But soccer’s obsession with attack does have one negative consequence: the role played by defense, and defenders, is underestimated and misunderstood. Remember our earlier discussion of the dismal performance of defenders and goalkeepers in the Ballon d’Or balloting. There are deep psychological reasons for this; reasons that give us an explanation for why we remember the goals that were scored more than those that were not, and, by extension, why we believe that attack is more important, more worthy, than defense, even though the numbers suggest that is not the case at all.
