It is hard to find a left fullback.

2. If cannot find one, you can use a MF and win, even break records. Recent examples include best teams in the world like Man City and USWNT.

3. Therefore, one could reasonably conclude fullbacks are not really in demand or not critically important. Because a MF can do the role.

4. Unless your DS / DD plays fullback. Then they mean everything and they are impossible to find or replace. And don't make fun of Mendy.

That people still don’t know the difference between a fullback and a wingback. Vastly different positions requiring completely different types of players and teams employing them can use a midfielder because the wingback acts more forward/attack minded exactly like a midfielder. A midfielder can be converted to wingback due to game intelligence and ball skill. Traditional fullbacks are shitty midfielders and traditional midfielder don’t usually have affinity for old school fullback type play.

I think only a few people that really have studied the game and watch a ton of FIFA in different leagues can comprehend the differences. It’s like talking to a brick wall.

I agree with most of what you said. I don't believe every midfielder can be converted to a wingback. For one reason, they have to be exceptionally fast. That's why Dunn can do it. She's lickety split. Marcelo is also incredibly fast. A slow or even average speed midfielder can't do it because he/she doesn't have the speed to track back that the position requries.

Anonymous wrote:So we have agreed:

1. It is hard to find a left fullback.

2. If cannot find one, you can use a MF and win, even break records. Recent examples include best teams in the world like Man City and USWNT.

3. Therefore, one could reasonably conclude fullbacks are not really in demand or not critically important. Because a MF can do the role.

4. Unless your DS / DD plays fullback. Then they mean everything and they are impossible to find or replace. And don't make fun of Mendy.

That people still don’t know the difference between a fullback and a wingback. Vastly different positions requiring completely different types of players and teams employing them can use a midfielder because the wingback acts more forward/attack minded exactly like a midfielder. A midfielder can be converted to wingback due to game intelligence and ball skill. Traditional fullbacks are shitty midfielders and traditional midfielder don’t usually have affinity for old school fullback type play.

I think only a few people that really have studied the game and watch a ton of FIFA in different leagues can comprehend the differences. It’s like talking to a brick wall.

and I forgot one:

5. Your DC must be a MF for it to hurt you so much that MF isn't the end all, be all of soccer any more.

Anonymous wrote:So we have agreed:

1. It is hard to find a left fullback.

2. If cannot find one, you can use a MF and win, even break records. Recent examples include best teams in the world like Man City and USWNT.

3. Therefore, one could reasonably conclude fullbacks are not really in demand or not critically important. Because a MF can do the role.

4. Unless your DS / DD plays fullback. Then they mean everything and they are impossible to find or replace. And don't make fun of Mendy.

Actually, not entirely. We have agreed:

1. It is hard to find a quality left full back.
2. Just because you can site examples of some MFs who became left full backs doesn't mean every MF can. That's very simplistic. What you can't site because failures don't last as long is all the times players have been tried somewhere else and failed, or even if they didn't fail, they simply didn't excel. Lloyd is a prime example. When she was played as a holding mid, she was a sub. It wasn't until they saw her as a CAM. Then they realized what she could do, albeit late, as she was past her prime for a player.
3. Since I don't agree with 2, of course I can't follow your analogy to 3.
4. There are 2 levels of conversation: higher level, objective conversations about trends and anecdotal references that may be isolated or may mean something. You are still stuck in the later.

So we have agreed:

1. It is hard to find a left fullback.

2. If cannot find one, you can use a MF and win, even break records. Recent examples include best teams in the world like Man City and USWNT.

3. Therefore, one could reasonably conclude fullbacks are not really in demand or not critically important. Because a MF can do the role.

4. Unless your DS / DD plays fullback. Then they mean everything and they are impossible to find or replace. And don't make fun of Mendy.

The strongest/skilled player on my son’s team plays left wingback. They also put him as one of the center mids 1/2 the game vs subbing him out. Very intelligent player.

It’s funny all these people saying it’s not a critical position when they are most often going after the strongest attacking side of most teams.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mendy is a head case and his days were numbered long before he broke his foot. He was also a non-factor in the Man City Championship last year. They had to scramble to find him the minimum 5 games for him to qualify as a team member.

You spelled world-Cup winning, world class leftback, wrong.

Ok. You are right. Mendy of the best left back in EPL. World class. A major factor for Man City. One would think that losing him for all but a handful of games last year would have devastated the team.

But no! They used other players, including a mid fielder to fill the role and broke records! Won the Championship in historic fashion.

So answer this. Which is it? Is finding someone to play left back easy to do? Or is the position not important?

Thanks for proving my point.

I have not posted previously on this whole train of thought, but to answer your question: neither. It is not easy to find someone to play left back unless a team gets lucky or has tons of money (which Man City has the deepest pockets in all of the EPL), and the position is critical.

So Man City and the USWNT have had great success with MFs playing the inverted left back due to luck and money? Got it.

Good, I realize it's easier to think it's just simply a matter of moving a player, but glad you understand now that it's more complicated than that. Not every player can be moved.