Shadowing Practice: Every position in soccer explained - Learn English Speaking with Video

Soccer, or football, is a relatively simple sport.

Score more goals than the opposition and you'll win the game.

But in reality, it's so much more complicated than that.

So, let's take a look at the 11 players on a football pitch, who does what, and how they contribute to create the most popular sport on earth.

Let's start with goalkeepers.

Goalkeepers are the only players on a football pitch who are allowed to use their hands, so long as they are inside their penalty area.

They also wear different coloured kits to distinguish themselves, and their primary function is to stop the opposition from scoring a goal.

They do this by making saves, blocking shots, and catching or punching crosses.

There are different styles of goalkeepers.

More traditional keepers stay close to the goal line and focus on making saves.

Sweeper keepers rush out of the box to defend any danger behind the defence.

And ball playing goalkeepers help start attacks with accurate and composed passing.

Of course, the best goalkeepers in the modern game are a blend of all three.

Before we get to the other positions, we should briefly talk about formations.

Formations refers to the team's shape and number of players in each position.

A 4-4-2 formation, for example, means a team that plays four defenders, four midfielders and two forwards.

Incidentally, a format will mostly be illustrated from the bottom up with the goalkeeper at the bottom, or left to right with the goalkeeper on the left.

In some contexts it's different, but if you see something like this, you can usually assume that the attackers are here or here.

You can of course field your team in any formation that you like, but the formation you choose will impact the roles that your players play.

OK, let's move on to defenders, and we'll start with centre backs.

A centre back's job is primarily to defend the area in front of the goal, and to prevent the opposition from scoring by getting in the way to block shots,

tackling the attackers or intercepting wayward passes.

Teams will often play two centre-backs in formations with four defenders, but it's not uncommon for a side to have three.

There are ball-playing centre-backs, like the Netherlands' Virgil van Dijk, who are strong when it comes to building play with their passing,

and there are more no-nonsense defenders whose strengths lie in stopping the opposition.

Again, the best players are a combination of both.

The other type of defenders are called full-backs, thus a left-back who plays on the left and a and a right back who plays on the right.

Their job when they don't have the ball is primarily to defend the wide areas, stop crosses getting into the box and cover their centre backs when needed.

But with the ball, you again get to see different types of full backs.

There's inverted full backs, like England's Trent Alexander-Arnold, who will often drift into central areas to offer more passing options in the middle of the pitch.

While overlapping full backs, like Alphonso Davies, will drive up and down the touch line, often getting beyond their teammates ahead of them on the outside and stretching the play.

And then there are also wing backs.

Wing backs tend to be employed in formations that have three centre backs.

They are generally positioned a bit harder up the pitch in order to support the attack, but they can also drop alongside the centre-backs to form a back five when a team wants to be more defensive.

Next up is midfield.

The central midfielders will generally do a bit of everything, and the best can control a game entirely.

But there are a whole host of different variants of the central midfield position.

For example, there are defensive midfielders.

They tend to sit a little deeper on the pitch and focus on, you guessed it, defending.

They are sometimes known as ball-winning midfielders, who, as the name suggests, excel at getting the ball back off the opposition.

N'Golo Kante is one of the best examples of this.

But you can also have deeper-lying playmakers too, who can sometimes be referred to as the number six.

These players excel at dictating the tempo of the game with their passing and ability to evade the opposition press.

Spain's Rodri is probably the best example of this.

And then there are what's called box-to-box midfielders, like England's Declan Rice or Uruguay's Fede Valverde,

who have the skill and the stamina to continually run and help out the team in both defence and attack.

Next up, the more attacking midfielders.

They tend to play a little closer to the striker and excel at creating and scoring goals.

They need excellent vision and passing ability to unlock opposition defences, but they are also expected to be good shooters.

Portugal's Bruno Fernandes is a great example here.

Then there are wingers.

A traditional winger will stay out wide and look to go past or beat the opposition full-back

and swinging crosses for their teammates to attack.

They tend to be quick and good at ball control and dribbling in order to do this.

More commonly in today's game though, wingers will use their skills to drive infield and take shots themselves.

These types of players are often referred to as inside forwards.

One of the greatest ever football players, Lionel Messi, is the best example of this.

And finally there's the strikers.

Also often called centre forwards or number nines, their Their primary function is to score goals and win the game for their team.

Strikers can play in pairs, as in two-man striker systems, or on their own if the formation has just one.

Once again, there are several different types of strikers.

You have target men, more traditional centre forwards who tend to be taller

and more physical players who can win headers and hold the ball up

while their team mates run up the pitch to support them.

There are strikers who are quicker and who look to use their pace to run in behind the opposition defence.

They tend to be a bit smaller, but they don't have to be.

And some of the best strikers in the world, like Erling Haaland, can play both of these roles at the same time.

And sometimes you'll get players who are known as false nines.

These are usually players who are primarily midfielders that are asked to play as a striker for the team.

They drop deeper when the team are in possession of the ball in order to offer more passing options in the midfield, and they also drag opposition defenders out of position and bring their teammates into play.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing Practice: Every position in soccer explained - Learn English Speaking with Video

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