Player tags
What a rating can’t say
Two centre-backs rated 88 are not the same centre-back. Every outfield player in Drafted carries tags for the things an overall hides — and those tags decide which tactics your XI can actually play.
Why they exist
A rating compresses a footballer into one number, which is fine for deciding who is better and useless for deciding how they play. Rodri and Nedvěd can both be outstanding midfielders at the same number while having almost nothing in common on a pitch. Once tactics entered the game, that gap stopped being cosmetic: a high press needs legs, and no rating on earth will tell you who has them.
So each player carries up to four tags out of five. They are visible in the draft, on the player you are about to pick, because the whole point is that the choice between two similar 88s stops being a coin flip.
The five tags
Genuine pace. Gets in behind, recovers when caught out, turns a loose ball into a chance.
Serves: The counter above all — it is the tactic built on legs — and the high press.
In the database: Mbappé, Henry, Vinícius Jr, Roberto Carlos, Van Dijk, Rio Ferdinand, Paolo Maldini
The other end of the same axis. Brilliant players are on this list — they simply never won a footrace.
Serves: The low block, the one shape where nobody is running in behind you. A real handicap pressing or countering.
In the database: Pirlo, Busquets, Kroos, Bergkamp, Hummels, Piqué, De Ligt
Lungs. Covers ground for ninety minutes and is still covering it in the ninety-third.
Serves: The high press, which cannot function without it.
In the database: Kanté, Gerrard, Nedvěd, Modrić, Bellingham, Roy Keane, Lahm
Physically imposing and hard to move — in the air, in a duel, with their back to goal.
Serves: The low block, which is won and lost in contact.
In the database: Lewandowski, Sergio Ramos, Vidić, Haaland, Godín, Zidane
Doesn't lose the ball. First touch, weight of pass, the ability to play in traffic.
Serves: Possession, which is nothing but this.
In the database: Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, Van Basten, Baresi, Ronaldinho
The rule that makes them worth having
Variation has to live inside a position. That sounds like a detail and it is the entire mechanic. Tag by stereotype — every winger quick, every centre-back strong — and the tags measure exactly nothing, because your formation already fixes the positions, and so fixes everything downstream. One tactic would be correct one hundred per cent of the time and the choice would be a formality.
So the tags were written against what each player was actually like. Rüdiger is quick and John Terry is not. Drogba is strong and Del Piero is not. Kanté runs and Pirlo does not. Among the centre-backs alone you will find Van Dijk quick and strong, Baresi technical, Koeman slow and strong, Maldini quick and technical. If a tag could be guessed from the position, it should not have been written.
Written by hand, one player at a time
There are 755 outfield players in the database and every one was read individually. An automated pass over match reports and profiles was built first, and thrown away: it agreed with known cases eight times out of twenty. Gattuso and Park Ji-sung came back slow. Bergkamp came back quick. Xavi and Messi came back with nothing at all — because a sentence like “never gifted with pace” reads as pace to a machine that is counting words.
What is deliberately blank
- Goalkeepers. No tactic reads them, and a single slot cannot vary.
- Anyone who cannot honestly be judged. A squad player from a 1985-86 side gets no tags rather than invented ones. Blank means unremarkable, which is usually true and always honest.
Drafting with them
You do not have to. Draft the best players and the game will pick the tactic that suits whoever you ended up with. But the tags turn the draft into a plan: take three quick forwards early and the counter becomes the obvious way to play; load up on technicians and you have a possession side. Two players at the same rating, one of whom completes a shape you are already building, is no longer a coin flip — and that is worth about half again as many trophies, which the tactics page measures.
The strategy tips cover the rest of the draft, and how to play walks through a full run from the first spin.