Let me tell you something I’ve learned after years of analyzing the game, both from the sidelines and through countless hours of video study: the most underrated skill in football isn’t a thunderous strike or a flashy dribble. It’s movement. Intelligent, purposeful movement that dictates the flow of play and creates space where none seems to exist. Mastering this is what separates good players from truly influential ones. Today, I want to break down the art of positioning through movement, and I’ll use a fascinating, if cryptic, dataset to illustrate my point—a simple list of names and numbers: UE 56— Almanza 16, Alejandro 11, Aguas 7, Bual 6, Lorenzo 6, Sabroso 4, Bana 4, Diaz 2, Lagat 0, Timbol 0, Cuevas 0, Chua 0. To me, this isn’t just a stat line; it’s a narrative of movement, a map of influence on the pitch.
Now, I don’t have the full context of what these numbers represent—goals, assists, key passes? But for the sake of our discussion, let’s interpret them as a "positioning influence score," a metric reflecting how often a player’s movement put them in a decisive, game-affecting position. Look at Almanza with 16. That’s the outlier. This player, whoever they are in this scenario, understands something fundamental: great positioning isn’t reactive; it’s predictive. It’s the constant, subtle adjustment—the check away to draw a defender before spinning into space, the late run into the box that bypasses a static marker. I’ve always preferred players who think two steps ahead, who move not to where the ball is, but to where it will be. Almanza’s hypothetical 16 suggests a mastery of this. Contrast that with the players at zero—Lagat, Timbol, Cuevas, Chua. This stark difference isn’t necessarily about talent, but often about movement literacy. Are they making runs that teammates can’t or won’t see? Are they hiding behind opponents? Movement without purpose is just running.
The real magic happens in the midfield battle, which our mid-range scorers like Alejandro (11), Aguas (7), Bual and Lorenzo (both 6) might represent. This is the engine room of positioning. Here, movement is about creating angles for progression. A central midfielder, for instance, must constantly scan and reposition to offer a "passing lane." I’m a firm believer in the "third man" principle—you move to receive from the player who will receive from the current passer. It’s a chain of movement that breaks lines. A player like Bual, with a solid 6, might excel at this: showing for the ball in tight spaces, drawing pressure, and then releasing it quickly, having already moved the opponent’s structure. Similarly, Sabroso and Bana at 4 might be the specialists, the ones whose movement is highly effective in specific phases, like a winger making a curved run to the back post. These variations are crucial; a team of players who all move the same way is painfully easy to defend against.
So, how do you train this? It’s less about endless laps and more about constrained, game-realistic drills. One exercise I’m particularly fond of is a possession game in a tight grid where players are limited to two touches. This forces incredible movement off the ball—you have to create space for yourself before the ball arrives. Another is using video analysis not just of teams, but of individual player movement patterns. Watch how a striker like Harry Kane constantly drops deep, pulling center-backs with him and creating a canyon of space for runners like Son. That’s a masterclass. For the defenders reading this, your movement in relation to the attackers is just as vital. It’s a chess match. Do you follow that deep run and leave space, or do you hold your line and communicate with your midfield to cover? The players with zeros in our dataset might be caught in these dilemmas too often, either following their marker into irrelevant areas or being too rigid.
In the end, the numbers from UE 56 tell a simple story: impact is unevenly distributed, and movement is the primary currency. Almanza’s 16 is a testament to consistent, intelligent roaming. My personal take? I’d build my team around players with that spatial awareness every single time. You can teach a player to strike a ball better, but teaching them to see the game and move accordingly is a far greater challenge. It’s the difference between being a participant and being a conductor. The pitch is a canvas, and your movement is the brushstroke. Make every one of them count. Start by thinking less about where you are, and more about where you need to be in three seconds, and how your movement can manipulate two or three opponents to create an advantage elsewhere. That’s the ultimate level of football intelligence.