Football, soccer, the beautiful game… it's estimated that more than 250 million people play the sport in some capacity worldwide, but who is doing what, and where, when the 22 players take to the field?
From Manuel Neuer to Harry Kane, the German top flight boasts some of the best players in the world in their positions. bundesliga.com takes a closer look…
What are the player positions in soccer?
Position: Goalkeeper
Bundesliga archetype: Manuel Neuer
The best goalkeeper in the world, and arguably of all time. Neuer has the shot-stopping ability of anyone who has gone before him, but the term "sweeper-keeper" was effectively invented for the Bayern Munich man, who has revolutionised the position in a two-decade career which has brought 11 Bundesliga titles, two UEFA Champions Leagues and the 2014 FIFA World Cup with Germany.
On the rare occasions that his club or national team defences are breached, Neuer's reading of the game allows him to race off his line to quell the danger. When his team is in possession he is just as valuable, with distribution and technique honed from moonlighting in midfield in training. And for anyone who doubts that the 38-year-old is up to the traditional nitty-gritty of the position, it's worth remembering he has a record 234 shut-outs in the Bundesliga (as of 11 February 2025) and is the only goalkeeper in Bundesliga history with more than 100 appearances to have conceded fewer goals than games played.
Watch: Manuel Neuer - The sweeper keeper
Position: Full-back
Bundesliga archetype: Philipp Lahm
Lahm was Bayern captain before hanging up his boots in 2017, and had spent 15 years before that as the quintessential full-back in German, and indeed world, football. Neuer's teammate for club and country for much of that run, he too is a World Cup and Champions League winner, one who tallied 19 assists in the 2012/13 campaign.
Lahm was particularly attacking the year Bayern won their first continental treble, and Pep Guardiola later described him as "perhaps most intelligent player I have ever trained" on moving him into midfield later on, but Lahm broke through on the left of a back four before spending most of his career on the right of one, and none have done it better.
Watch: Explaining the role of modern full-backs
Bundesliga archetype: Alphonso Davies
If anyone puts the "wing" in "wing-back", it's Canada superstar Davies. Bayern's 'Roadrunner' started life as an out-and-out winger when he burst onto the scene with the Vancouver Whitecaps in Major League Soccer, before finding his feet further back at Bayern.
One of the fastest players ever seen in the Bundesliga, topping out at 22.69 mph, Davies' pace means he moves from touchline to touchline at a rapid rate. It allows him to cover defensive space and track opposition wingers quicker than most players on the planet, as well as rapidly join Bayern attacks when they overturn possession.
Watch: Davies under the tactical microscope
Bundesliga archetype: Mats Hummels
An asset on either side of the ball, Hummels and former long-time Bayern and Germany counterpart Jérôme Boateng redefined the central defensive role on approaching their collective peaks around the 2010 mark. Having initially made the move from Bayern to Borussia Dortmund in 2008, and back again in 2016, Hummels returned to the Signal Iduna Park three years later having played a critical role in keeping BVB at bay during his final season in Bavaria.
Normally operating from left centre-back, the right-footer has spun the ball to a teammate with a heat-seeking accuracy for most of his career almost like a quarterback. A modern central defender who doesn't just sit back and mop up, Hummels also likes to carry the ball forward. His size and aerial ability also make him a real asset at attacking set pieces as well.
Watch: Hummels - Soccer's best quarterback
Bundesliga archetype: Franz Beckenbauer
The sweeper position has made a comeback to a degree, teams dabbling with back threes more often than they have for much of the last 20 years, and the system often requiring a central player who can cover the defenders either side of him or carry the play into midfield, if not both.
But when back fours first ruled supreme, Franz Beckenbauer effectively invented the role, Der Kaiser bombing into midfield from defence for Bayern and Germany throughout the 1960s and 1970s. A key cog in three consecutive European Cups with Bayern and a World Cup with Germany, Beckenbauer is one of only two defenders - Fabio Cannavaro being the other - to have won the Ballon d'Or.
Watch: Franz Beckenbauer - the face of German football
Position: Defensive midfielder
Bundesliga archetype: Sami Khedira
Khedira broke through with hometown team VfB Stuttgart in 2006, and a year later they were Bundesliga champions. Seven more, by this time a midfield fulcrum for Real Madrid, he helped Germany to their World Cup triumph in Brazil in 2014.
Khedira scored 52 club goals in his career, which was testament to his ability in the final third, but most of his best work came at the other end, with Inverting the Pyramid author Jonathan Wilson perhaps best describing him as a "destroyer with carrying tendencies."
Bundesliga archetype: Xabi Alonso
Few players have played the game with such grace and apparent ease as Alonso. The former Bayern, Real Madrid and Liverpool midfielder never looked like breaking a sweat at the heart of three of the biggest clubs in world football. Boasting vision and precision, he was easily one of the finest central midfielders of the modern game as a deep-lying playmaker. Career stats of nearly 50 goals and some 75 assists in 700 senior club games doesn’t tell the full story. He was often the play playing the pass before the assist, breaking defensive lines from deep.
But you don’t win three Bundesliga titles, multiple Champions Leagues, the World Cup and back-to-back Euros without being something special, which Alonso has also proven he is as a coach. His reading of the game as a player allowed him to quickly spot what was needed at Bayer Leverkusen, signing Granit Xhaka as his right-hand man and almost carbon copy in the Werkself midfield. The Swiss midfielder turned out to be instrumental in helping Alonso’s side become the first Bundesliga Invincibles.
Bundesliga archetype: Lothar Matthäus
Matthäus was that rare player who was able to play more than one role to a world-class level. Germany's No.10 at Italia '90, he dropped deep in the final to man-mark Diego Maradona out of the game as West Germany beat Argentina 1-0 - but he was a sweeper by the time Bayern made it to the Champions League final in 1999, in which they were cruelly edged by Manchester United.
Matthäus was a box-to-box midfielder for most of his career, though, renowned for his perceptive passing, positional sense, well-timed tackles and powerful shot, often employed from the edge of the box. "He's the best rival I've ever had. I guess that's enough to define him," Maradona later said of Germany's 150-cap record appearance-maker.
Bundesliga archetype: Jamal Musiala
The classic No.10 was a string-pulling midfielder, typically with technique dripping from every pore, playing in the hole behind his team's central striker. They didn't always have to be the fastest - who can run quicker than the ball can move anyway? - imagination and creativity were key.
Today, the position is on the wane, with the attacking line expected to press from the front, but Musiala fuses old and new school interpretations better than most. Musiala still plays slick through-balls - his 13 assists last season were no accident - but 12 league goals also told the story of a No.10 who is just as happy to take as he is to make.
Watch: What is a No.10 in football?
Position: winger
Bundesliga archetype: Kingsley Coman
Few players represent wing play better than Bayern's flying Frenchman Kingsley Coman. With a top speed of 22.16 mph - one of the fastest ever seen in the Bundesliga - he has the speed to beat his man on the outside before whipping in a cross, but can also play on the opposite flank and cut inside on his stronger right foot, story told by 68 goals and almost as many assists in his Bayern career to date.
Coman won a league title in each of his first 11 seasons as a professional: two with Paris Saint-Germain, one with Juventus and then eight on the bounce with Bayern, and came back to haunt PSG in the 2020 Champions League final, drifting in behind his marker from the left to meet Joshua Kimmich's cross from the right and head home a famous winner.
Bundesliga archetype: Arjen Robben
There was scarcely a sight more iconic then Robben cutting inside from the right and steering a left-footed shot into the far corner of his opponents' goal. Everyone knew he was going to do it; nobody knew how to stop it. The Dutch wing wizard was used on the left when breaking through for PSV Eindhoven and the Netherlands as a youngster, with subsequent spells at Chelsea and Real Madrid just as likely to see him stationed on his natural side.
After joining Bayern in 2009, he made the right wing his own, though, with Robben and fellow inverted winger Franck Ribéry - collectively known as Robbery - stealing the show with 17 major honours won together. The fastest player in the world when clocked at just under 23 miles per hour at the 2014 World Cup, Robben didn't need that same top speed later in his career, with his ball control, trickery, and a dip of the shoulder taking on a greater importance.
Watch: Robben's top 5 goals
Bundesliga archetype: Mario Götze
Maracanã Stadium, Rio de Janeiro, 13 July 2014, 5.43pm local time: "Show the world you are better than Messi and decide the World Cup" - Germany coach Joachim Löw to a 22-year-old Mario Götze…
Maracanã, Rio, 13 July 2014, 6.08pm local time: Götze, having replaced Miroslav Klose, steers home Andre Schürrle’s cross with an exquisite volley to lift Germany to a fourth World Cup at Argentina's expense.
The way Götze ghosted in between Martin Demichelis and Ezequiel Garay made him impossible to pick up. The centre-backs knew who was marking Klose, a natural striker, and when, all game. When Götze came on, he drifted between the lines of Argentina's defence and midfield. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. In a few short seconds, Argentina were floored.
Bundesliga archetype: Thomas Müller
To describe Müller as an archetype of any position might seem, on initial inspection, to be doing him down. The self-monikered Raumdeuter, Müller's style has left pundits - and indeed defenders - perplexed for years.
However, his coaches and teammates could hardly hold him in higher regard. The Bayern icon allegedly lacks a bit of technical skill, but his awkward gait belies an ability to control the ball that few can match. No ordinary player could bag 10 goals across two World Cups, while 145 Bundesliga strikes and 202 assists tell their own story.
Watch: Müller, the best in the world without the ball?
Bundesliga archetype: Harry Kane
From Gerd Müller to Robert Lewandowski, Bayern and the Bundesliga have boasted some of the best strikers the game has ever seen, but few compare with Bavarian new boy Kane, who joined from Tottenham Hotspur in summer 2023 in what was a record transfer for both clubs.
Kane has plundered over 50 goals quicker than any other player in the history of Germany's top division, reaching a half century in only 46 appearances.
Already the record scorer for Tottenham and England, the latter of whom he captains, Kane is also able to drop deep and play as a 9.5, teeing up others with his vision and passing accuracy. Six assists in his first 19 league outings of 2024/25, alongside his 21 goals, is testament to that ability.
Watch: Strikers in football explained
Until the 1994/95 Bundesliga season, teams played in shirts numbered 1-11, without names printed on them. Goalkeepers wore number 1; defenders wore numbers 2 to 5; midfielders wore numbers 6, 7, 8 and 10; and strikers wore 9 and 11.
Whilst some soccer positions in the modern game still have a particular number associated with them, other positions have developed more recently. Changes in tactics have even seen some positions in soccer and their roles transform or disappear altogether. The defensive tactic “libero” or “sweeper” used to be integral to almost every formation with a player running free between the goalkeeper and the defence. But as the four-person backline became more popular, this role is now generally covered by the goalkeeper.
Understanding what the 11 positions in soccer are and what roles they play is important, as it will help you keep on top of constantly changing tactics and game strategy. For example, in modern soccer, centre full-backs mostly play space defence instead of person-to-person marking. The terms “centre half” or “wing half” are also terms from the team structures of bygone soccer eras - though who knows, they could be a source of inspiration as new ideas come about in future.