4-3-3 Formation Explained: Roles, Strengths and Weaknesses
How the 4-3-3 formation works, from the midfield triangle to the front three, with its strengths, its weak spots and how English football adopted it.
By CricketTaken EditorialPublished Formations & Positions26 min read
- Central midfielders
- 3
- Brazil's World Cup win in the shape
- 1962
- Ajax European Cups, 1971 to 1973
- 3
- Chelsea points, 2004-05
- 95
At the Reebok Stadium in Bolton on 30 April 2005, Frank Lampard scored twice and Chelsea were champions of England for the first time in fifty years. They had done it with one striker. Behind him stood two wingers and three central midfielders, and the Premier League, which had been a 4-4-2 competition since its first season, spent the following decade copying the arrangement.
That arrangement is the 4-3-3: a back four, a midfield triangle and a front three made up of a centre-forward and two wide forwards. Its advantage over the older English shape is that the players stand on staggered lines, so the man with the ball can see team-mates at several different heights and pass diagonally past an opponent instead of square in front of him. The three in midfield outnumber a central pair. The three up front can press a back four high up the pitch. The costs are a lone holding midfielder with a great deal of grass to guard, full-backs who must provide the width and leave space behind them when they do, and a centre-forward who can spend long spells with nobody near him.
What a 4-3-3 looks like and why its lines are staggered
Count the rows. A 4-4-2 puts its ten outfield players on three horizontal lines, and a pass between two men on the same line goes sideways. A 4-3-3 in its commonest form uses five. The centre-backs and full-backs make the first. One holding midfielder stands alone on the second. Two more advanced midfielders occupy the third, the wide forwards the fourth, and the centre-forward is on his own at the top.
That is the entire reason the shape passes better. Players at five heights are joined by diagonals, and a diagonal pass does two things a square one cannot. It moves the ball past a line of opponents. And the man receiving it has his body half-turned towards goal already, so his first touch takes him forwards.
Put a pencil on a diagram of the formation and join each player to his nearest neighbours. Almost every shape you draw is a triangle. Right-back, right-sided midfielder and right winger make one; the holding player and the two centre-backs make another; the three midfielders are one by definition. A triangle gives the player on the ball two short options at different angles, and when he plays to one of them the third man can move to make a new triangle further up the pitch. Coaches who teach the system talk about the third man constantly. The idea is that the pass you want is rarely on directly, and almost always on through somebody else.
There is a second effect, less often mentioned. Because the shape already has a player between the midfield and the defence, the gap between the lines that a number 10 likes to stand in is occupied before the match starts. The same space is the standing weakness of the flat 4-4-2.
None of this is free. Five lines means the players in each one are fewer and further apart sideways than in two banks of four, and the shape is easier to play around than a compact 4-4-2 is to play through. A 4-3-3 is built for a team that expects to have the ball. A side that expects to spend the afternoon without it usually ends up dropping its wingers and becoming something else, which a later section deals with.
Which way the triangle points
Three midfielders can be arranged with the point towards their own goal or towards the opposition's, and that one decision does more to settle how a team plays than anything else on the team sheet.
One holder behind two number 8s
Point down, and there is a single player in front of the centre-backs with two colleagues ahead of him to left and right. This is the arrangement most people mean by a 4-3-3. Sergio Busquets behind Xavi and Andrés Iniesta at Barcelona. Claude Makélélé behind Lampard and a third midfielder at Chelsea. Fabinho behind Jordan Henderson and Georginio Wijnaldum at Liverpool.
The single holder is the hinge of the side. He is the first pass out of defence and the first barrier in front of it, and the job is described in full on our page about the number 6 and the holding role. The two ahead of him have licence to go. They play in the inside channels, link with the wide forwards, and arrive in the penalty area, which is why a 4-3-3 with the point down can get six or seven players into an attack.
How much licence varies. Manchester City's two advanced midfielders in the 100-point season of 2017-18, Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva, were creators who played almost as twin number 10s. Liverpool's under Jürgen Klopp were runners who spent much of their time covering the space behind the full-backs. Same diagram, opposite instructions.
Two holders behind a number 10
Point up, and two midfielders sit side by side with one ahead of them. Written out honestly this is a 4-2-3-1, and most coaches call it that. It still appears on team sheets as a 4-3-3, because the personnel are the same.
The change runs through the whole team. Two holders mean the centre-backs are better protected and both full-backs can go forward together. They also mean one player fewer running beyond the ball from midfield, and a number 10 who has to be found in tight space. The single-pivot version gambles on keeping possession. The double pivot assumes it will sometimes be lost.
A team can switch between the two inside a match by moving one man ten yards. That is the practical attraction of picking three central midfielders: the manager can change the character of the side without making a substitution.
The front three: wide forwards who come inside to score
For most of the twentieth century a winger's job was to get to the byline and cross. In a modern 4-3-3 he is closer to a second striker who starts from the touchline.
The usual arrangement puts each wide forward on the side opposite his stronger foot. A left-footer on the right receives the ball, drives infield and has the whole goal to aim at with his better foot; a right-footer on the left does the same from the other side. Arjen Robben and Damien Duff, both left-footed, swapped flanks through Chelsea's title season so that one of them was always cutting in. Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané did it for Liverpool from fixed sides. Why the swap happened and what it did to full-backs is covered in our guide to the inverted winger.
The effect on scoring is plain from the records.
Those are centre-forward's totals, scored by men listed as wingers. A 4-3-3 expects it. With one striker instead of two, the goals a second forward used to provide have to come from somewhere, and the system's answer is the wide players.
The centre-forward who makes room
So the man in the middle is often there to help others score. There are two ways of doing it, and they are nearly opposites.
One is to stay high and occupy. Didier Drogba, in his first seasons at Chelsea, stood between the two centre-backs and made both of them mark him. A defender who is holding off a centre-forward cannot step out to meet a winger running at him, and the space Robben and Duff ran into was space Drogba had fixed in place.
The other is to leave. Roberto Firmino at Liverpool dropped away from the centre-backs into midfield, and Lionel Messi did the same for Barcelona from 2009, most famously in a 6-2 win at Real Madrid that May. The centre-backs are left marking nobody. If one follows, he leaves a hole; if neither does, the forward has become a fourth midfielder and the midfield is overloaded. Either way the wide forwards run diagonally into the area the centre-forward has vacated. A false nine, as the role is called, can finish a season with modest goal figures and still be the reason the two men beside him have forty between them.
Where the width comes from: full-backs, the 2-3-5 and the 3-2-5
If both wingers come inside, somebody else has to stand on the touchline. Leave it empty and the opposition's back four can shuffle in and defend the width of the penalty area in comfort.
The first answer is the full-back. As the wide forward moves infield, the full-back behind him runs up the outside into the space he has left. Liverpool under Klopp made this the centre of their attack: Trent Alexander-Arnold provided 12 Premier League assists in 2018-19, then a record for a defender, and 13 the season after, with Andy Robertson on the other flank also reaching double figures in 2018-19. Creativity that a 4-4-2 expects from its wide midfielders was coming from the back four.
Follow the movements through and the 4-3-3 has stopped being one.
- Centre-backs splitThe two centre-backs move apart to the width of the penalty area and the goalkeeper becomes the spare man between them.
- Holder showsThe holding midfielder drops into the gap in front of them to take the first pass, facing forwards.
- Wide forwards move insideEach winger leaves the touchline for the channel between the opposing full-back and centre-back.
- Full-backs go highBoth full-backs advance to the line of the forwards and stand on the touchlines, giving the attack five players across the pitch.
- Number 8s hold the middleThe two advanced midfielders stay level with or just ahead of the holder, making a line of three behind the front five.
The commonest version, with overlapping full-backs. Sides using inverted full-backs reach the same numbers by a different route.
Two at the back, three in the middle, five across the front. The reason for five is the back four they are attacking. Divide the pitch into five vertical lanes, the two wings, the centre and the two inside channels between them, and put an attacker in each. Four defenders cannot mark five lanes. One attacker is free somewhere, and the passing is designed to find him. The inside channels in particular are explained in our guide to half-spaces and why they matter.
The other route: full-backs who come inside
Pep Guardiola's Manchester City reversed the movement. Their wingers stayed wide, chalk on their boots, and the full-backs moved into central midfield beside the holder when City had the ball. The number 8s pushed up into the inside channels. The result was again a front five with three behind it, built from different players.
A variation leaves three at the back. One full-back stays with the centre-backs, or a centre-back steps into midfield as John Stones did in City's treble season of 2022-23, and the shape becomes a 3-2-5. The difference between a 2-3-5 and a 3-2-5 is who is left behind the ball when it is lost. Three and two guards the middle better against a counter-attack. Two and three keeps one more passer close to the play. Coaches call that group of five the rest defence, and how it is arranged matters as much as anything the front five do.
Why the 4-3-3 suits pressing
A back four building from a goal kick usually starts with the two centre-backs either side of the goalkeeper, the full-backs wide and a midfielder showing in front. Against two forwards that is comfortable. The centre-backs and the goalkeeper make three against two, and the spare man can always be found.
Three forwards change the count. The centre-forward goes to the centre-back with the ball, or stands on the pass into the holding midfielder. The winger on that side closes the other centre-back or the full-back. The far winger comes inside to block the switch. All four of the opposition's defenders can be put under pressure by three men, provided they run at the right angle, cutting off one pass with their body as they close down another.
Klopp's Liverpool did it in a particular way. The wide forwards started narrow and pressed the centre-backs from the outside in, so that their run blocked the pass to the full-back. That left the full-back apparently free, and the trap was the next step: when the ball did reach him, lofted over the winger, a number 8 was already sprinting out to meet it and the touchline was acting as an extra defender.
That runner is the second thing the shape provides. With three central midfielders, one can leave his position to press without emptying the middle. A central pair cannot afford it. If one of two goes, the other is alone.
The third is distance. A side that attacks in a 2-3-5 has seven or eight players within thirty metres of the ball. When it loses possession, those players are already close to the man who has won it, and the quickest way to defend is to go forwards at him. This is counter-pressing. Guardiola's Barcelona are said to have worked to a rule of winning the ball back within five or six seconds, and Klopp has argued that a well-timed counter-press creates better chances than any playmaker, because the opposition is caught at the moment it is spreading out to attack.
Pressing is a choice, though, and an expensive one. It needs forwards who will run without the ball and a defensive line brave enough to stand near halfway. A 4-3-3 that cannot press well is better off retreating into a block.
What it looks like without the ball: 4-5-1, 4-1-4-1, or wingers left high
When the press is beaten, or was never attempted, the front three cannot all stay where they are. What the two wide players do next decides the defensive shape.
The cautious option is for both to drop until they are level with the number 8s. Now there is a back four, a holding midfielder, a line of four and a lone striker: a 4-1-4-1. If the holder steps up into the line it is a flat 4-5-1. The two are near enough the same thing, and the difference is whether the pocket in front of the centre-backs has a guard in it. Most sides prefer that it does.
- Back four4
- Holding midfielder1
- Midfield line4
- Lone striker1
The usual defensive shape of a 4-3-3 once both wide forwards have dropped level with the number 8s. Shares are of ten outfield players.
Show the numbers
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Back four | 4 |
| Holding midfielder | 1 |
| Midfield line | 4 |
| Lone striker | 1 |
A 4-1-4-1 is very hard to play through. Nine men are behind the ball, the midfield line covers the width of the pitch, and the holder mops up anything that gets past it. The cost is at the other end. The centre-forward is alone against two centre-backs, and when the ball is won the nearest support is forty yards behind him. A team defending this way has to carry the ball a long distance to score.
The bold option is to leave the wingers up. The three central midfielders then have to cover the whole width between them, shuttling from one side to the other as the ball moves, and they cannot do it against a quick switch of play. The full-back on the far side may find himself facing a winger and an overlapping full-back with no help. Liverpool accepted that risk for most of Klopp's best seasons, because Salah and Mané standing high meant every opposing full-back had to think twice before going forward. Leaving a winger up is a defensive tactic of a kind. It defends by threat.
Mourinho's Chelsea did the opposite. Duff and Robben, or Joe Cole, were expected to track their full-back all the way, and a wide player who did not was taken off. Both approaches won the Premier League, and neither is the correct one.
The spare man against a 4-4-2 and how Chelsea used it in 2004-05
Before the summer of 2004 nearly every side in England's top division lined up with two central midfielders. José Mourinho, newly arrived at Stamford Bridge, picked three, and explained the reasoning with unusual candour: against a midfield pair standing side by side, a triangle of one holder and two ahead of him would always have a man free.
On the pitch it worked like this. The opposition's two central midfielders had Lampard and Chelsea's other advanced midfielder to mark. If they marked them, Makélélé collected the ball from his centre-backs with nobody within fifteen yards and started every attack unopposed. If one of them pushed up to close Makélélé, the man he had left was free higher up, between the lines. If a striker dropped to do the job instead, Chelsea's centre-backs had an easy afternoon. Whatever the opposition tried, it was short somewhere. The same problem seen from the other side, and the remedies a midfield pair can attempt, are in our guide to the 4-4-2 and its two banks of four.
Makélélé was so plainly the key that the position took his name for a while. He rarely passed the ball more than fifteen yards and almost never entered the opposition's penalty area. He did not need to. His being free was the system.
- 95Points
- 29Wins
- 1Defeats
- 15Goals conceded
Final record over 38 league matches. The points total and the goals conceded were both Premier League records at the time. Manchester City's 100 points in 2017-18 later passed the first.
Fifteen goals conceded in 38 matches is the figure that describes that team best. It is easy to think of the 4-3-3 as an attacking formation because of the sides that came later. Mourinho's version was a defensive one first: a back four, a guard in front of it, two wide players who ran back, and a midfield that kept the ball because it always had a pass available. Lampard, given licence by the man behind him, scored 13 league goals from midfield. Chelsea lost once, and retained the title a year later with 91 points.
Other managers drew the obvious conclusion. Rafael Benítez at Liverpool was already using a lone striker and a five-man midfield in Europe. Within a few seasons Manchester United were playing a fluid front three and Arsenal had switched to a 4-3-3 of their own. Nobody had proved two strikers could not work. Mourinho had shown that three in midfield cost less than people had assumed.
The weak spots of the 4-3-3 and how opponents find them
Every formation leaves something open, and the 4-3-3 leaves the same places open every time.
| Weak spot | How it opens | How opponents use it | The usual repair |
|---|---|---|---|
| Either side of the holding midfielder | He is drawn towards the ball and the far inside channel is empty | Two number 10s, or a forward dropping into the gap | A number 8 sits deeper, or a full-back tucks in |
| Channels behind the full-backs | Both full-backs are high when the ball is lost | A quick pass into the space for a winger or striker running wide | One full-back stays, or the holder covers across |
| The lone centre-forward | Wide forwards and 8s are too far from him | Two centre-backs mark him, one in front and one behind | Wingers play narrower; an 8 runs beyond him |
| The far flank on a switch | Wingers stay high and three midfielders cannot cover the width | A long diagonal to a full-back in space | Far-side winger drops, at the cost of the counter-attack |
| The centre on the counter | Both 8s are ahead of the ball when it is lost | A straight run through the middle at two centre-backs | Counter-press at once, or foul |
The first row is the one that matters most. A single holder in front of a back four has perhaps forty metres of width to patrol. He can protect the centre, or he can go to the ball, and a good opponent makes him choose. Systems with two players behind the striker, the 3-4-2-1 above all, are designed to put one man on each side of him so that whichever way he moves, the other is free.
The 2021 Champions League final in Porto is the clearest example an English audience has. Manchester City started without a specialist holding midfielder, Chelsea played a back three with two men behind the forward, and the only goal came from a pass straight through the middle of the pitch into a space where a number 6 would ordinarily have been standing. Chelsea won 1-0.
The full-back channels are the commonest source of goals against the shape, because they are the price of its attacking width. When Alexander-Arnold and Robertson were both level with the forwards, the only players behind them were two centre-backs and Fabinho, guarding the width of the pitch between three. Opponents who won the ball aimed it at once into the corners. Liverpool's answer was partly personnel, centre-backs quick enough to defend in open space, and partly the 8s, whose first duty on losing the ball was to fill in behind the full-back on their side.
The isolated striker is a problem mostly for sides that have dropped into a 4-5-1 and cannot get out. A centre-forward with wingers ten yards either side of him is not isolated. One with wingers forty yards behind him is.
What each position in a 4-3-3 demands
The formation is hard on recruitment. Several of its roles need a combination of abilities that used to belong to different players, and a side missing one of them tends to drift back towards something simpler.
| Position | What the system asks for | Why it is hard to find |
|---|---|---|
| Goalkeeper | Passing with both feet and sweeping behind a high line | Shot-stopping and distribution rarely come together |
| Centre-backs | Defending one against one in open space, and passing through a press | The spare man a back three offers is not there |
| Full-backs | A winger's delivery and a defender's recovery pace | The role covers the full length of the touchline |
| Holding midfielder | Taking the ball under pressure facing his own goal, and reading danger | He is alone; an error has nobody behind it but the centre-backs |
| Number 8s | Running, pressing, passing between the lines, arriving in the box | Few players can do all four well |
| Wide forwards | A striker's goals and a winger's work against the full-back | Goalscorers do not usually track back |
| Centre-forward | Linking play with his back to goal, or vacating the space altogether | He may be judged on goals he is not there to score |
Start at the back, because that is where sides usually fall short. A back four with both full-backs upfield is in practice a back two, and those two centre-backs must be able to defend the width of the pitch running towards their own goal. They also start the attacks. A centre-back who cannot play a firm pass into midfield under pressure invites the opposition to press him, and the triangles further forward never get the ball. What that role requires is set out on our page about the ball-playing centre-back.
The holding midfielder is the scarcest player of all. He needs the passing of a playmaker and the positional sense of a defender, and he must be willing to do a job that is noticed mainly when it goes wrong. Clubs have paid enormous fees for the position and still found the first choice impossible to replace when he was injured. A 4-3-3 with the wrong man at its base usually becomes a 4-2-3-1 within a few weeks, a second holder brought in to cover for the first.
Wide forwards carry the heaviest scoring burden. A manager picking a 4-3-3 is counting on perhaps thirty league goals from his two wingers combined. If they produce fifteen, the system has left the side a striker short and gained nothing in return.
And the number 8s do the unglamorous arithmetic. Whatever the full-backs and wingers are doing, the 8s adjust to balance it: wide if the full-back has gone inside, deep if he has gone forward.
4-3-3 or 4-5-1: why the same eleven gets two names
Sven-Göran Eriksson sent England out against Portugal in Gelsenkirchen on 1 July 2006 with Owen Hargreaves in front of the defence, four midfielders ahead of him and Wayne Rooney alone in attack. Some newspapers printed it as a 4-5-1 and others as a 4-1-4-1. Nobody called it a 4-3-3, though the positions on the team sheet would have allowed it.
The names follow intent. A manager who wants to sound positive announces a 4-3-3. A pundit who thinks a team is being negative calls the same line-up a 4-5-1. Both are describing a back four, three central midfielders, two wide players and a striker, and the only thing that separates them is how high the wide players stand.
| Feature | 4-3-3 | 4-5-1 |
|---|---|---|
| Wide players without the ball | Level with the centre-forward | Level with the central midfielders |
| Who presses the centre-backs | All three forwards | The striker alone, if anyone |
| Support for the centre-forward | Two team-mates within ten or fifteen yards | The nearest is a midfielder running from deep |
| Where the ball is won | In the opposition's half | In the side's own half |
| Main risk | Space behind the wingers and full-backs | No outlet when possession is regained |
The test from the stands takes one goal kick. When the opposing goalkeeper puts the ball down, look for the two wide players. If they are standing between the centre-backs and the full-backs, up with the striker, the side is in a 4-3-3 and means to press. If they are back near the halfway line beside the midfielders, it is a 4-5-1 and the plan is to wait.
Most sides are both in the same afternoon. They press as a 4-3-3 for the first hour, protect a lead as a 4-5-1 for the last twenty minutes, and the manager makes the change with a gesture from the touchline. This is also the honest answer to whether the 4-3-3 is an attacking formation. The shape allows a team to attack with seven and equally allows it to defend with nine. The digits say nothing about which a manager has chosen.
The sides that defined the 4-3-3
Brazil went to the 1958 World Cup in a 4-2-4 and left-winger Mário Zagallo spent much of it running back to help the two midfielders. By 1962 in Chile the habit had become the system. Zagallo played as a third midfielder who attacked from deep, Garrincha stayed wide on the right, and Brazil retained the trophy, beating Czechoslovakia 3-1 in the final. That lopsided team, with one winger and one worker, is usually given as the first 4-3-3.
| Side | Seasons | Coach | What it added | Major honours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brazil | 1962 | Aymoré Moreira | A winger withdrawn to make a midfield three | World Cup |
| Ajax | 1970-71 to 1972-73 | Rinus Michels, then Ștefan Kovács | Interchanging positions and an organised press | Three European Cups |
| Netherlands | 1974 | Rinus Michels | The same ideas at a World Cup, with Johan Cruyff roaming from centre-forward | World Cup runners-up |
| Chelsea | 2004-05 and 2005-06 | José Mourinho | A dedicated holder and the spare man against a 4-4-2 | Two Premier League titles |
| Barcelona | 2008-09 to 2011-12 | Pep Guardiola | A false nine and possession as a means of defending | Two Champions Leagues, three Spanish titles |
| Liverpool | 2017-18 to 2019-20 | Jürgen Klopp | Counter-pressing and full-backs as the main creators | Champions League, Premier League |
Ajax are the team the modern version descends from. Under Michels they pressed high, held an offside line near halfway and allowed players to exchange positions, so that a full-back who went forward was replaced by a midfielder dropping in behind him. The label was Total Football. The first of their three consecutive European Cups was won at Wembley on 2 June 1971, a 2-0 defeat of Panathinaikos.
The Netherlands carried the method to the 1974 World Cup and lost the final 2-1 to West Germany in Munich, having scored from a penalty in the second minute before a German player had touched the ball. Runners-up have seldom been so influential. Cruyff took the ideas to Barcelona as a player and later as coach, and the club's academy taught the 4-3-3 from childhood upwards.
Guardiola, a product of that academy, inherited the result. His Barcelona had Busquets holding, Xavi and Iniesta ahead of him and Messi withdrawn from centre-forward, and it won the Champions League in 2009 and again in 2011, the second time at Wembley, 3-1 against Manchester United. What that side added was the notion that keeping the ball is itself a way of defending: an opponent cannot score during the minutes it spends chasing.
Klopp's Liverpool were a different animal in the same shape. They were happier without the ball than Barcelona ever were, pressing to win it high and attacking within seconds. They won the Champions League in Madrid on 1 June 2019 and the Premier League in 2019-20 with 99 points, the club's first league title for thirty years. Two sides could hardly have been less alike and both would be drawn the same way on a blackboard.
How English football came round to the 4-3-3
England was late. The country that hosted Ajax's first European Cup win took another three decades to play the formation in its own league with any conviction.
The reasons were the ones that had kept the 4-4-2 in place. English clubs had won with two strikers; the coaching courses taught two strikers; and the best English players of the 1990s were, to a striking degree, centre-forwards and box-to-box midfielders who suited the old shape. A 4-3-3 needs a specialist holding midfielder and wide forwards who score. The domestic game had not been producing either.
So the change came from outside. Mourinho in 2004, Benítez in the same summer, and the foreign players both brought with them. Arsène Wenger moved Arsenal from a 4-4-2 to a 4-3-3 in 2009-10. Manchester United won the Premier League and the Champions League in 2007-08 with a front three that had no fixed centre-forward. By the middle of the following decade a flat midfield four was the exception in the top division. Guardiola's City reached 100 points with a 4-3-3 in 2017-18, and Liverpool's 99 followed two seasons later.
The national team
The England side moved more slowly than the clubs. Eriksson used the 4-1-4-1 of Gelsenkirchen as a measure forced on him by injuries, not as a first choice. Fabio Capello went to the 2010 World Cup with two strikers and two central midfielders.
Roy Hodgson's England played a 4-3-3 at Euro 2016, with Eric Dier holding and Rooney, by then thirty, as one of the two midfielders ahead of him. The tournament ended in Nice on 27 June with a 2-1 defeat by Iceland, and nobody blamed the shape. Gareth Southgate began with something else entirely, the back three described in our guide to the 3-5-2 and England's use of it, before returning to a back four. At the 2022 World Cup in Qatar his side was a clear 4-3-3: Declan Rice at the base, Jude Bellingham as one of the 8s, Mason Mount and then Henderson, from the third group match onwards, as the other, and wide forwards either side of Harry Kane. England scored six against Iran, beat Senegal 3-0, and went out to France in the quarter-final, 2-1, on 10 December.
Underneath the senior side the change went deeper. The FA opened St George's Park in 2012 and published its England DNA coaching programme in December 2014, setting out how its teams at every age were expected to play: building from the back, keeping the ball, pressing to regain it. In 2017 England won the Under-17 and Under-20 World Cups within months of each other. The players those teams produced were holding midfielders who could pass and wide forwards who could score. The types a 4-3-3 needs, in other words, and the types the English game had spent forty years not making.
That may be the more durable shift. Formations come and go with managers, and the back three had its own revival in England during the same years. What changed for good was the kind of footballer the country's academies set out to produce. More on how the roles fit together is in the site's football coverage, and every guide in this series is listed on the England hub.