(UPDATE: WINTER 2025) Today’s episode keeps up with the overall idea of complete randomness (shit, I don’t even think that’s a word, lol). There’s continuously a bunch of new roles that are being added to the game of Soccer year by year thanks to tactical revolutionaries such as Pep Guardiola, Thomas Tuchel, Julian Nagelsmann and Roberto Di Zerbi, just to name a few.
The ‘Inverted Fullback’ is a role that has actually been around since the 60’s and 70’s with the brilliant Ajax team of Johan Cruyff believed to be the first users of this specific role. And since its welcomed return back to the modern game, and with majority of elite managers seeking to utilize its effectiveness in order to gain more control of the ball both in and out of possession, we can rest assured that ‘Inverted Fullbacks’ aren’t going anywhere anytime soon!
ATTACKING PHASE
One of the major reasons behind the re-popularization of this role is due to what it allows us to do in terms of when in possession of the ball. An ‘Inverted Fullback‘ will position himself within the central areas of the pitch when your team has comfortable possession and, depending on your formation, will either join your deepest M(C) or become your sole pivot (or form a three man pivot if you choose to invert both fullbacks, as we can see in the above image). As your team progresses up the pitch, the ‘Inverted Fullback’ will follow the positional trajectory based on where the ball is but will never stray too far from the other defenders, which leads us perfectly into the…
DEFENSIVE PHASE
There is a common misconception that the reason behind returning to this role is down to fullbacks in the modern game losing their defensive nuance. And although some fullbacks tend to not be the best defensively, it is a serious myth that they’ve lost all of thier capabilites to actually perform their defensive work. Nevertheless, when your opposition is in the offensive transition, your ‘IFB‘ will either hassle the opponent before their counter can obtain any traction, or they will revert back towards their starting position (which should be on the flanks within a back 4 formation).
POSITIONAL TRAITS
The key to ensuring that you have a player with the ability to play this role is twofold: 1) Can they play as a D(R) or D(L)? And 2) Can they play as a DM,M(C)? These are the two positions that determine whether or not the player whom you’ve chosen to use can actually invert. Now, how the f@$k do we actually implement this within Soccermanger (lol)? Well, it’s all about them arrows, baby! 😎
UPDATE: As you should know by now, SM has added pre-installed player roles per position (as well as removing the arrows) but there hasn’t been one created to indicate the ‘Inverted Fullback’ role. This is where we must use our own tactical imagination to our advantage. Additionally, there are some players within SMW who used to be able to play either of the above positions required of your ‘IFB’, but that doesn’t take away from thier skillset being favorable of what is needed from an ‘Inverted Fullback’.
KEY ATTRIBUTES (From SM26 and beyond)
If you remember Season 4, we mentioned each role’s most important attributes to consider which will be the best indicator into if that player has the ability to actually play within the role that was being discussed. You’d want to see an attribute rating of at least ’70’ for it to be a good fit (oh, and these attributes are from SM26):
Positioning
Crossing
Control
Long Passing
Passing
Creativity
Composure
BEST PLAYERS OF ROLE IN SOCCERMANAGER WORLDS
To complete today’s episode, we will be mentioning the top players within SMW that if given the ‘Inverted Fullback’ role to play would give you the best return on your tactical innovation (UPDATE: As with all of our Player Role updates of recent, I’ll be gifting you a top 15 within the modern game in addition to an honorable mention of 5 other players. Just a heads up that there might be some players within this list who currently don’t have the capability to play in the D(RL) and/or DM(C) position/s within SMW, but these players haven’t forgotten how to play in these areas but have simply not played there for a while within real life footy. I will be basing this list on each player’s ability as an ‘IFB’ overall so that you have even nore options to bamboozle your opponent. Lastly, I’ve also considered each player’s capability defending wise which of course is an impotence element of being a fullback.
Let’s get cracking, shall we:
Joshua Kimmich 🇩🇪
Trent Alexander-Arnold 🏴
David Alaba 🇦🇹
Raphaël Guerreiro 🇵🇹
Konrad Laimer 🇦🇹
Oleksandr Zinchenko 🇺🇦
Marcos Llorente 🇪🇸
Eduardo Camavinga 🇫🇷
Reece James 🏴
Warren Zaïre-Emery 🇫🇷
Rico Lewis 🏴
Thomas Partey 🇬🇭
Pascal Gross 🇩🇪
Federico Valverde 🇺🇾
Manuel Akanji 🇨🇭
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Benjamin Henrichs 🇩🇪
John Stones 🏴
Noussair Mazraoui 🇲🇦
Myles Lewis-Skelly 🏴
Sergi Roberto 🇪🇸
And there you have it, Soccermanagerite. Now that you’ve got your list, it’ll be pretty unwise not to utilize it moving forward…
The Soccermanager Experience 