Formations
“Sure we have skilled players, but the biggest thing might just be that we are so well conditioned and how we can play for 90 minutes at a high tempo which is needed in soccer at an international level.”
(Claudio Reyna)
The soccer formation refers to the way in which the players of different positions are spread out on the pitch. Once you know about all the soccer positions, it is therefore important that you also know about formations because these tell you your position relative to your team mates. And when you consider all the positions there are, it is not surprising that there are loads of different combinations that 11 players can line up in!
The names of the soccer formations are typically written as a series of numbers with hyphens in between them. The first number is the number of defenders, the second is the number of midfielders and the third is the number of strikers (goalkeepers are not included because there is only ever 1 and he’s always in the same place!)
For each of the different formations, I’ll give you the name and some extra information as well as showing you a diagram of what it looks like on the pitch. So next time you’re playing soccer or watching a game on TV, you’ll be able to recognize the formations AND know the roles of each position it is referring to… just by looking at how the players are spread out on the field!
As we go through you will notice that any team suffers the age-old problem of economics: infinite wants based on finite resources. There are only so many players a side can have, so it has to spread them across the pitch to best effect. Thus there are benefits and disadvantages to many of the following layouts.
4-4-2
4-4-2 is probably the most common soccer formation around today. Whilst the 4-4-2 is a formation in itself, you will occasionally see another variation of it in which the midfield is shaped slightly differently to normal: in a diamond shape in fact. So you can learn about all this in my guide to the 4-4-2.
5-3-2
The 5-3-2 is also a fairly modern soccer formation. You can see a digram of the layout of the players on the pitch and learn the benefits of this specific formation.
3-5-2
You’ll notice that the 3-5-2 is just like a 5-3-2, only where the number of midfielders has switched with the number of defenders. This is why teams have sometimes used 3-5-2 in attacka and 5-3-2 in defence.
3-4-3
This is a fairly attacking formation so why not take a good look and see if you approve of this sort of line up?
4-5-1
Again this is quite a modern formation and you’ll see on the pitch plan that it involves just 1 striker (aka a lone striker). I’ll explain the advantages of this soccer formationand you can see whether or not you warm to it!
Sweeper System
Now I know I haven’t listed this one as a number, because if I did it would be something like 1-4-3-2! Anyway, I’ll go through the very reason for using a formation like this.
Learn more about the sweeper system
4-2-4
This on the other hand is not a very modern formation at all and I’ll show you just why it is not used in the modern game.
4-3-3
This is a somewhat more moderate formation than the 4-2-4. See what you think!
3-2-2-3
I know I said the first number relates to defenders, the second to midfielders and the third to strikers. But that was a general rule and this formation is very old fashioned. So as you’ll have noticed it has four numbers because the positions were a little different back then!
2-3-5
This ‘classic’ formation is even older again. Having only two defenders certainly wouldn’t be used today, but it was then and I’ll display and explain this line up to you.
Return home from soccer formations…
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