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From Sweeper to Defensive Mid, From Franz Beckenbauer To Andrea Pirlo – The Evolution In Football

Changing Role of the Position of Sweeper to Defensive Mid

What if Franz Beckenbauer was an active player today? What position would he take on the football pitch? It’s a tough question, but one thing is for sure – in modern professional football, the position that made Beckenbauer a legend – the sweeper – is extinct. So Kaiser Franz would either have to find a new position, or he would be terribly out of space in a modern football tactical formation.

If you are a little kid reading this today, you might not even know what a sweeper is. Originally, it was kind of what it sounds like – a player who stayed back behind the central defence to literally sweep away any balls that might pass them. The position had a very important role in the Italian catenaccio – a notoriously stout defensive formation. The sweeper was the most defensive, deep-lying player of all – the last man standing in front of the keeper.

Then came Franz Beckenbaeur and reinvented the position in the 1960s and the 1970s. He still had defensive duties behind the centre backs, but he also roamed forward and was the starting point of a new attack or counterattack. His dominant, yet elegant style earned him the nickname the Kaiser. The sweeper position started to also be called the libero, from the Italian word for freedom.

With the end of Beckenbauer’s career, however, the libero started to slowly go out of relevance. One reason was probably that it was hard to find a proper player for it – a good sweeper needed both the defensive sturdiness of a central defender and the technique and ball control of a play-maker. However, the main reason was probably the emphasis on defensive play in a straight line, which allowed the opposing strikers to be left in an offside position.

With no space behind the central defenders, there was no space for a sweeper. This, however, doesn’t mean that the importance of having a player who is both good defensively and is able to quickly organize play forward has diminished. On the contrary; it’s just that now the position is called a defensive midfielder and the player strictly stays in front of the defenders.

Granted, when a defensive midfielder is mentioned, many people’s first association is an aggressive, Edgar David- type of bulldog player who is more about destruction than creation. True, those kinds of players have their place in the modern game. But so do a different crop of defensive midfields – the once who stay deep back in front of the defenders, prefer smart  positioning to tackling when their team is without the ball and take control of the game with it.

 

Andrea Pirlo, defining the role of Sweeper with perfection

The current finest example of this kind of player is the Italian maestro Andrea Pirlo. He is instrumental to the success of both his club team Juventus and the Italian national team. On the defensive end, he is hardly noticeable, but does an incredible amount of “dirty” work, closing down any free space or player. When possession turns, he is able to take control of his team, and directs every attack like a conductor directs an orchestra. He himself rarely roams into the opposition penalty box, preferring rather to assist his teammates.

Nearly all modern successful teams have a player like that. The most tactically sound modern system of play seems to be 4-2-3-1, where the pair of central defensive midfielder is balanced between one aggressive mostly defensive player and one is an organizational mastermind. The second guy is usually the most important for a team’s success. Xavi has a dominant influence for Barcelona, as Xabi Alonso does for Real Madrid. Yaya Toure is also building himself as one of the most prominent mid-fields in the English Premier League. Bastian Schweinschteiger started as a winger, but only gained real prominence for Bayern and Germany once he moved into the centre of midfield. If Franz Beckenbauer was a player today, he would be that kind of deep-lying, play-orchestrating defensive midfielder. He would be in fine company too with the current crop of players.

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