Data can be pretty useful in football recruitment. I would say vital. In this post I’m going to look for a right-back in the Keuken Kampioen Divisie, the Dutch second tier. My aim is to find a right-back who could go on and act on Eredivisie level with clubs from place 10 to 18. This will be supported by data provided by Wyscout.
First of all, it is important to identify some key qualities in what makes a right-back good and what kind of right-back you want to scout. In this instance, I’m looking for a versatile right-back, with pace and good cross. It’s important that he can play in a four-man defence and the system urges him to quickly transition between attack and defence. I identified the following as vital qualities:
- Pass completion
- Passes to final third
- Interceptions
- Tackles
- Aerial duels
- Keypasses
- Crosses
- Dribbles
- Fouls
I went to Wyscout and looked up right-backs and selected them. I found 16 right-backs who could be interesting for any club in the bottom half of the Eredivisie. They are all from different clubs and have different attributes, so this is a fairly diverse bunch of players:
- L. Owusu (De Graafschap)
- M. Deijl (FC Den Bosch)
- J. Mertens (Go Ahead Eagles)
- P. Schlösser (Roda JC)
- G. Joppen (Helmond Sport)
- P. van Anholt (NAC Breda)
- B. Van Roij (NEC)
- J. Church (AZ II)
- L. Montsma (FC Dordrecht)
- S. Lynen (Telstar)
- H. Ashmelash (Top Oss)
- D. Haspolat
- N. Fadiga (FC Volendam)
- F. Hammouti (Almere City FC)
- S. Horemans (Excelsior Rotterdam)
- S. Mokono (FC Utrecht II)
Interceptions are an important metric to measure if the positioning and anticipation of a player is adequate. Especially a full-back needs to recognise when danger is near and when to attack the ball. If the position is good, the transition from defence to attack is quite easy. Further more it is important that not only intercept passes, but also make defensive actions to regain possession of the ball.
While Dutch football is renowned for their possession style of play, transitioning from defence to attack and from attack and defence, is very important. Intercepting the ball is important going forward. A full-back should not only intercept the ball, but move forward as well. That’s why interception is important.
In the image below you see a scatterplot with this metric.
What is immediately striking about this data is that Mokono and Montsma immediately stand out. They have a high average for successful defensive actions in the games they have played, but also many interceptions. These figures are averages, so on average they are the best in this data. It is striking that Lynen, Ashmelash and Van Anholt have few successful defensive actions per 90 – also Owusu and Fadiga have few interceptions per 90 minutes, but slightly better defensive actions per 90.
How good are they in defensive situations? Defensive situations that can be transformed into an attacking phase, the transition, are very important for these kind of players. In the plot below we look at the sliding tackles vs the aerial duels.
It’s safe to say that Fadiga won’t make the cut when we look at sliding tackles. Deijl en Van Anholt are the most likely to be includes, along with Montsma. They have a high percentage of aerial duels won and a high percentage of sliding tackles won.
How do you follow up on an interception? Attacking. The 2nd tier division in the Netherlands is a technical league and if you have attacking full-backs, you have an advantage in your style of play. This is extremely relevant in our search for a right back in the Keuken Kampioen Divisie. Obviously a right back should defend properly, but an important part of their game is to attack.
And how do you do measure that? You can do with different passing metrics. In the image below you can see pass percentage of the complete passed vs the passes to the final third. I will look at the successful passes in relation to the passes to the final third, which creates a threat in the opponents’ box.
Pass percentages do not mean a lot without the context. You can have a high passing percentage but only have played the ball back to the keeper or a central defender. That’s why I look at passes with risks. Which passes have risk and are constructed in the attacking phase of the game. As you can see above Chuch has the highest percentage of pass completion together with Deijl, but they haven’t passed to the final third a lot in comparison with the rest. Who stand out with his passes to the final thirds, is Horemans. He has more than 8 passes to the final third per 90 and averages 72% pass completion per game. Those are the outliers, I would say Schlösser is not a good option considering his passing, but the rest is quite average.
Now we have seen how often they make pass forward towards the final third, we will try to see how much danger this constructs. I opted for the keypasses per 90 vs the expected assists (xA), rather than actual assists. I want to measure the threat and the expected reality of an assist, rather than the actual assist – because you also have to factor in the chance that the finisher does basdly.
Now as we look in the image above, a few things are interesting. Owuse, Lynen and Horeans have the most keypasses per 90 and far above the rest. The first that follow are Hammouti and Haspolat, with 0,35 keypasses per game. Montsma, Asmelash and Mokono are not exactly the best when it comes to keypasses per game. None of them reach 0.15 keypasses per game.
The actual danger of an expected assist can be seen as well in the plot above. Owusu and Haspolat actually have a high xA in the 2019/2020 season, they really stand out. Hammouti and Lynen do as well, to a lesser extent.
As said before, it’s important that the full-back can make a run down the line with or without the ball. He can position himself on the flank to give a cross or look for a good option to pass the ball to. But before he can do that, he needs to get there. This can be done in several ways, but dribbles can be very useful for this type of defender. If not, looking for a key pass to give is a very good option as well.
Conclusion
If you look for strong defensive right-backs, it’s obvious that Montsma (22), Mokono (21) and Deijl (22) are the ones coming up on top in the data. They have the highest percentage of defensive actions, tackles, interceptions, and aerial duels won. However, we are also looking for a right-back who can add to the attacking force of the team. If that’s the case, Horemans (21) and Owusu (23) should be considered as well.
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