The Gradual Extinction of the No. 10 Position

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When I hear of such position or see it on paper, the first players that come to mind are Mesut Ozil, James Rodriguez and Isco Alarcon. These are players with exceptional techniques that thrive mainly behind a team’s central striker and any position other than there finds these players wanting.

It is a pity that managers of the football game today pay less attention to the position as it is seen as more of a liability to the team than an asset and they cannot be more real.

It is clear what kind of player Ozil, Isco, James and several other brilliant attacking midfielders are but they are currently facing a tough battle getting into their coach’s line up match after match. On occasions when they are called up, the match is majorly of less importance.

Today, many coaches fancy wing play, they prefer to have players push their play through the wings as opposed through the middle, with the mentality that central defenders are always on the lookout to thwart attacks coming through the middle and wing plays do one major thing and that is draw central defenders away from their comfort zone.

When you look at it from a clearer view, they couldn’t be more right. A team with three central defenders is likely to leave you scoreless at the end of 90 minutes when you are looking to play through the influence of an attacking midfielder, provided they are 100% concentrated.

Ozil at Real Madrid was very influential because there was Cristiano Ronaldo who was as tricky as anything you can think of. He dances around central defenders and before you know it, he is at the mercy of an Ozil pass. It is the reason an estimated 85% of goals scored by Ronaldo was assisted by Ozil during the days of the German and Portuguese at Real Madrid. (N.B… That estimation is not a fact.)

Isco as well was influential at Real Madrid under Zinedine Zidane because he had Ronaldo in front of him and same goes with James Rodriguez. Very few attacking midfielders hit the heights of these aforementioned three who played without Cristiano Ronaldo.

With the look of things, the No. 10 position looks like it is going into extinction and players still in the football game with that as their main position either needs to adapt to another position or wait on the bench for miracles.