Just as an excuse to write and/or show off and/or be shamelessly indulgent, today we’re writing about a cool terms in soccer. These aren’t technical terms or anything devoted to rules, but more about tactics and tactical roles.

Fantasista…
A fantasista is a creative attacking player, either a striker or a central attacking midfielder. This is the kind of player you build your team around. In fact, you have to, because a fantasista is mostly useless otherwise. The fantasista brings ‘fantasy’ to the game, but with the fantasy usually comes a certain unpredictability and even unreliability. A coach must build the team around the fact the fantasista will tend to wander around and do whatever they feel like and will almost never defend. The rest of the team, ironically, must be very disciplined to account for the fantasista’s undisciplined nature. That’s why you don’t tend to see them on the wing, because they’ll wander into the middle and leave that side of the field exposed (Zidane did ostensibly play on the left for Real Madrid at times, but that was when their left full back was the incomparable Roberto Carlos, who could motor up and down the left side of the field at speed for the entire game and generally play the role of left fullback and left midfielder to account for the fact that Zidane would never stay where a left midfielder is generally supposed to stay). These days, you’ll tend to either see a fantasista playing as a ‘second striker’ with a free role behind the main striker or as a ‘false nine’ – playing as the primary striker, but with freedom to drop deep or go wide and not, as a number nine (the traditional number of a team’s primary striker) usually does lurking near the goal (Francesco Totti and Lionel Messi are protptypical of the latter kind of fantasistas). The reason for this positioning is that their tactical freedom generally requires the coach to put two disciplined central midfielders behind to both do the dirty work the fantasista won’t and to plug to holes in their own formation left by the teammate’s wanderings. For example, if a fantasista decided to drop deep into the midfield for a while, then another player would actually need to move higher up the field to bridge the space between the midfield and the striker or even (if the the fantasista is playing as ‘false nine’ without another central striker) move temporarily into the striker role.

Trivote…
Trivote refers to playing three in central midfield, but also to the kind of roles those players perform. A 4-3-3, 4-5-1, and a 4-2-3-1 all, after a fashion, have three central midfielders, but a trivote really refers to when all of the three have significant defensive responsibilities. In a 4-2-3-1, the central player in the ‘3’ generally does not drop too far into the midfield to help out in a attack. As part of a trivote, one player may have more attacking and less defensive responsibilities, but all are expected to pitch in regularly.

Trequartista…
The word literally means ‘three quarter-er.’ If you divided the field into four parts, the trequartista lurks in the third of those parts, just behind where the striker(s) would play. The player is similar to a fantasista (and most of the best trequartistas would also be considered fantasistas) in that role is a central one behind one or two strikers. This is the classic ‘number ten’ role of the main engine of the attack. The player rarely helps much in defense, so also needs a couple of more defensive minded players behind him or her to compensate. What this means is that a trequartista is generally only seen when a team plays with a single central striker (which allows for a two man central midfield behind the player) or with two strikers in a 4-3-1-2. The 4-3-1-2 works with a trequartista linking the three central midfielders to the attack. Of the three, one plays in a deep role and the other two operate as ‘shuttlers’ and are expected to be very tactically aware, with a responsibility to help out in defense, to move wide (especially if the full back attacks, to make sure opposing players can’t exploit the space behind the fullback), to attack, and generally plug any tactical hole on their side of the field.

Regista
The modern regista, a position which has been coming back into fashion lately, evolved from the sweeper role as envisioned by the great Franz Beckenbauer. Essentially, this player is a deep lying playmaker. They generally sit fairly deep and are responsible for helping keep possession and launch attacks from their own half of the field, with the most important attributes being a certain coolness and calmness in possession and the ability to hit accurate long balls. The regista has defensive responsibilities, but how those are interpreted varies. Sometimes a regista takes on responsibilities like man marking and tackling (Xabi Alonso or Bastian Schweinsteiger, for example); others won’t tackle much, but will use their understanding to make interceptions, but see their main role as helping keep possession and ping accurate passes around the field from deep positions (Andrea Pirlo or even late career Paul Scholes can be seen as this variety); finally, some registas don’t offer much traditional defense, but are experts at keeping hold of the ball and provide defense support simply by making it harder for the opposition to get a hold of the ball, with this type generally playing higher up the field, closer to the center circle (Xavi Hernandez is the quintessential example of this kind).

Less Cool Soccer Terms – Holding & Defensive Midfielders
This is case where a very real argument could be made that I am making a wholly pointless and artificial distinction. Nevertheless, I do see that distinction being made, so will attempt to explain it as I see it. Both are intended to provide cover in front of the defense, but a player dispatched to play a holding role is less likely to see that role as one handing out crunching tackles than of intercepting the ball and playmaking from deep (the best holding midfielders would also be classified as registas, depending on their range of passing and importance to the team’s attack). Someone tasked with being a defensive midfielder is less likely to jump start the attack, except in the most basic sense of passing it to someone who will launch an attack, and more likely to see their role much more in terms of disrupting opposition play than building up their own team’s play. Holding players still tackle and defensive players can still launch longer balls into attack, but not so much as their counterpart. Sir Alex Ferguson, coach of Manchester United, has tended to view his central midfield pairing differently – ‘passers’ and ‘runners’ is how it is often described. Instead of looking at how they view their defensive responsibilities, it is more about their movement. ‘Runners’ run up and down the field, both joining the attack and helping in defense. This player will be more likely to deliver tackles and proactively try to disrupt the opposition, but will do it more by chasing. And rather than making long, hail mary passes downfield, are more likely to run with the ball into the attack. A ‘passer’ is more passive, both providing good passes, both long and short, and moving more deliberately to either place themselves in opposition passing lanes to intercept the other team’s passes or to place themselves in a position to be safety valve for their teammates – someone they can easily find and easily pass the ball to if they find themselves under pressure and are in danger of losing possession.

The great soccer player, Giorgio Chinaglia, has died. He was a terrible scoundrel, but a loveable one.

Freddy Adu was the wunderkind of American soccer, but unlike fellow (one time) youthful superstar Landon Donovan, Adu has failed to really produce on the big stage (without getting into the question of Donovan’s failure to star in Europe – because his achievements in MLS, for the USMNT, and during his brief spells with Everton far outstrip what Adu has accomplished).

In truth, Adu looks like something closer to Clint Mathis. Mathis was an outrageously talented attacker whose attitude cost him the best years of his career.

He finally came through good when an injury to Real Salt Lake’s #10, Javier Morales, forced the coach to put Mathis in the game as their playmaker. Mathis played with heart and skill and Salt Lake won. He retired soon after.

But Mathis had the talent to break through with big European club and be a go to player for the national team, but he squandered both opportunities.

Adu seems aware of the risks to his career, but has also wasted many of the years when he might have been progressing or developing.

But I still remember watching him play for the national team during the last Gold Cup.

Since the retirement of Claudio Reyna, the national team has featured a midfield based around counterattacking wingers (Donovan, Shea, Dempsey) and athletic, muscular central midfielders. Most of our players attack by powerful surges  towards the opposing goal. Not to say that they can’t be creative, but it’s about motion, speed, and drive.

What I saw Adu bring was patience. If a move started to break down, players could pass him the ball and he could hold it and keep possession while his teammates re-oriented themselves. He then had the vision and creativity to try and unlock the opposition and start another attack. Without him, the team is usually forced to bring the ball back deep before re-starting, whereas Adu seemed comfortable keeping the ball higher up the pitch.

More recently, he was practically the only player on the U.S. Olympic team that can hold his head up high after the team failed to qualify for the London Olympics. He delivered delicious balls to the attackers and virtually every move went through him.

Donovan and Dempsey both making slashing runs, cutting in from the wings using timing and quick first step to get into attacking positions, but neither is the sort of player who controls to tempo of a game.

Coach Jurgen Klinsmann has been trying to incorporate and more attacking, possession oriented style to the national team. Surely Adu has to be part of that now?

Xavi Hernandez, the heartbeat of the two greatest soccer teams in the world right now, one of whom is also a contender for the greatest team ever – Barcelona and the Spanish national team.

At age 31, he will certainly never win the Balon d’Or (golden ball), the award which is no generally recognized as the award for the player executing the best soccer over the past year. Not gonna happen.

But he is also recognized as having been worthy and as having provided the skills and moves that made the genius of those two teams possible, as well as the genius of the player who has won the award three years running (Lionel Messi).

A few years after he retires, no one will really remember him.

Why? Because his style is both understated and inimitable.

Understated in that, unlike players like Zinedine Zidane and Diego Maradona, he never drove mediocre teams to glory through sheer force of will and genius.

Inimitable not just in terms of talent, but in terms of style, and this is the crux of the matter.

You have to build your team around a player like Xavi. He played for Barcelona for a decade before ever being seen as the talent he is. Sure, people knew he was good, but good at what? He doesn’t score goals or provide bucketloads of assists. He doesn’t dominate the midfield with key interceptions and crunching tackles that stop the opposing team from scoring. What he does is maintain possession and keep the team ticking away like clockwork.

And that’s great. That’s amazing. But… you also need to put at least two, and probably three or four players in the team who will do all those things he doesn’t do.

You need tacklers, but he simply isn’t going to do that for you. And you need a bunch of people to score goals and make direct assists because he won’t do those very often either. All of sudden, you’ve dedicated a huge portion of your team to making room for a player who neither scores, creates, nor defends.

He will be forgotten because his work cannot be captured in highlight reels and because, when he retires, you will almost never see teams utilize a player like him again nor make space for a role like his again.

I wish he’d won the Balon d’Or in 2010, when Spain won the World Cup or in 2008 when they won the Euro. But he didn’t and now he won’t ever win it and in ten years he’ll be little more than a tiny footnote, despite once having been (in truth) the greatest player in the world.

AC Milan is still a leading contender to win the Italian Serie A, but we’re starting the limitations of this squad, namely a lack of creativity linking midfield and attack.

The team still plays the classic diamond preferred by former coach Carlo Ancelotti, a formation with a deep lying midfielder at the base of the diamond, two ‘shuttlers’ on either side who actually play fairly narrowly (practically the only width in this formation comes from the fullbacks), and a trequartista – creative attacking central midfielder – at the tip of the diamong.

Kevin Prince Boateng is not a true #10, but he was given that role last season for very good reasons, but things have changed dramatically since then. Boateng is a hard running, powerful midfielder with a dangerous shot and underrated technical abilities. When he was assigned to play at the tip of the diamond, the team’s midfield was talented, but old. The three midfielders playing behind were generally a combination of Clarence Seedorf (35 at the time), Massimo Ambrosini (34), Andrea Pirlo (32), Gennaro Gattuso (33), and Mark Van Bommel (33). All good players, but sadly lacking the legs they used to have.

Boateng provided the youth, the drive, the running, persistence that none of them could. Rather than linking midfield and attack with craft and guile, he used what you might call youthful exuberance.

With so many slow players in the midfield, it was critical that Boateng be given that central role so that attacking movements could flow through him.

But now, with additions like Alberto Aquilani and Alberto Nocerino, the AC Milan midfield is much younger and more energetic, so Boateng isn’t needed to compensate.

Because he is not terribly creative, the wily striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic is having to try and generate some creativity himself, which is all well and good but now the team’s target man striker is hanging out in midfield and not in the penalty box.

Boateng was never intended to be a long term solution as a trequartista. His best role is as one of the ‘shuttlers’ where is constant running will connect base and tip of the diamond and provide some hustle in the battle to control the center of the park. But until the team finds itself a proper #10, Ibrahimovic will continue to drop further from the goal mouth in order to generate offense and their current #10 will still find himself running at the opposition defenders without a good idea of how to create space and opportunity for his teammates.

Paul Scholes came out of retirement at age 37 to rescue Manchester United in the FA Cup match against noveau riche arch rivals, Manchester City.

I’m not entirely sure what I think about that. He’s still got the talent, particularly in the league, against low and mid-table teams, and United could use some extra bodies with the injury problems they’ve had.

If there is one aspect I can appreciate, is that his comeback can put to rest the idea that the team needs to recruit a cultured, creative, passer in the January transfer window.

That might have been true if Darren Fletcher were healthy and fit or his Phil Jones were a success in midfield (not only is not a top class midfielder, the injury to Nemanja Vidic almost certainly means he will be badly needed in his natural position as centreback). Or perhaps even if Anderson could string together a series of performances featuring him fully fit and on song.

But none of these things have happened.

So… with Scholes back, they have their passer. The creative fulcrum who can link the midfield and the attack and can pick the lock of opposing defenses.

No, they just need someone to break up opposing attacks and buzz about, keeping opponents off balance and making occasional drives towards the opposition goal to keep folks on their toes.

It does mean that one time target Javi Martinez will not be considered in the January transfer window. He’s a much more stationary midfielder, like Scholes, only playing in a deeper, more defensive minded position and also, unlike Scholes, able to tackle without earning an instant red card.

Hopefully, they’ll be looking at a more bustling style of player. Sami Khedira would be perfect, if Real Madrid would sell him, but that other out of favor Real Madrid player, Lassana ‘Lass’ Diarra is more likely, if also less talented. But really, anyone to provide cover for a defense shorn of its captain and best player (the aforementioned Vidic) and to provide some energy and hard running to Scholes patient passing.

Manchester United need a top class defensive midfielder more than ever now.

Darren Fletcher is out indefinitely with a ulcerative colitis. He has struggled with his health for a while, and this has been revealed as having been the aforementioned colitis.

When healthy, he is a dynamic, defensive midfielder. He is a decent passer of the ball, not great, but good enough to keep things fluid and rhythmic; but mainly, he is a fantastic ‘hassler.’ He could motor around the field all day long, chasing after and hassling opposing attackers and breaking up their rhythm and intercept attacks. When Man U was in possession, he could break forward to provide support in the attack.

Right now, Carrick is the only defensive minded central midfielder they have. Anderson is rarely fit and was always better suited as an attacking midfielder.

If they want to purchase a defensive midfielder with strong vision and the ability to pick out a great pass, that’s great. But right now, their priority isn’t a ‘passer’ but a ‘destroyer.’ Especially with the team’s captain and best central defender, Nemanja Vidic, out for the season, the team desperately needs someone in midfield who can provide cover for young defenders like Phil Jones and Chris Smalling (and older, slowing ones like Rio Ferdinand). And this person needs to be ready to lead now. Not a player for the future, but a player for the first game in January.

Daniele De Rossi, Lassana Diarra, Sami Khedira, Yann M’vila… whoever. Just get him.

Obviously, the gigantic football club, Manchester United, is paying exactly no attention to what an out of shape desk jockey in America thinks, says, or writes.

But they are, apparently, looking for a defensive midfielder to reinforce their midfield in January – something I said they desperately needed.

Rumor has it that they are looking at Atletico Bilbao’s Javi Martinez and Real Madrid’s Sami Khedira as options. Neither a pure destroyers, but both primarily look to dominate and screen the area in front of the defense.

Martinez is big guy (over six feet tall) and has the qualities of deep lying playmaker or regista to complement his ability to break up attacks and intercept passes. He’ll keep the team ‘ticking’ from the midfield, as well provide protection for the defense. He will also cost a lot money.

Khedira will cost about 40% less to buy out his contract, but doesn’t provide the same playmaking ability, however, he has a non-stop motor and can surge into the penalty box to support the attack, as well break up opposition attacks from deep.

If they can pry him away, Martinez is probably the better option. A healthy Darren Fletcher provides similar qualities to Khedira (arguably, Anderson does, too, though Anderson has more offensive upside than either and provides less defensive cover than either). Also, Khedira is (I believe) ‘cup tied’ in the Champion’s League. Which means that because he has played for another team in that club tournament, I suspect he would be barred from helping Manchester United in that tournament.