The number 10. For many, this is just a simple number, like any other. For a football addict such as myself, the first thing that crops to mind, rather than times tables, are trequartistas. Only a football fan can describe a number nine as false. The triggering of some sort of OCD when anyone but a left back wears the number 3 on their shirt. Yet this obsession with numbers stems from something far more complicated than squad numbers or numeracy: the world of the football tactic. Football is often like the world of fashion; things are often in vogue and then back out very rapidly. Nothing more so than tactics. A successful formation that is truly original stays so for a very short period of time, before admirers and rivals take ‘inspiration’ and copy it, sometimes improving upon it, but often never getting close to the original. When the next sure-fire way to win crops up, it’s out with the old and in with the new. There are numerous examples of this, such as the libero of European football. The sweeper has not been used commonly by big clubs since the early to mid-90s, with the back four far more common. In the modern game, a back four is almost a given, albeit the manner in which it is used (flat back four or wingbacks, low or high block, etc) changes, it’s what is ahead of this that is the interesting bit.
