The No. 10 is Dead. Long Live the Wide Creator.

The world's best all-purpose playmakers work in from the wings, not between the lines.

Think of pretty much any skill you’d want in an attacker, and aside from maybe his Paris St. Germain teammate Kylian Mbappé, Neymar is the best at it. Not just the best in the Parisian suburbs. The best in the world. Organizing possession, breaking lines, beating a man, picking the incisive last pass, slotting it into the bottom corner—every step of breaking down a defense, he’s your guy. According to Mike Imburgio and Sam Goldberg’s model that uses FBref stats to estimate the value of a player’s on-ball contributions per 90 minutes, four of the six best seasons for a playmaker in the last four years belong to Neymar. The other two are some guy named Lionel Messi.

Not all that long ago, every coach knew what you were supposed to do with a creative genius like that. You stuck your best striker up top, spread a couple fast dribblers out on the wings, and let your playmaker roam free between the lines as a central attacking midfielder, picking apart the defense from the inside. This was the mythical No. 10: not quite a second striker, not quite a central midfielder, but doing a little of both in the most valuable part of the pitch.

Alas, if there’s one thing we know about the No. 10 role, it’s that it’s dead. Somebody writes a new obituary for it every year. In a literal sense the whole Death of the No. 10 meme has always seemed kind of insane, since the 4-2-3-1 is everywhere and every 4-2-3-1 includes, by definition, a central attacking midfielder. That’s not what these people mean. They mean the No. 10 is dead in the sense that, like, rock is dead—you can probably still find some Stratocaster riffs on the radio between Toyotathon commercials but it’s just not the same, man.

And you know what? The obituary writers are right. The best all-purpose playmakers aren’t in the middle anymore. They’re on the wings.

There’s a plausible tactics story about how we got here. We’ve gone over some of it before: the 4-2-3-1 evolved out of the 4-4-2 in the nineties when the second striker started dropping off a little to do freewheeling playmaker things, and coaches like Juanma Lillo bumped their wingers up a line to help out. Then about a decade ago people started making a big deal out of possession. Good attacks held the ball longer; defenses contracted; wingers inverted and fullbacks overlapped and pretty soon the No. 10 was just another cog in an increasingly crowded and mechanical attack. Finally, in the last few years, we got the pressing trend. Coaches wanted their artsy playmakers to play defense, which totally harshed their buzz, and Mesut Özil retired in protest to become a full time Twitter personality.

Anyway that’s pretty much where we’re at these days. Space in the middle of the attacking half is at a premium. Among the players who do an overwhelming share of their club’s ball progression and shot creation—the combination of skills that defined the classic playmaker—only a few, like Manchester United’s Bruno Fernandes and AC Milan’s Hakan Çalhanoğlu, occupy what you’d call a No. 10 role. For the most part, if you’re elite at passing, dribbling, and shooting, you’ll probably be asked to receive out on the wing and lead attacks from the outside in. These new wide attackers aren’t just Arjen Robben types who can cut inside and shoot. They’re full service playmakers who orchestrate their team's possession from the wing. Think Jack Grealish in England, Messi in Spain, Neymar in France. This is the era of the wide creator.

Which brings us to Mauricio Pochettino. When he took over from Thomas Tuchel a few weeks ago, Poch inherited an unusual problem: for what feels like the first time in the brief history of Paris St. Germain, the club’s whole Lamborghini showroom of attackers is available for selection. Mauro Icardi is back to his world class best at striker. Ángel Di María remains undroppable as a ball-progressing right winger. Moise Keane and Pablo Sarabia have played well enough this season to push those two for minutes. But even if you switch from Tuchel’s preferred 4-3-3 to a 4-2-3-1 to squeeze four attackers into the lineup, as Pochettino’s done, it’s not obvious where the crown jewels, Neymar and Mbappé, are supposed to go.

In the old No. 10 days it’d be a no brainer to give Mbappé the left wing where he’s most dangerous and slot Neymar’s more rounded skillset into a central playmaker role. That’s not what Poch has been doing. So far he’s used Neymar as a wide creator on the left and Mbappé, who’s extremely good at lots of things but also extremely not an attacking mid, in the middle as something more like a second striker. You might even call the formation a ... [looks around nervously] … 4-4-2?

If the idea is to get Neymar the ball a lot, it’s working. He racked up 105 touches and 13 progressive passes this weekend, near his season highs for each, dropping outside and under Lorient’s low block to poke around for unexpected angles back in. When Neymar received out wide, Mbappé could shoot the near channel and clear some space in the middle. When Neymar received in midfield, the left back Layvin Kurzawa scooted up past him to offer width, which effectively relieved Neymar of any duty to the wing and freed him up to move wherever he wanted. The point of Poch’s scheme is to give his best playmaker maximal freedom, facing the attack, with options in front of him.

PSG still lost. It wasn’t a catastrophic loss. It was the kind where you squint at the xG, the flukey added time winner, and Marco Verratti’s absence in midfield and figure everything will probably be fine. Just last week the same scheme worked like a charm against Montpellier: Neymar dropped low to draw out the midfield, Icardi stretched the back line, and Mbappé slipped through the left channel to win a red card and blow open the game. So far PSG is 3-0-1 with a +5 goal difference in Poch’s new shape, including a win in the French cup final. They’ll take it.

Sometimes, though, it does feel like Neymar the wide creator is trying a little too hard to take on teams singlehandedly. Maybe when you’ve got a not insignificant fraction of the world’s petroleum reserves invested in your front line you don’t need your best player to do everything, you know? In Barcelona, Ronald Koeman has recently given up on a Messi-at-No.-10 experiment and returned him to his old false nine role in a 4-3-3, which was also how Tuchel liked to use Neymar in big games. When these clubs meet in the Champions League two weeks from now, we’ll see the world’s two best playmakers and neither will be a No. 10. But they won’t quite be wingers either. They’ll be wide creators. ❧

Thanks for subscribing to space space space! We'll be back later this week with a data-oriented look at team styles, then next week it's time to start looking ahead to the Champions League. As always, feel free to jump in the comments or shoot me a DM or email if there's anything you want to chat about or see in future letters. —John

Further reading:

• Mike Imburgio and Sam Goldberg, Introducing DAVIES: A framework for Identifying Talent Across the Globe (American Soccer Analysis)

Image: Henry Farrer, Winter Scene in Moonlight