The rising profile of Brescia midfielder Sandro Tonali has come as no surprise to followers of Italian Football, ever since his emergence in 2018, the Italian has been frequently compared to Andrea Pirlo. It’s an easy comparison to make: they are both natives of Lombardy who began their careers at Brescia, both occupying the role of a deep-lying playmaker more commonly known as a ‘regista’ within Italy.
Sandro Tonali at 18-years of age played 2,913 minutes of football for Brescia in the 2018/19 season, chipping in with 10 goal contributions (three goals, seven assists) as the Leonessa were crowned champions and secured passage back to top-flight football.
The Italian was on the radar of every top team in Serie A, despite this the Italian stayed with Brescia and it is only now that the midfielder looks likely to make a move away from the Stadio Mario Rigamonti this summer, with Juventus and Inter showing major interest.
This data analysis will help us to highlight, through the use of data and statistics, the best central midfielders in Serie B. Our dataset consists of players who have mainly played in the centre of midfield, aged 25 or under and have accumulated at least 500 minutes in the league.
This data analysis can be used to help identify players who could have a similar impact to Sandro Tonali, we will highlight the best five players at the end of the analysis after exploring statistics in relation to multiple key outputs which we have identified as being key to finding the best central midfielder in Serie B.
Progressive runs and passes
Central midfielders are the link between defence and attack. They literally strengthen the team in its core and are characterized by constantly being in a position to receive and pass the ball, with a view to progressing it forward.
The first section of this data analysis displays our sample across two metrics which assess their ability to make progressions down the field either with a pass or a run.
Progressive runs are a good indicator of whether a midfielder can carry the ball into more advanced areas, whilst progressive passes demonstrate the player´s ability to advance the team closer to the opponents goal.
Italian Matteo Ricci leads the midfielders in progressive passes with 12.02 per game. The former AS Roma midfielder has become a standout player for Spezia this season.
The leader in progressive runs is Salernitana’s Sofian Kiyine with 4.71 runs per game. It should be noted that Kiyine does often play as winger so his numbers will be slightly inflated. He has an above-average value of 8.21 progressive passes per game.
