Substitutes or Reserves?

To start off, it is important to know that terminology varies from sport to sport and from country to country.

In British English, we call the players who are on the bench for a football match "substitutes". On the other hand, those who are part of the team squad but are not on the team sheet for a match would be called "reserves".

How about the first team? How do we call the players who are part of the starting line-up? They are simply called "first-team players".

Let's suppose Terry is a first-team player. He will have a substitute on the bench in case he gets injured, tired, or performs poorly. So, this player is listed on the team sheet and can be a backup for Terry.

The starting line-up for a football team is always of eleven players. For instance, in the world cup, the national teams involved in the tournament are required to register a squad of 23 players, from which twelve players will be substitutes. There are no reserves in the world cup. However, in competitions between clubs as the famous Premier League, which takes place in England, a limited number of substitutes is allowed. In 2021, there was a vote for the increase of this limit from seven to nine in the league for the next 2021/2022 season. That is, they can have up to 9 players on the bench, but the limit of three substitutions per match during a 90-minute standard match remains. To sum up, we will take the following scenario to understand the difference between reserves and substitutes. If a club from Premier League has a squad composed of 28 players, it will need 11 players for the first team, 9 players on the bench as substitutes available for the manager, and the other remaining 8 players will be reserves. It means they are part of the squad, but they were not listed as official players for that match. They are not allowed to play that day. For them to play, the manager would have to give them an opportunity to come as a substitute, and by performing well, there could be a chance of becoming official substitutes or even future first-team players.