In hindsight, Rodri’s ascension was painfully obvious.
🔎 900+ passing yards p90, 80%+ long pass accuracy, <1.0 dispossessed p90, 2.0+ tackles & aerial duels won p90
Back to back seasons at age 21 and age 22 dictating tempo, demonstrating a passing range, protecting possession, and winning duels in the middle of the park at an elite, battle-tested no. 6 level.
Lowering some of the thresholds in the search so we can actually get some names, and below are the six midfielders that made the “Rodri identifier query” this season.
Amir Richardson stands out the most to me given age and hype around him early in his career.
Yes, if you squint, Amir Richardson definitely has some Rodri-lite in his data profile.
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- 0.65 npxG+xA p90 on the left
- 0.43 npxG+xA p90 on the right
- Capable in a high press; willing to track back
- Consistently elite runner and man beater
Rodrygo off the right in blue (maybe purple? idk I'm color blind).
Distinct improvement in all offensive output metrics when he plays on his favorite side.
Real Madrid's front three's defensive work rates over the past three league seasons:
- Rodrygo is consistently the hardest worker in the forward press
- Vini Jr's commitment to the press has slowly waned, but generally has been consistent across both categories
- The CFs in the previous two seasons had pretty consistent outputs defensively
- The introduction of Kylian Mbappe, and his refusal to do any kind of defensive work, was the catalyst for Rodrygo's spike in "tracking back" metrics
He was asked to do the dirty work for the team, plain and simple, having already been the most committed defensively in the previous two seasons.
Ekitike looks like a poor finisher on surface level goals to xG analysis.
He had the largest np:G-xG underperformance in T5 leagues this past season, underachieving his npxG by 5.3 goals.
Below is the list of 9 players to under-perform npxG with 100+ shots.
Ekitike is joined by Valentin Castellanos, Nikola Krstovic, and Robert Lewandowski as the only "CFs" to be on the list.
Using the same npG-npxG analysis, but looking at Ekitike's career, rather than just this season, he is at 34 npG and 33.6 npxG in all comps with advanced data.
A career +0.4 npxG over performance, and on a 239 shot sample, instead of 114.
This is still not a significant enough shot sample to draw full conclusions, and he is still ever so slightly over expected for his career, so this reads like an average finisher, not a bad one.
➕ Tenacious tackling, burgeoning on the ball
➖ Surprisingly poor in the air
📈 Massive ceiling
🧵 Thread.
Cristhian Mosquera made a pretty considerable leap in terms of his ball playing from last season to this season.
These are the types of improvements you want to see from a young CB... and keep in mind, today is his 21st birthday. He's still very young.
Plus, he (reportedly) initially favored basketball in his youth, then when he made the switch to football, it was futsal first. He had a bit later start to the game than most at the top levels, so his runway for improvement is even greater than it might seem.
Cristian Mosquera's gains in terms of ball playing this season have been impressive, both with his passing and ball carrying.
He has improved from a pedestrian range for his age group to the tier just below the elites.
The graph displays passing and carrying efficiency ratios; rewarding prg. distance, but penalizing attempts and turnovers.
I've always been interested to see the end results of carries, so very convenient I stumbled upon this Opta data. Keep in mind this is not possession adjusted, so players on teams like City and Liverpool will look especially productive.
Am I going to be doing this on other leagues? Yes - I've already done Ligue 1, and will do the other T5 leagues besides Serie A because as of writing, they don't have this data on the Opta website.
Don't see someone you expected to? Check out the filter criteria under the graph title.
Also, Opta defines carries as "the player moving the ball five meters or more."
Let's get into the groupings.
"Pep Guardiola Kills Wingers"
It is a pretty disingenuous take I see on this app, where if anything, he enables both elite visionaries and locksmith types alike.
Lowest direct speed in the PL, most passes per sequence, most 10+ pass sequences, etc. No team faces more low blocks, which means no team offers a higher volume of opportunities for take on artists to win out wide and create danger.
People will see all the retention-oriented circular passing patterns, but ignore that it comes with more opportunities to attack than anyone else in the league.
Also, Savio is a special player... emphasis on the "elite" part. You need to have a high level of ability to succeed in this set up, which he does.
📸📊 U23 Full Backs: In- and Out-of-Possession 1v1 Aptitude
🧵 Thread.
Overview
At first I wanted to see if there was any correlation between dueling in and out of possession, and it doesn't seem to be the case, but still makes for an interesting graphic.
Each axis is the combined z-score of total duels p90 + success rate for defensive (x-axis) and take on (y-axis) actions.
This is a graph where top right = best, but best for a specific set of skills, not best all-around.
Team environment does of course impact both axes (possession being the primary influence).
Thoughts on the groupings ⬇️
📈⚡️
Traditional full backs that succeed and/or attempt a high number of both types of duels.
Also some of the most exciting profiles in terms of full backs that like to get out and run.
The one that is not like the others: Adam Aznou - his standing is inflated by playing for a low possession side on loan at Real Valladolid over the second half of the season. His win rate is below average, while the other three range from solid (Ait-Nouri) to great (Kayode) to phenomenal (Spence). Aznou is the youngest by a good bit (just turned 19 two weeks ago), so I will allow some grace.
Also, three of the four likely have an "end destination" (Ait-Nouri -> City, Spence -> Spurs, Aznou -> Bayern), but Michael Kayode is one that is still at a "selling" club. Brentford will cash out handsomely in a year or two.
The idea of this thread is to isolate specific elements of young no. 6 and no. 8 profiles:
Do they prefer to progress or recycle the ball, and how aggressively do they do so?
To do this, I plotted all 112 T5 League CMs w/ 900+ minutes by their average distance per completed pass, and the percentage of total passing distance that is progressive.
Each grouping can be defined by the order in which they prioritize progression and retention:
- Pioneers: progression over retention
- Recyclers: retention over progression
- Conductors: don't give a fuck about retention, the only way is aggressively forward
Let's get into the groupings!
Super Conductors
"DLPs", if you will.
- Adam Wharton: one of the most aggressive progressors in Europe at the moment, and does so often receiving the ball sideways or back to goal (unlike someone like Toni Kroos, who was usually deep-lying and facing forward). 92nd percentile in progressive pass distance p90, 94th in long passes completed... if only there was a team was first and fourth in the league in those same stats, had a generational progressor leave the club this summer, and have a whole bucket of title winning cash to afford his transfer. Maybe they would make a good pair.
- Adrián Bernabé: I've spoken about him before, but he is the best young passer in Europe that doesn't get any PR. Ex-La Masia and City Academy, he oozes class and ability. Not the best OOP, but that's not really what you're signing up for with a 5'7" Spaniard. Uncomfortably lengthy injury history is the biggest ding to his profile in my opinion.
- Junior Mwanga: He seems to have some solid metrics, but I'm not super familiar. Let me take a deeper dive into his profi... and he's on loan from Strasbourg meaning he's already in the BlueCo umbrella. They simply can't keep getting away with it.