page_title: Midfielder
section_title: Inverted winger
hierarchical_section_title: Midfielder / Winger / Inverted winger
caption_attribution_description: English: Megan Rapinoe, Candlestick Park, 27 October 2013, USA vs New Zealand friendly
context_page_description: A midfielder is an association football position. Midfielders are generally positioned on the field between their team's defenders and forwards. Some midfielders play a disciplined defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are otherwise known as defensive midfielders. Others blur the boundaries, being more mobile and efficient in passing: they are commonly referred to as deep-lying midfielders, play-makers, box-to-box, or holding midfielders. The number of midfielders on a team and their assigned roles depends on the team's formation; the collective group of these players on the field is sometimes referred to as the midfield.
  Most managers assign at least one midfielder to disrupt the opposing team's attacks, while others may be tasked with creating goals, or have equal responsibilities between attack and defence. Midfielders are the players who typically travel the greatest distance during a match. Midfielders arguably have the most possession during a game, and thus they are among the fittest players on the pitch.
context_section_description: An inverted winger is a modern tactical development of the traditional winger position. Most wingers are assigned to either side of the field based on their footedness, with right-footed players on the right and left-footed players on the left. This assumes that assigning a player to their natural side ensures a more powerful cross as well as greater ball-protection along the touch-lines. However, when the position is inverted and a winger instead plays inside-out on the opposite flank (i.e., a right-footed player as a left inverted winger), they effectively become supporting strikers and primarily assume a role in the attack.
  As opposed to traditionally pulling the opponent's full-back out and down the flanks before crossing the ball in near the by-line, positioning a winger on the opposite side of the field allows him or her to cut-in around the 18-yard box, either threading passes between defenders or taking a shot on goal using his or her dominant foot. This offensive tactic has found popularity in the modern game due to the fact that it gives traditional wingers increased mobility as playmakers and goalscorers, such as the left-footed right winger Domenico Berardi of Sassuolo who achieved 30 career goals faster than any player in the past half-century of Serie A football. Not only are inverted wingers able to push full-backs onto their weak sides, but they are also able to spread and force the other team to defend deeper as forwards and wing-backs route towards the goal, ultimately creating more scoring opportunities.
  Other midfielders within this tactical archetype include Lionel Messi and Eden Hazard, as well as Megan Rapinoe of the USWNT. Clubs such as Real Madrid often choose to play their wingers on the "wrong" flank for this reason; former Real Madrid coach José Mourinho often played Ángel Di María on the right and Cristiano Ronaldo on the left. Former Bayern Munich manager Jupp Heynckes often played the left-footed Arjen Robben on the right and the right-footed Franck Ribéry on the left. One of the foremost practitioners of playing from either flank was German winger Jürgen Grabowski, whose flexibility helped Germany to third place in the 1970 World Cup, and the world title in 1974.
  A description that has been used in the media to label a variation upon the inverted winger position is that of an "attacking," "false," or "goalscoring winger," as exemplified by Cristiano Ronaldo's role on the left flank during his time at Real Madrid in particular. This label has been used to describe an offensive–minded inverted winger, who will seemingly operate out wide on paper, but who instead will be given the freedom to make unmarked runs into more advanced central areas inside the penalty area, in order to get on the end of passes and crosses and score goals, effectively functioning as a striker. This role is somewhat comparable to what is known as the raumdeuter role in German football jargon (literally "space interpreter"), as exemplified by Thomas Müller, namely an attacking–minded wide player, who will move into central areas in order to find spaces from which he can receive passes and score or assist goals, even though he isn't very sharp at finishing nor is he technically creative.
caption: USWNT midfielder Megan Rapinoe (left), has been deployed as an inverted winger.
exif: {"Image PhotometricInterpretation": "32803", "Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D5100", "Image Software": "iPhoto 9.5", "Image DateTime": "2013:10:27 17:07:03", "Image ExifOffset": "148", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/500", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "1600", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2013:10:27 17:07:03", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2013:10:27 17:07:03", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "300", "EXIF SubSecTime": "60", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "60", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "60", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2103", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1626", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "450", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}