Although Valderrama is often defined as a 'classic number 10 playmaker', due to his creativity and offensive contribution, in reality he was not a classic playmaker in the traditional sense. Although he often wore the number 10 shirt throughout his career and was deployed as an attacking midfielder at times, he played mostly in deeper positions in the centre of the pitch – often operating in a free role as a deep-lying playmaker, rather than in more advanced midfield positions behind the forwards – in order to have a greater influence on the game. A team-player, Valderrama was also known to be an extremely selfless midfielder, who preferred assisting his teammates over going for goal himself; his tactical intelligence, positioning, reading of the game, efficient movement, and versatile range of passing enabled him to find space for himself to distribute and receive the ball, which allowed him both to set the tempo of his team in midfield with short, first time exchanges, or create chances with long lobbed passes or through balls.