There is good coverage of the different Work Roles across the defender, midfielder and attacker player roles. While certain behaviors are fundamental to specific jobs, e.g. being able to cross the ball if you’re a winger or being able to understand complex analysis if you’re a data scientist, there is more than one way to be good at a job and this distribution of Work Roles across the different player roles supports that.

Understanding an individual’s preferred styles can help to maximize their strengths when performing that role and mitigate possible challenge areas. When working in a team, whether on the pitch or in an office, it is important to recognize the different roles individuals are likely to play and how this will impact what the team can offer. It’s unlikely a football manager would line up with no defensive midfielders (apart from maybe Pep Guardiola in a Champions League Final, but we saw how that panned out…) – player selection is based on formation, the type of team they are playing, etc. rather than just a case of who is available and who is the ‘best’.

The collective make up impacts not just on the performance of the team, but how the individuals within that team perform. The team set up for France allowed Paul Pogba the freedom to make runs forward compared with when he was playing at Manchester United with less midfield support. And the difference was clear from his stats and comments about him after games for France and for Manchester United (Duncker, 2021).