Which position is the most important?

Forwards and wingers may get all the glamor, but statistics show that a good goalkeeper is perhaps more likely to win you games. "Over years of working on player value," Daniel Finkelstein writes, "the Fink Tank has reached the conclusion both that a very good goalkeeper makes a huge difference and that a poor one is a massive disadvantage. Of all the players, buying a good 'keeper is among the most important. Yet the price is low. Go figure." (Times)

Goalkeepers are marginalized because, well, they don't really play the same game as everyone else. Consequently, people who watch soccer are less able to judge and correctly value goalkeepers. Case in point: Heurelho Gomes, who the Fink Tank rates as the third best keeper in the EPL, despite some highly visible blunders. One might argue that statistics fail to account for a goalkeeper's strength at marshaling his defense-- that had Gomes inspired a little more confidence, he would not have had to make so many saves. But you could also say that a goalkeeper's ability to quarterback the back line is another reason why the position is so important

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Looking beyond keepers, it all starts to become rather messy, in large part because no player can be considered in isolation. Moreover, many positions exist only on paper: for example, some of the better right backs in the world really ought to be classified as midfielders. Or, to take another example: what do you call Landon Donovan's position at the Confederations Cup? A winger? An attacking midfielder? A box-to-box midfielder who shades towards one side of the field?

Setting terminology aside, Jonathan Wilson makes an extremely intriguing argument for how, more and more, fullbacks and wingbacks are the most important players on the field. Wilson's article helps frame how we understand the game.

Intuition says that the central attacking players-- central midfielders, trequartistas, and strikers-- should be the most important positions on the pitch. Increasingly, though, even the best players are shunted towards one side or the other (i.e. Rooney with Manchester United). [Updated 7/14/09: I initially wrote that Kaka's did not play centrally for Brazil, but this is debatable.] Why? In part because they need to pin down the opposition fullbacks. Trequartistas, by comparison, are less able to contribute defensively from their central position.

This is one of the reasons I can't help but think that Freddy Adu's days as a central playmaker are numbered.

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The EPL's best buys. Also: the Confederations Cup three best young players, full of wonderful hyperbole.