In the United States most High School teams use this formation. I wondered and wondered about this position I had never and heard about it in my whole life the "stopper" so I thinked and researched what it was, and I came to the conclusion that it is a defender acting like a defensive midfielder but deeper. The point is that one coach I knew used this formation and out of 15 games lost 10 tied 2 and won 3. There is a lot of sayings that Americans don't anything about football, but I had never heard of something called a stopper do you?

The United Statesians (hate the word Americans - it's a continent, not a country!) aren't clueless about football, they just use different terms - hence 'Soccer', 'set play', 'PK' et al.
From what I can gather watching MLS games, stopper is simply their term for a centre back.

If you look closely sp88 a so called "stopper" it does not have the same functions of a center-back. In my opinion I think it is a cross between a center-back and defensive midfielder, but have you ever seen a team use before?

I knew that the Yanks were far behind when it comes to football.But this is really a new low.

So called stoppers and sweepers are positions that were used in pre World War II English football. The stopper would man mark the most dangerous forward of the opponent and the sweeper would sweep the balls that leaks from the defensive line in front of him. Of course they were helpless when the opponent forward dragged the stopper outside and someone from the midfield made runs to the empty area.

That stopper-sweeper system made a comeback in 80s in German football. When playing 3-5-2, they would have two stoppers in front of a sweeper. In theory 5 men midfiels would stop opponent finding opportunities with runs from there. However they were still too weak when defending the wingers as they left too much space in front of them.

In my opinion this is way of commiting suicide.

A sweeper and two stoppers how back-ward can that be!

I don't understand why are Americans using the sweeper/system formation.

Can somebody explain to me how this system works because it is useless.

I asked an American coach if the two men in from of the sweeper are center-backs or full-backs. He replied that they are full-backs. Can somebody answer this question. Was this formation used in the past because I have researched it and haven't found anything about it.

Sorry, for the mispelling I tried to say in front of the sweeper....

Ok, finally I discovered how this formation works. First of all this is a very very very old formation. This formation comes from the 1930s invented by Swiss person who called it the Verrou formation. The way this formation works is that the stopper is a center-back and there are two full-backs and a sweeper. The way this system works is with a zonal system. With a zonal system is the only way this formation could work because if it was man to man marking the defense could easily be trashed. The point is that Americans are using obsolete formations.

First, I hate America and i hate the word too, and yes , they are not a country ! , and i dont know what is in a good way to play a sweeper, i think its bad there is no way to defend good.