“Our people are our greatest source of competitive advantage.”
This sentiment is often heralded in companies by everyone from middle managers to HR professionals to CEOs. It is a great sound bite. The problem: It is not true—at least, not entirely. An organization’s star performers are its source of competitive advantage, and only if they are strategically assigned to the most critical roles. Employees who are simply good at their jobs do not provide an advantage over competitors, and having star performers in jobs that are less than critical is a waste of talent.

In order to identify the right roles and people, leaders and managers have to consider their strategy and then their talent. What is the organization’s five-year strategy and what roles will be critical in executing it? In order to determine the right talent, organizations should leverage performance data to make decisions in the most objective way possible

Soccer provides an excellent example of how this concept plays out. With 11 players, soccer teams are comparable in size to high performing executive management teams. All positions in a team are important, but are there some that are more critical for success? Which is the most critical?

Goalkeepers Save Victories
Opinions abound as to which is the most important position on the field, with many arguing for the goalkeeper. Consider Alisson Becker, who became the most expensive goalkeeper in the world when Liverpool F.C. agreed to pay Roma £65 million prior to winning the Uefa Champions League in 2019. Alisson was able to repay large chunks of the record transfer fee, particularly with a crucial 1-0 win over Napoli sending Liverpool F.C. to the knockout stages. His manager Jürgen Klopp said, “If I’d known how good he was, I’d have paid double.”

More than any other position, the job of goalkeeper is mentally challenging. There are periods when goalkeepers are not called upon, “but there will be several moments… where that goalkeeper is going to have to take that team and put them on their shoulders,” according to former American goalkeeper Briana Scurry. Goalkeepers’ main task is to prevent goals. Depending on the playing style of the team, however, they can also act as a sweeper, as Manuel Neuer shaped the role during the 2014 FIFA World Cup, being critical to Germany’s victory. Goalkeepers can also be the first playmaker or even, according to Thiago Motta, former Italian international and two times UEFA Champions League winner with Barcelona F.C., “the first attacker.”

Defenders Win Championships
Many experts argue central defenders are the most important since they fend off attacks and secure the offensive players to the rear. They link the goalkeeper with the rest of the team. Klopp says, “As a central defender you are almost always the last resort. If you lose the ball, if you don’t stop the ball properly, you will almost certainly create a big chance for your opponent.” Central defenders are often team leaders and have been team captains more often than other position players.

On the flip side, there is good evidence that the most important position in modern soccer is the fullback. Brazil, winners of the World Cup for a record five times, has a tradition of developing outstanding fullbacks such as Cafu and Roberto Carlos, key players in winning the 2002 World Cup or Marcelo, who shaped an entire era at Real Madrid with three consecutive UEFA Champions League victories. Fullbacks are usually heavily involved in attacking play. They are given plenty of space to maneuver, leaving the center backs with responsibility of marking the strikers. It is not surprising that Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andrew Robertson, right and Left fullbacks for Liverpool F.C.’s 2019 UEFA Champions League winning team, were ranked third and fifth respectively, among players with the most assists in the English Premier League.

Midfielders Are the ‘Engine’
The view that midfielders are the most important players has strong proponents. Defensive midfielders are not only often seen as the pulse generator for offensive play, but also important for their teammates. In 2016, Portland Thorns manager Mark Parsons said of Amandine Henry, one of the best defensive midfielders in women’s soccer, “Her ability to control the game in the center of midfield helps everyone else do their job better.” On the defensive part of their role, they are expected to conquer balls, win decisive duels and close down potential passing lanes.

Strikers Are Most Important
Is conventional wisdom right and the position of the striker the most important? Most individual awards are dominated by strikers. With one exception (Fabio Cannavaro), offensive midfielders or strikers have won the FIFA World Player of the Year every year since its introduction in men’s soccer in 1991. The same applies to women’s soccer, where the award has only been given to one defensive player (Nadine Angerer) since its inception in 2001. The importance of offensive players is reflected in market values. As of 2019, nine of the 10 most valuable players in men’s soccer are strikers. According to Forbes 100 World’s Highest-Paid Athletes 2019, eight of the listed 11 professional soccer players are strikers and three are midfielders.

Coaches Matter
The coach has control over tactics and personnel decisions. The best coaches are masters at communicating with and motivating their players. In addition, managers such as Jürgen Klopp can be the primary source of innovation. Coaching (or managing in the terminology of the English Premier League) is arguably the toughest job in soccer—and a job that is only getting tougher as evidenced by increasing turnover. The average coach tenure in English soccer declined from 3.5 years in 1992 to 1.3 years in 2016. That makes the feats of the highest performing coaches all the more impressive. Arsène Wenger at Arsenal and Alex Ferguson at Manchester United led their respective clubs for 20+ years. Under Ferguson, Manchester United won 13 Premier League titles, five FA Cups and two UEFA Champions League titles.

What We Did
Attempting to use the latest analytic techniques to build a team, we collected and analyzed data from Germany’s first tier league, the Bundesliga, and evaluated the importance of individual positions. Our dataset included win-draw-loss outcomes and the players of the starting 11 including their position on the field for each game for every team over a period of six consecutive years starting with the 2013-2014 season and ending with the 2018-2019 season.

Our data set included 26 explanatory variables, 25 position variables and a variable for the coach. The explanatory power of the model comes from switching of players between teams and between positions and the switching of coaches between teams. We decided to use random forests for establishing variable importance with mean decrease in accuracy as the key measure. When the accuracy of the random forest decreases due to the exclusion of a single variable, that variable is deemed important and therefore variables with a large mean decrease in accuracy are more important.

What We Found
We generated two final regression models: one with draws and one without. Both models were quite robust and both had positive net variable contribution to accuracy. We used relative contribution statistical methods to establish the relative importance of individual positions.The top five position variables for each regression model are shown in the table below.

Our results demonstrated defenders and goalkeepers are the most important positions, occupying the top three slots for each model and seven out of the 10 top-five slots for each model. Over both our models, four positions are always present: Left Fullback, right fullback, goalkeeper and offensive left midfielder.

Best Formation and Relative Contribution
Based on our relative contribution methodology, the top five relative contributors to team performance on the field are: left fullback, right fullback, goalkeeper, left offensive midfielder and right offensive midfielder. Based on relative contribution we can also say that the top 11 contributors, a “team” of contributors, would consist of a goalkeeper, three central defenders, two defensive fullbacks, four midfielders and one forward; or in other words, a 5-4-1 formation. The average formation for the Bundesliga is a 4-5-1 formation. The 5-4-1 is not a traditional tactical formation such as e.g., the 4-4-2 formation, but over the last years, its popularity has risen as it brings high defensive stability and allows for tactical flexibility. Defensive stability is especially valuable for teams with less attacking power and when playing against teams with superior individual skills. In the Bundesliga over the period that we analyzed, this lineup has mainly been used against Bayern Munich (44.44 percent of the 5-4-1 formation’s usage occurred against Bayern Munich), the club that won the Bundesliga each year during our sample period. For international competitions, such as the FIFA World Cup or the UEFA European Football Championship, there are examples of underdogs who had great success using the 5-4-1 formation. In FIFA World Cup 2014, Costa Rica surprised with their best FIFA World Cup campaign in history and went all the way to the quarterfinals with the defensive 5-4-1 formation. In 2004, Greece was one of the biggest underdogs in history and won the UEFA European Football

Championship using a modified 5-4-1 formation in some games. The tactical flexibility of this formation is strongly linked to the fullbacks, for whom physical and tactical requirements are extremely high in this formation. When attacking, they can push into the midfield, leaving three defenders at the back and the order can morph into a 3-6-1 or even 3-4-3 formation.

We also calculated relative contributions of each position on the field: for example, a goalkeeper contributes 56.83 percent more than a center forward, whereas a left fullback would contribute 118.88 percent more. This may lead one to consider the possibility that offensive players are overpaid relative to other positions, especially in the Bundesliga. The table below provides the relative contribution of the top 11 most important positions (plus coach) based on our model.

Additionally, we note the left fullback is the most important player on the field, the most important midfield player on the field is the left offensive midfielder and the most important central defender is the center left defender. The left fullback contributes 12.23 percent of the overall net variable contribution, compared to 11.21 percent for the right fullback; the left offensive midfielder contributes 7.76 percent compared to 6.72 percent for the right offensive midfielder and the center left defender contributes 6.58 percent compared to 5.78 percent for the center right defender. We calculated the average value of a position player: an average defensive player is worth a contribution of 10.54 percent; an average midfielder is worth a contribution of 5.84 percent; while an average forward is worth a contribution of 6.85 percent and a goalkeeper is worth 8.76 percent.

Scarce Left-Footed Talent
Based on the results, we can hypothesize that highly talented left-footed players make a difference since they usually occupy the left fullback, left offensive midfielder and center left defender positions. They come from a small talent pool, since the vast majority of professional players are right-footed. However, if one can now assume that left defenders make the difference in competition, it seems a promising strategy for clubs to concentrate on the search and development of these left-footed pros. While it is more natural that a left fullback be left-footed, there are examples of legendary right-footed players who played most of their career as left fullbacks, even if they started as right fullbacks. Philipp Lahm started his Bundesliga career at VfB Stuttgart. Originally planned for right fullback, he stepped in to replace the left fullback and became one of the best left fullbacks in history. While Lahm stayed right-footed throughout his career, there are examples, such as Paolo Maldini, of players who were born right-footed but had the talent and endurance to grow toward ambipedality.

Lastly, it is very important to note that the manager is the third most important variable in both models and overall, right behind the left and right fullbacks. If we were to include the effect of a manager’s contribution with that of position players, we find that manager contributes 9.77 percent to team success.

From Bundesliga to Business
Soccer is a business where success is hard to predict and small differences matter. Managers can learn from it when managing their own teams We propose a few imperatives to win the war for star talent.

1 _ Defenders may not get the glory, but they are statistically the biggest factor in winning matches. Every industry or function is likely to have its own unsung heroes. The sales person may get all the credit, when it is the engineer who created the fulfillment system that enabled those sales to happen.

2 _ Scarcity value is important to understand. In soccer, lefties are hard to find. By consciously acquiring and developing the best talent from a small talent pool, soccer clubs can win a substantial advantage over competitors. Similarly, recruiting and developing scarce specialists within an organization can be an important lever to get ahead of the curve.

3 _ Structure matters. Talent is an important piece of the story, but it is not the full story. In the Bundesliga, the 4-5-1 formation is the most successful, providing both stability and flexibility. In business, thinking creatively how to structure an organization can pay dividends.

4 _ Setting the agenda, putting the team together, motivating employees—these functions should not be underestimated. Coaching, leadership and management matter a lot.

5 _ Finally, our results highlight the importance of challenging conventional wisdom. Twenty years ago, Billy Beane took over as general manager of the Oakland A’s, an average performing American baseball team with one of the lowest payrolls in Major League Baseball. Beane made the A’s successful by exploiting systemic errors and inefficiencies in the market for players. Smart use of data can likewise help managers discover anomalies in the market for business talent.

▸ Boris Groysberg is Richard P. Chapman Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and author of chasing stars: the myth of talent and the portability of performance. Twitter @bgroysberg. Sascha L. Schmidt is Professor of Sports and Management at WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management. Twitter @ProfSLS. Abhijit Naik is Chief Risk and Data Office at Fundfina, a financial inclusion fintech company. Harry Krüeger is Leading Expert Strategy & Business Development at FC Bayern Munich.