[Math] A soccer squad contains $3$ goalkeepers, $7$ defenders, $9$ midfielders and $4$ forwards.

combinationscombinatoricsdiscrete mathematics

A soccer squad contains $3$ goalkeepers, $7$ defenders, $9$ midfielders and $4$ forwards.

So I understood the first part of the question:

$(i)$ In how many ways can a team of $1$ goalkeeper, $4$ defenders, $4$ midfielders, and $2$ forwards be chosen from this squad?

Answer: $ \binom31 \cdot \binom74 \cdot \binom94 \cdot \binom42$

However, I don't quite understand how to do the next bit:

$(ii)$ Two of the defenders refuse to play together. In how many ways can a team be chosen that contains at most one of these two defenders?

Best Answer

The thing to notice is that we can easily compute the number of teams where these two defenders do play together: just change the ${7\choose 4}$ to ${5\choose 2}$. Then we can subtract this from what you found in the first part to get the answer to the second.

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