A defensive midfielder (holding midfielder or midfield anchor) is a central midfielder who is stationed in front of the defenders to provide more defensive protection, thus "holding back" when the rest of the midfield supports the attack. The defensive midfielder screens the defense by harrying and tackling the opposition teams' attackers and defenders. They also help tactically, for instance, by directing opposing attacking players out to the wing where they have more limited influence, and by covering the positions of full-backs, other midfielders and even the centre-backs if they charge up to support the attack. In the mid-2000s, the role was popularized by Claude Makélélé, resulting in the position often being referred to as the 'Makélélé role'. The position may also be referred to as the team's 'water carrier', in reference to a derogatory comment made by Eric Cantona towards his French national team-mate Didier Deschamps.
Although the duties of defensive midfielders are primarily defensive, some midfielders are deployed as deep-lying playmakers, due to their ability to dictate tempo from a deep position with their passing. Sometimes a defensive midfielder will be paired with a central midfielder who will act as the deep-lying playmaker. When ever the central midfielder ventures forward the defensive midfielder will hold back.
Defensive midfielders require good positional sense, work rate, tackling ability, and anticipation (of player and ball movement) to excel. They also need to possess good passing skills and close control to hold the ball in midfield under sustained pressure. Most importantly, defensive midfielders require great stamina as they are the outfield players who cover the greatest distance during a professional match. In top football clubs, a midfielder may cover up to 12 kilometres for a full 90-minute game. Deep-lying playmakers typically require a good first touch under opposition pressure and the ability to play long cross field passes to attacking players further upfield.
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This article uses material from the Wikipedia articles "Association football" and "Association football positions", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.
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