Leighton Baines and the Evolution of World Football's Modern Fullback

While writing an article this past summer suggesting methods to more empirically measure player success, I had an epiphany.

Everton left back and occasional England international Leighton Baines finished the season with 19 combined goals and assists (points), the highest total of any player at his club.

To my knowledge, this achievement makes Baines the first top division defensive player to finish as his team's most prolific offensive player.

However, I highly doubt he will be the last.

As a young lad who grew up playing football, I learned that the fullback positions were reserved for the worst players.

Not expected to move forward, the outside backs were only expected to mark up against the opponent's wingers.  When they failed to stop their opponent's progress (as they usually did), the sturdier center halves would intervene and extinguish the danger.

While youth recreational football is obviously more elementary than the professional version played at the highest levels, this trend of casting the least influential players into the fullback role has prevailed throughout the majority of modern football history. 

Intuitively, this idea makes perfect sense.  The fullback is positioned far away from the opponent's goal and therefore is not an ideal position for a playmaker or finisher. 

While his successful defending and finishing across the back line is important to preserving defensive solidarity, the fullback is seemingly not as important as the center halves who deal with threats directly in front of goal.

So, if I were to ask you to rattle off the names of top fullbacks who played before 2000, you could probably only come up with two names: Brazilian teammates Cafu and Roberto Carlos

While several pioneering fullbacks including Italian Giacinto Facchetti and Brazilians Carlos Alberto, Djalma Santos and Nilton Santos mastered the art of the attacking fullback several decades ago, Cafu and Roberto Carlos made the position fashionable with their fantastic performances in the 2002 World Cup.

Suddenly, coaches around the world began challenging the conventional idea that fullbacks represented the last line of defense and began treating them like the first line of offense.  Along with Brazilians such as Maicon, Dani Alves, and Michel Bastos, top players from all across Europe such as Frenchman Patrice Evra, estranged but talented English left back Ashley Cole, German Philipp Lahm and Spaniard Sergio Ramos have formed an elite class of attacking fullbacks.

Perhaps best labelled as a "wingback", this modern attacking fullback begins lurking deep within his own half.  Once a teammate advances into the opponent's half and is able to draw the opposing fullback inside, the attacking wingback flies down the unprotected flank. 

Upon receiving the through ball, he is deep within the opposing third and tends to draw a center half, a central midfielder, or sometimes both out of the middle of the pitch in pursuit.  With a shortage of defenders positioned inside the box, the attacking fullback uses his pinpoint accuracy to swing in a deadly cross.

While the modern wingback's increasing popularity has had a huge impact shaping offensive football, I suspect he will only to continue to evolve into a more menacing threat.

Following Baines' example, youngsters such as Real Madrid backs Marcelo and Fábio Coentrão, Manchester United's Da Silva twins Rafael and Fabio and Tottenham speedster Kyle Walker seem unhappy to simply dole out crosses like their immediate predecessors.

Instead, with the pace to run past opponents, the ball skills to run around them, and the strength to run through them, these budding stars also want to score.

Though they'll constantly struggle to achieve the same results as players positioned much closer to goal, fullbacks such as Walker, along with teammate and occasional fullback Gareth Bale seem poised to continue embarking on surging runs from deep within their pitch which end when the ball strikes the back of the opposing keeper's net.

While these backs won't reach the Messianic (pun intended) 50-goal mark, they very well might reach the 15 or even 20-goal total.

And if you're lucky enough to have two of these fullbacks of the future on your squad, you just might be able to do without a top striker