Continental football players abandon position regularly (10)
I believe the answer is:
interleave
'continental football players abandon position regularly' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this definition defines the answer.
'continental football players abandon' is the wordplay.
'continental football players' becomes 'inter' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'abandon' becomes 'leave' (I've seen this before).
'inter'+'leave'='INTERLEAVE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for interleave that I've seen before include "Insert between (book) pages" , "put in blank pages" .)