Evaluating Serie A's Best Ball-Playing Center-Back

Hey there,

Read this analysis at your own pace. It has some technical stuff and lots of numbers to wrap your head around. It's a deep look that needs you to focus, but trust me, it'll be worth your time.

A while back, I wrote an article called: "Who's the most reliable ball playing centerback in Serie A?".

In that article, I started a kind of "scouting report" to find the top centerback with ball-playing skills in Serie A 23/24. But after thinking about it, I realized that just looking at "passes above expectations" wasn't enough to spot the best passer. (And what I'm going to share today won't be the final word either).

To make the analysis better, I added a way to measure how valuable possession is, on top of how reliable it is. I picked a high-level model called ATOMIC-VAEP (you can read more about it here). This model gives points to actions based on how likely they are to score a goal or let one in, no matter if they work out or not. What's cool about this model is that it also gives points for receiving the ball, so both the passer and the receiver get credit. When a pass works, the passer gets points for the action, and the receiver gets points for catching it. If a pass doesn't work the passer's effort gets looked at.

Here's a list of central defenders who bring the most value with their passes. I've set a minimum of 1,200 minutes played (like in the earlier piece) and adjusted the numbers per 1,000 passes to make the data fair:

This list looks pretty good to me. Scalvini, Pavard, Mancini, and Bastoni are well-known to build from the back. Østigård, who Brighton's talent hunters picked before he went to Napoli and now plays for Rennes, is worth keeping an eye on. Danilo, the only Juventus player who could properly handle the ball well from the back under Allegri, reinforce my feeling about the shortlist. Gatti's passing value comes as a surprise - I would've thought he was better at carrying the ball.

Here we can see how these players stack up against the total of centerbacks we’re looking at:

I didn't stop there. Since I put out the first article, I've expanded my database and models doubling the data I have to work with. This meant I needed to update the original list, which didn't change much: Pavard and Lucumí are still among the top performers.

Then I decided to turn the numbers from both lists into z-scores1 on a scale of 0 to 100. This makes the info easier to grasp kind of like what you see in games such as FIFA or PES (now eFootball) helping all readers to understand it better.

In the end, I combined the two lists of z-scores into a weighted average. I gave reliability a 60% weight and possession value a 40% weight. This decision aligns with my personal view: I think it's more crucial for a central defender to avoid mistakes than to bring huge value with their passes.

After all, the added value is already taken into account.

Pavard stood out as the clear winner securing a spot in the top three in both rankings. It's worth mentioning that three Inter central defenders, the Italian title holders, made it onto this list showing a robust tactical approach from team in primis. Thiaw, who was once linked with a move to Newcastle also appears here. The list includes Lucumí, who often goes unnoticed, and Casale, a player Sarri relied on a lot.

To wrap up this piece, I'll give you an in-depth look at Pavard's passing skills.

Last year, Pavard played in 31 games for a total of 2,363 minutes, according to Fbref data. This playing time is not as much as in other seasons of his career, but it's important to remember that he has played more than 3,000 minutes three times in twelve seasons. You can also see the amount of minutes he played in the number of passes he tried last season, which isn't too high but still matters: 1,573 in both the Champions League and Serie A.

Pavard likes short passes, as we'll see later on, and we can see here how much, with each ring showing passes split by length of 10.5 meters more than the previous one: for instance, the first ring goes from 0 to 10.5 meters, the second from 10.5 to 21 meters, and so on covering the whole field length of 105 meters. He completes these short passes at a very high rate: overall, it's 91.2%. This is clear in all directions on the field if we look at short passes, which underlines remarkable accuracy.

But what's behind this high completion rate?

When we look at Pavard's passing clusters, we notice he tends to link up more with nearby players, such as midfielders and right wingbacks, or even the left-sided centerback, as shown in the 4th cluster. His four most common clusters display an executions that always go beyond expectations. We can see below that even in situations where he doesn't perform as well, he stays above average, except when it comes to long passes. (Below)

In build-up when passes start from the first third of the field (a basic definition that needs work), Pavard proves dependable. He's completed 63.5 passes more than expected. We also notice he can pass the ball wherever it's needed covering his own box's entire length even though he plays on the right side.

His ability to distribute the ball well gets a boost from having many players close to him, thanks to how Inter sets up its 3-5-2 formation.

But when we look just at progressive passes, we see a different story. Pavard isn't great at long passes, and 10% of his passes are progressive. This percentage keeps his mistakes with the ball low, since Pavard falls short by about 34 passes compared to what's expected.

This info shows that Pavard is in a system that plays to his strengths and hides his weaknesses. It's a good example of how a player can do well when a team uses a player skillset in the right way.

Another area where Pavard excels is his ability to keep the ball after he intercepts or wins a tackle. In these cases, he has completed around 6 passes more than expected often creating a net possession value (value of the tackle/interception + value of the pass) that's just above average.

To wrap up, Pavard was Serie A's top ball-playing centerback last season, but his teammates weren't far behind. This shows that Simone Inzaghi's system worked like a charm to make the best out of his defensive players. Pavard, who also has skills suited to play as a full-back used spaces and positions on the field better than his teammates, giving him a statistical edge over the likes of Bastoni, De Vrij and Acerbi.

In conclusion, we can say that the player and team fit together. The team's overall approach brought out the best in the individual's abilities.

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