One of the great things about soccer is that anyone can play it, regardless of size, shape, age, or gender. You can always tailor how you play the game based on your fitness or body shape.
While that is still true for professional soccer players to a certain extent, obviously they need to be able to compete, so fitness and age do have some bearing on whether they can compete or not.
But when it comes to body types, you can often find a certain body type is more suited to one role than another. A player’s physical build can be split into three distinct types, tall and slender, medium height with good proportions, and short and stocky.
Now, while it has to be said that any one of these body types can be used in any position on a soccer field, some of the characteristics do lend themselves to certain positions, a tall and slender goalkeeper for example.
Let’s look into the 3 different types of body types of soccer players.
1. Tall And Slender
- Examples: Peter Crouch, Oliver Giroud
This type of build, often called an Ectomorph, is invariable of slim build, but also has above average height. Long-limbed, an ectomorph is energy efficient, can cover ground quickly, and is great at endurance-based activities.
As well as the obvious advantage of height, this body type lends itself well to soccer as there is a large amount of ground to cover, and over a 90-minute game, a tall, athletic player can often go the full game with minimal fuss.
For a soccer player to compare this build to, we need look no further than England international, Peter Crouch. At 6’7” tall, Crouch made a career out of being great in the air, the perfect target man if you will.
His height belied a very good soccer player, however, as Crouch was also great at covering ground, had an eye for goal, and incredibly for a 19-year career, only had 29 days of injury throughout.
This rangy body type is ideally suited for the rigors of professional soccer, ticking almost every box needed. The height to cause issues to opponents, the stamina and endurance to see out a game comfortably, and the resilience to endure 90 minutes of being closely marked with a body type that optimizes a player’s ability to see out a season.
There are fewer players fitting this mold than you may think, and the ones that do often stand out, not only because they literally stand out due to their height, but for the fact that they bring so much to a team, the different options a manager has when utilizing a player of this body type are endless.
2. The All-Rounder, Medium Height With Solid Proportions
- Examples: Cristiano Ronaldo, Kevin De Bruyne
Not to be confused with Mr or Mrs. Ordinary, the player with an athletic build and a body in perfect proportion can make or break your team.
In pseudo-scientific terms, this player is called a Mesomorph, and they bring the best of both worlds. Built for pace and power, this body type is the standard in professional soccer.
Go through the team you support and you’ll find that many of the players there fit into this stereotype, they aren’t too tall, not too short, and their physical fitness is absurd. Genetically designed for endurance and acceleration, the perfect combination to be a successful player.
Every position on the field is ideal for this body type, robust players that have the energy and strength to play elite sports, the turn of pace to cause problems, and the upper and lower body strength to get stuck in and come out unscathed.
Look no further than Kevin De Bruyne or Cristiano Ronaldo for the perfect examples of this player. Both elite players, both around the uniform height and weight, their skills are of course abnormal, but their body types allow them to maximize their potential.
3. Stocky And Powerful
- Examples: Lionel Messi, Diego Maradona
If you fit into this category, don’t worry that you can’t perform at the highest levels of soccer. To start this body type discussion with an example, we can find the ideal player in Diego Maradona, and he didn’t do too badly in the game.
Built like a barrel, with a center of gravity that made him almost gyroscopic, Maradona on the ball was a fearsome sight to behold. Impossible to knock down, impossible to dispossess, and with a strength that belied his height, he was the perfect example of an Endomorph body type.
The Pep Guardiola-led Barcelona team of 2008-2012 had many players of this body type in it, and they swept aside all who challenged them in both La Liga and the Champions League.
Players such as Xavi, Iniesta, and Lionel Messi, all smaller players with low centers of gravity, yet they were able to ride challenges and simply pass teams off the park, with a team of players who rarely jumped for a ball, but instead used maximum force and skill to take world soccer by storm.
As soccer becomes more technical by the year, this body type is becoming more relevant in the modern game. Smaller, more technically gifted players that are built for power and more compact passages of play.
Where the need to be able to retain the ball, and move it on to a nearby teammate is more useful than a player that covers every blade of grass, a stocky, gifted player can shine in any team.
Can You Change Your Body Type?
Once you have reached maturity, your body type is pretty much set in stone, an Ectomorph is unlikely to shrink, just as an Endomorph is likely to lose that barrel chest and suddenly grow to 6 feet tall.
Diet and training can build or reduce body mass, our above example of the great Barcelona team had many Endomorphs in it, but all were in peak condition, all had minimal body fat, and all were winners.
A tall, rangy player can build up muscle and body fat in order to become stronger, but the inherent risk here is that they could become slower, their energy levels may reduce as they carry more weight, and they may suffer more injuries as a result.
A player of standard height with excellent proportions could lose more weight than is needed and also suffer as a consequence, too light and you can’t retain the ball as easily, or take as many hits, too heavy, and you can’ even keep up with play.
Which Is The Best Body Type For Soccer Players?
There is no right or wrong answer really, for each position there are both pros and cons for each. A tall goalkeeper sounds great, and it is, but what if they are too tall to get down for low shots quickly?
What if they are too thin to be effective at corners and keep getting barged off the ball? A player’s body type is fixed, but what they do with that body type isn’t, and that’s where training and conditioning come into it.
Each body type, properly conditioned and used in the right position on the field can be an effective part of any team. It is a managers’ job, through training and conditioning, to make sure each player is used in the right way.
An example of this is using a tall striker, an Ectomorph that can strike fear into defenders as they cannot compete with their height. But what if a team is set up not to cross the ball to the striker? Their body type no longer affects the game, the option of using their height advantage is negated by the managers’ tactics.
Like a jigsaw, a team is comprised of components of different sizes and shapes, there is no such thing as the wrong body type, merely the wrong way to use a body type.
Also Read: What’s The Ideal Height For a Soccer Player?
