THE OFF SEASON: A new role has emerged: The INVERTED CENTERBACK

(UPDATE: WINTER 2025) You know, when you’re someone who continually obsesses about the tactical elements of football then you’ll empathize with a brain that doesn’t shut up whenever it thinks of something new to discuss… So, while I was preparing season 10, I was also doing my usual routine of watching different games from various leagues, and I’ve realized that there’s been a new trend occurring… A trend so revolutionary that not even the creators of Soccermanager (shout out to Invincibles Studio) have caught unto it (probably still haven’t 😶‍🌫️), but it’s a trend that definitely needs to be talked about. This trend I’m referring to is the main premise of today’s off season special: A newly formalized role, the ‘Inverted Centerback’! 💥💥💥

To be fair, I actually didn’t come up with the name of this role off the dome as I heard it being mentioned while watching an episode of ‘Tifo IRL’ (now known as ‘The Athletic FC’, the sister Channel of ‘Tifo’, which is a YouTube Channel that primarily focuses on EVERYTHING football). During my spree of matches, I’ve been seeing various D(C)’s play in very unorthodox positions, and with Tifo mentioning the name of this unorthodox role, I wondered: “why not create an offseason episode taking a deeper dive into it???”…

Alright… So, the ‘Inverted Center Back‘ is a role that has recently come to prominence over the past year or two, and it is mainly focused on providing an overload for its user that will occur within the middle of the park via allowing a D(C) to position himself higher up the field in order to become more of an impactful player when in possession. “Old heads” of football might declare that this role had been around all the way back since the days of the late Franz Beckenbauer, but while the Germany legend used to dribble out from the back when the ball was at his feet, the ‘Inverted Centerback’ is all about purposefully positioning himself in the midfield region even when he doesn’t have possession of the ball.

One of the pioneers for utilizing this role in recent times is non other than Sir Josep Guardiola (who’s literally responsible for at least 50% of football’s progression within the modern game, in my opinion) with his use of players like John Stones and Manuel Akanji during the 22/23 and 23/24 seasons. This positioning of the ‘I C.B’ allows for an intentional overlaod to occur starting from the middle of the park which could then overwhelm it’s opponent via having a man advantage or simply allowing for an extra attacker to leave the midfield and join in around the final third of the pitch knowing that the ‘I.C.B’ will be occupying his vacated space.

ATTACKING PHASE

It is very important to mention that the ‘Inverted Centerback‘ will need to be very tactically versatile since this role isn’t just about stepping into the midfield from the get go. He will be responsible for aiding in the initial start of the build up, and the manner in which the modern game is going means that our ‘I.C.B’ will be splitting his GK along with his D(C) teammate/s to either position themselves on the six yard box, at the far edge of the 18 yard box, or at the tip of the ‘D’ (with the latter normally occurring in back 3 or 5 formations).

After this first initial build up play is over, we can now expect our ‘I.C.B’ to motor up the pitch to join his DM or M(C) teammate/s in the pursuit of possessional domination. The amount of freedom they have on the ball is determined by the individualistic qualities of the player, the other players within your XI, and the style of play you are choosing to implement.

DEFENSIVE PHASE

Between the ‘Inverted Center Back’ and the ‘Inverted Fullback’, it is safe to say that the ‘I.C.B’s’ will have a much easier transition from attack to defence since they will predominantly stay in central regions on the pitch which means that all they’ll have to do is retreat back into their defensive quarters next to their orthodox D(C) partner/s. Bare in mind that the more freedom you allow this player to obtain the more risky it is since the oppostion could counter effectively within the region in the defence that has been vacated by our ‘I.C.B’ (take a shot every time I say the word “I.C.B”), so take that into consideration before utilizing this role.

POSITIONAL TRAITS

To think that most Managers would always believe that by simply pointing the arrow of one of our D(C)’s downward would mean that we want him to join in on the attack especially around the 75th minute of a match that we’re losing… Turns out that this tactical evolution has allowed us to now implement this usage of our arrow from the very first minute of a match!

When it comes to the style of D(C) that will be most comfortable playing as your ‘Inverted Centerback’, we can consider the usual candidates such as your ‘Ball Playing Defenders’ and ‘General Defenders’, but there is also a spot for ‘B.W.M’s‘ or ‘D.L.P’s‘ who can also play at D(C) and can be used in the ‘I.C.B‘ role (especially if you’re going through a mini injury or suspension crisis in the center of your defence). Additionally, every ‘Inverted Centre Back‘ has to be comfortable playing in the DM(C) position and needs to have played in that position in the past before SM decided to change up the different positions that this player can now play within the game.

UPDATEEEAH! : So, with the new Player Roles settings within SWM it means that you’re simply gonna have to move a bit more sophisticated… In order for you to play with an ‘Inverted Centerback’ it will require that the player in question be given the ‘Ball-Playing Defender’ role while also being played alongside defensive minded teammates (as you can see within the 3 formations above). Additionally, you’ll also have to take  into consideration the players within the XI higer up the pitch too.

KEY ATTRIBUTES (From SM26 and beyond)

As per usual, we remind everyone of the connection that our beloved Soccermanager Worlds has with the singular player mode games, and we will be identifying the most important attributes that every ‘Inverted Center Back‘ needs to have an ability of at least ’70’ (’60’, in the case of D(C)’s) in order to be able to successfully play this role. This will be our first look into a key attribute from the latest release (SM26), so I hope that you’re as stoked for that as I am!!!

BEST PLAYERS OF ROLE WITHIN SOCCERMANAGER WORLDS

This section is usually for the best of the best in terms of who within S.M.W is capable of playing this role and still maintain his regular standitory performances. But what we’ve come to realize is that there are a bunch of players who are comfortable playing as an ‘I.C.B‘ and we want to ensure that every Soccermanagerite has as many options as possible to try out this new invention.

The top 20 are as follows (UPDATED VERSION):

David Alaba 🇦🇹
Corrêa Marquinhos 🇧🇷
John Stones 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿
Dailey Blind 🇳🇱
Axel Witsel 🇧🇪
Hernández Rodri  🇪🇸
Joško Gvardiol 🇭🇷
Aurélien Tchouameni 🇫🇷 
Manuel Akanji 🇨🇭
Nico Schlotterbeck 🇩🇪
Eric Dier 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿
Lisandro Martínez 🇦🇷
Giorgio Scalvini 🇮🇹
Waldemar Anton 🇩🇪
Emre Can 🇩🇪
Andreas Christensen 🇩🇰
Eric García 🇪🇸
Riccardo Calafiori 🇮🇹
Ben White 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿
Jurriën Timber 🇳🇱

Yet another role to get your tactical juices flowing, Soccermanagerite… Looking forward to hearing all of the stories from your innovation!!! 🙌