With the league season done and dusted, it’s pretty much time for the transfer talk to take off as the window has opened in England already. Although most clubs are eyeing signing the best and the most talented defensive midfielders and strikers, there are some who need a proper full-back, especially a decent left-back.
In our data analysis of finding the best full-backs in the league, one of the best-performing full-backs we found in the Primeira Liga was Alejandro Grimaldo. He is a 26-year-old Spanish full-back (D.O.B 20/09/1995) who plays for Benfica as their left-back.
This scout report in the form of a tactical analysis discusses the strengths and weakness of Grimaldo both in the attack as well as in defence and states how does contribute to the tactics and playing style of Benfica. Let’s begin the analysis.
In Possession of the ball
With the ball
Grimaldo has a very neat technique on the ball with both his preferred left foot and his weaker right foot. His excellent technique allows his first touch to be really good where he is capable of bringing down the ball at varying speeds and angles from his teammates.
Benfica usually looks to play out from the back where they use their defenders to bring the ball out of the defensive third. He has the capability of springing passes out from deep that advances play for his side. We can see that in the example below where he initially drives with the ball forward and finds his teammate making a run to the final third on the far side. He switches play seamlessly and plays out a long pass that lands at his teammates feet.
He averaged 5.11 progressive passes per 90 for his club across all competitions last season with a very good accuracy of 79.3%. Although some of these passes are simple 2-5 yards passes that are very short there many that can be deemed under the progressive category. We can see another example of him playing a very good pass from deep in the image below where he realises that his teammate is making a run in behind the opponent’s defensive line and he threads a through ball to him that dissects the defensive line perfectly and creates a goal-scoring chance for his teammate.
