In association football (soccer), a defender is a player whose position of play is behind the midfielders and first and foremost provide support to the goalkeeper. The striker (wearing red jersey) has run past the defender (in white jersey) and is about to take a shot at the goal, while the goalkeeper positions himself to stop the ball. ... In association football a midfielder is a player whose position of play is midway between the attacking strikers and the defenders. ... This article is about goalkeeper, the sports position. ...
The main types of defender are center back, full back, wing back, and sweeper. Defenders are by and large robust, and they also tend to be tall, though there have been several very successful short defenders (usually as wing backs, where height is rarely an issue). All defenders need to be versed in tackling and need a modicum of ball control skills. The libero is a defensive specialist in two different sports. ...
They usually remain in the half of the field that contains the goal they are defending. The taller defenders tend to move forward to the opposing team's penalty box when their team takes corner kicks or free kicks where scoring with one's head is a possibility. In association football a corner kick is awarded if the defensive team is the last to touch the ball before it crosses its own goal line (goal line of the end of the field it is defending) outside of the goal itself (whether by kicking or off the hands of... A free-kick in football describes the situation where a player on the opposing team has committed a foul, and you are given the ball to play from the position where the offence took place. ...
Tony Alexander Adams MBE, (born October 10, 1966) was an English football player. ... Franz Beckenbauer (born September 11, 1945) is a famous German football player, coach and manager, nicknamed der Kaiser (the emperor) because of his elegant style, his leadership qualities and his domination on the soccer pitch. ... Marcos Evangelista de Moraes (born July 6, 1970 in São Paulo), better known as Cafu, is a Brazilian football player, who is currently a defender for Italian giants A.C. Milan. ... Fabio Cannavaro (born September 13, 1973 in Naples) is an Italian football (soccer) defender, as of 2005 the captain of the Italian national team. ... Roberto Carlos, full name Roberto Carlos da Silva (born April 10, 1973 in Garça, São Paulo), is a Brazilian footballer. ... Ivan Ramiro Córdoba (born August 11, 1976 in Medellín) is a Colombian international football player. ... Marcel Desailly (born September 7, 1968 in Accra, Ghana) is a Ghanaian football player, currently a citizen of France and a former star for its national team, with whom he won the 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000. ... Rio Ferdinand, born on 8 November 1978 in Peckham, South London, is an England international Football player. ... Hong Myung-Bo (born February 12, 1969 in Seoul) was a South Korean football player; he recently announced his retirement following the end of the 2004 Major League Soccer season, having finished his career with the Los Angeles Galaxy. ... Paolo Maldini (born June 26, 1968 in Milan) is an Italian football player. ... Alessandro Nesta (born 19 March 1976 in Rome) is an Italian football player. ... Jaap Stam (born July 17, 1972 in Kampen, Netherlands) is a Dutch football player. ... Lilian Thuram (born January 1, 1972 in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe) is a French football player. ... Franco Baresi (born May 8, 1960) was the outstanding central defender of the Italian national football team in four World Cups (1982, 1986 1990 and 1994). ...
In politics, left-wing, the political left or simply the left are terms that refer to the segment of the political spectrum typically associated with any of several strains of, to varying extents, socialism, anarchism, communism, social democracy, progressivism, American liberalism or social liberalism, and defined in contradistinction to its polar opposite, the right.
The left is often seen to include secularism, as in the United States, India, the Middle East, and in many Catholic countries, although religion and left-wing politics have at times been allied historically, such as in the U.S. civil rights movement, or in the cases of liberation theology and Christian socialism.
New Left refers to the strands of left politics that emerged in the 1950s and especially 1960s, which tended to follow more democratic organisational forms, emphasise the cultural and personal as well as the economic, and were open to the new social movements.
The job of the centre backs or central defenders is to stop opposing players, particularly the strikers, from scoring, and to bring the ball out from their penalty area.
There are two main defensive strategies used by centre backs: the zonal defence, where each centre back covers a specific area of the pitch, and man-to-man marking, where each centre back has the job of covering a particular opposition player.
The traditional English full back was a large, strong man who would make substantial use of "hacking" - deliberately kicking the shins of opponents, a practice that was acceptable as legal in Britain but not in other countries, and caused major controversy as the game became increasingly internationalised from the 1950s on.