I got very confused the other night watching England. I gave up ages ago trying to understand what a false 9 is. But they seemed to spend quite some time talking about whether Declan Rice should be playing "6". The conversation started something like.
"Declan's been playing 8 for his club, but he says he wants to be a 6. Do you think he's better as a 6"
"I've always thought he was a 6. But the 8 at his club is now playing as a false 9. So they moved Declan to 8"
All this talk of numbers is very off putting for those not in the know. Why not just say, for example, "holding midfielder", like they did in the past. Then everyone can understand what is being discussed. And anyway, in English football, the number 6 had always been worn by the centre back e.g Bobby Moore wore 6. Number 4 had always been the defensive midfielder. But it turns out that since the 2022 World Cup we have actually changed the numbering! Defensive midfielder is now 6 and one of the centre backs is now number 4. After they finished discussing number 6, they moved on to discussing who should play number 10!