5 players who successfully changed their positions this season
Professional footballers have a short career but do not let that take anything away from the decades of intensive training and unwavering focus that goes into the making of a player. Football players are analyzed from an early age and their strengths and weaknesses are assessed before a plan to extract the best out of them is drawn.
This will involve finding the right position for a player. However, owing to a variety of reasons a player might need to adapt to a new position. This is quite a difficult task because different positions have their own unique requirements and a footballer's instincts are hard to circumvent.
But some football players have shifted positions with aplomb and let's take a look at 5 of them who pulled it off successfully this season.
#5 Marcos Llorente - Defensive midfielder to Attacking midfielder
Atletico Madrid had been desperate to bolster their attack last summer and were linked with the likes of James Rodriguez, Edinson Cavani, Rodrigo Moreno and Mauro Icardi. They ended up signing then defensive midfielder Marcos Llorente from Real Madrid for £35 million.
It seemed like Llorente's signing was a bid at solving a different problem at first. However, his transformation from a bustling defensive midfielder to a creative outlet has been quite captivating.
At Deportivo Alaves, Llorente had earned the reputation of being an able ball stealer and made more ball recoveries than the likes of Casemiro, Illaramendi and Roque Mesa in the 2016-17 season.
Llorente, however, after joining Atletico Madrid has gone back to using his extra pair of lungs and his energetic presence on the field has become an asset to the Rojiblancos. He also broke that initial image everyone had of him as this rigid destroyer.
He then burgeoned into a technically proficient and aggressive number 10 for Diego Simeone, dispensing his duties in and around the final third like a fine craftsman. Llorente is a great dribbler of the ball,and is now unfurling a bag of tricks as he is getting more and more comfortable in his new role.
#4 Juan Cuadrado - Right-winger to Right wing-back
Juan Cuadrado is not entirely a stranger to the right-back role and has played there, albeit very rarely, in the past when a change in formation has required him to. However, he transformed into an out and out right-back last season for Juventus following the departure of Joao Cancelo and has done so with aplomb.
Cuadrado was one of Juventus' most consistent players in the 2019/20 season. Starting out in a deeper role, the Colombian international is given the freedom to be adventurous and foray into the final third to provide support to the attackers. His skills down the wing are obvious and contributed 5 assists and scored a goal for Juventus in the Serie A from the right-back position this past season.
It is quite surprising that Juan Cuadrado has been an upgrade on Joao Cancelo as he has offered great defensive solidity in addition to his obvious attacking prowess. Former Juventus manager Sarri who is responsible for fielding the 32-year-old in his new role was all praise for him earlier this season. He had said,
“Cuadrado is defending and attacking in the right way, he never left us unbalanced,”
“The only area where he can improve in this role is in one-on-one situations, as he goes to ground too easily and gets booked with unnecessary tackles. I am sure that working with Andrea Barzagli, he’ll improve on that too.”