Who Is Fabián Ruiz?
Born in Los Palacios y Villafranca, Fabian Ruiz is a graduate of Betis Deportivo Balompié, who made his first-team debut at the age of 19.
After making 50 appearances in La Liga, he signed for SSC Napoli with a 30m Euro transfer fee, quickly becoming one of Carlo Ancelottis most important squad members.
The 24-year-old Spanish international Ruiz has become one of the hottest midfielders in Europe.
Despite the change of manager and reinforcement of the Gli Azzurri in winter, Ruiz has remained a regular starter and has handed convincing performances against strong opponents like Barcelona and Inter.
This tactical analysis is a scout report that provides a detailed breakdown of Ruiz under Carlo Ancelotti’s tactics and explains why he is a wanted man at several big clubs across Europe.
Fabián Ruiz Style Of Play Touches on the ball
Just like many other famous Spanish players, Fabián Ruiz style of play has good techniques to receive the ball.
One of his best traits is his touch.
Though the 24-year-old is left-footed, he is also good with his right foot when receiving the ball.
The pattern of using the right foot to place the ball in front of his left is commonly seen in matches.
This allows the Spaniard to play his pass with a strong foot afterwards.
Therefore, the next pass would be more guided and controllable in terms of power and direction.
Ruiz’s right-foot touch also helps him to open his body shape when receiving lateral passes, hence creating a better angle for scanning his surroundings.
This allows Ruiz to quickly change his direction, which is especially useful when the approaching player loses his balance and brings the ball out of pressure.
An example was taken as follows: Ruiz nicely places the ball in front of his left foot and opens his body.
The pass to the vertical option is easy to play.
Fabián Ruiz is a 1.89-meter-tall midfielder who needs to protect the ball without losing his balance when facing pressure.
This was done by the touch as explained.
When the ball went to his left foot, Ruiz used his right foot and his body to separate the opponent and the ball.
The challenger could either make a foul or let him pass.
The following image is an example.
When Ruiz was playing the pass under pressure, he used the right foot as a fulcrum to resist the pressure, leaning his body back.
As mentioned, Ruizs good first touch helps him change direction according to the situation.
This is why he noted promising figures in terms of dribble success rate (72.43%, ranked 6th among Serie A midfielders) and progressive runs per 90 minutes (2.78, ranked 7th among Serie A midfielders).
The quick changes of direction help Ruiz not only get rid of his opponent but also disguise them when playing a pass.
In the following image, Ruizs body orientation clearly indicated a pass to the left side of the pitch.
However, with a quick change of direction to his right foot, Ruiz quickly adjusted his body shape to the other side, playing the pass to Torino’s weak side.
Nevertheless, this habit also had a disadvantage.
Since the ball was closely positioned in front of his foot, it wasnt easy to generate power quickly.
Therefore, Ruizs passes were light in power on most occasions.
Fabián Ruiz Passing & vision
Ruiz is a good passer.
We summarized the passing statistics of the Spaniard and the best Serie A midfielders who played more than 900 minutes, and compared them.
Since Gennaro Gattuso has implemented a possession-based style of play, Ruiz has become one of the best passers in Italy.
He stands out in the following scatter diagram, which lists the number of forward passes and the success rate of different midfielders.
Ruiz’s 20.65 forward passes per game with an accuracy of 87.18% were better than most players in the league, comparable to Miralem Pjanić’s 21.41 (86.2%).
So, where does Ruiz stand in Europe?
In this scatter diagram, we chose two other criteria to measure the Spaniards passing ability: progressive passes per 90 and final third passes per 90.
Ruiz still posted impressive numbers and lined up alongside some of the best midfielders in Europe, including Kevin De Bruyne, Joshua Kimmich, and Marco Verratti.
Ruiz’s 9.66 progressive passes per 90 ranked in the upper quartile in terms of the diagram, while his 12.13 final third passes were even more than familiar names like Frenkie De Jong and Arthur of Barcelona (and also the highest when compared with Serie A midfielders).
We believe he obtained these statistics as he was given the leading role in Napoli’s build-up plays, which was a section that we were going to explain.
For a possession-based team that liked to play out from the back, a pass that breaks multiple layers of the defensive line and surges past players was always a good one.
This would help his team to access a higher area of the pitch.
Ruiz mastered short- to medium-range passes (65.82 per 90 minutes, 92.69% success rate, top of Serie A), and Gattuso’s tactics utilized this strength.
When positioning himself in a deeper area, Ruiz frees himself from the markers and turns his body to face the goal.
He has the vision to recognize gaps between players and break the lines with a good pass.
In the image below, he picks Lorenzo Insigne with a pass that surpasses six Torino players.
Since Ruiz constantly observes the pitch by looking at two directions, he receives more visual information than the others.
Except for direct, vertical passes, the 24-year-old can also play a curved pass, which is always difficult to track.
These types of passes could be used during a switch of plays to break a block and release the wingers at the flanks.
Combined with his ability to perceive the information, Ruiz is able to make first-time passes if needed.
For example, he seized the moment, playing a curved pass to José Callejón before the No.7 was offside.
Ruizs passing ability helps break a high line during offensive transitions.
When the opposition pushes high up, they leave spaces between the last man and the keeper.
This gives the opportunities for the counter-attacking players to run behind, and Ruiz’s penetrating passes can be utilized.
As mentioned, he is good at identifying gaps between players and playing a penetrating pass, just as he did in this image.
Despite an opponent being in front of Ruiz, the Spaniard still picks the optimal option with a comfortable ground pass.
The last example we are showing combines body feinting and sound decision-making.
A body feint is helpful to disguise his opponents, no matter if it is in the build-up phase or in the final 3rd.
When spaces are available in front of the box, Ruiz likes to try a curling effort to find the top-left corner.
He has scored goals against Brescia and Inter with these cut-in shots.
Before shooting past Daniele Padelli’s net, the whole attacking movement was initiated by a clever pass from Ruiz.
The Spaniard positioned himself at the half-spaces initially, with an overlapping option at the flank.
Despite the hints of the body orientations, Ruiz did not pick the easy option; instead, he played between the Inter players to find Allan.
He also recognized spaces in front of the box, received the Brazilians return ball, and curled the ball in.
Tactical role at Gattuso’s Napoli
With his good positioning sense and understanding of the game, Ruiz plays an important tactical role in the positional plays at Gattuso’s Napoli.
He played as the sole pivot in Gattusos early spells and later moved to a more advanced position.
When playing as the defensive midfielder, Ruiz’s positioning is important to help his team circulate the ball, escaping from the ball side.
It is unlikely to see Ruiz rushing into the penalty area; instead, he always chooses a good time to make himself available at the half-spaces.
Moreover, Ruizs good passing allowed his team to quickly switch the offensive focus to the opponents weak side, creating an overload.
Take the image below as an example.
Lazio players filled Napoli’s left flank.
The opposition midfield trio moved to this side to cover the half-spaces, while two strikers waited for a counterattack opportunity.
All Ruiz had to do was appear at the right time to receive Insignes pass and quickly spread the ball to the opposite side.
On the right flank, the Lazio left-back was overloaded by Elseid Hysaj and Callejón.
As the Napoli advanced midfielder, Ruiz has the mission to progress the ball.
This is important as the offensive abilities of Diego Demme and Stanislav Lobotka were limited.
When the centre-backs were under pressure.
Clearly, the Gli Azzurri needed a progressive option to play out from the back.
Therefore, Ruiz was often moved to the flanks to receive the ball from the full-backs.
The pressure towards the full-backs triggered his broad movement, where he would have the ball behind the pressure.
In our May magazine edition, we explained how this vast overload worked.
To briefly conclude, Ruiz was an essential player in the build-up: under Gattuso, he received 52.72 passes per game, more than his 46.38 under Ancelotti this season.
The image below is an example.
A marker controlled Demme, and the ball was moved to the right-back.
Cagliari already committed the midfielder to approach the ball; this gave Ruiz the chance to get behind the pressure and receive the ball from Giovanni Di Lorenzo.
The presence of Ruiz also helps his team fully utilize the numerical advantage in the build-up phase.
On occasion, despite an overload in the first offensive phase, workable passing triangles were not formed due to players flat positioning.
When the sole pivot was covered, Napoli lacked progressive options.
At Napoli, Piotr Zieliński was kept high to support Insigne more often, so the progressive option was likely to be Ruiz.
We use the following image to illustrate the situation further.
Napoli had a 4 v 3 in the first phase, but the passing triangles could hardly form without Ruiz’s presence, as the striker covered Demme.
Meanwhile, Di Lorenzo stayed on the same line as the centre-backs and was not a progressive option.
The issue was solved by Ruiz’s movement, who came deep from a high position.
As connected by the green lines, passing triangles are formed while a passing lane is opened to the Spaniard.
The pass to Ruiz also enabled Napoli to beat the first line of press.
Ruiz’s ability to be computable in this tactic potentially allows him to fit into different systems, as a 3-2 or 2-3 build-up shape is standard in Europe nowadays.
For example, Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City used a 3-2-1 shape when Rodrigo Hernández played alongside İlkay Gündoğan.
Also, given his willingness to support the build-up phase, the team would have more variations to progress the ball upfield.
These dropping movements could be a decoy run to unmask a passing lane of the centre-forward if used appropriately.
Weaknesses exposed in the pivot role
As mentioned, Ruiz was moved to an advanced position after the arrival of Demme and Lobotka.
This was mainly due to his defensive vulnerability.
Playing as a sole pivot meant dealing with a tremendous defensive workload, protecting the defenders.
It was also vital to choose the optimal positions during the defensive transitions.
When Napoli committed their players to the attack, the pivot was likely isolated during counterattacks.
Ruiz is quite uncomfortable in these situations.
Ruiz possesses the ability to scan the pitch while carrying the ball forward, but the situation was not the same before receiving the ball.
Sometimes, the 24-year-old relies too much on his multiple touches to escape from the opponents.
When the pressure came from his blindside and was quick, Ruiz could potentially lose the ball.
It was trouble when he played as a defensive midfielder, often dropping deep to receive a forward pass.
For example, when David Ospina played the pass to Ruiz, Felipe Caicedo was also approaching Ruiz.
Ruiz checked his shoulders, but his gaze was suboptimal.
Also, the closed body orientation limited his received visual information.
Therefore, he failed to use his second touch to escape from Caicedo and lost the ball very close to his own goal.
Ruiz was also vulnerable when he had to defend.
He did not have the pace to match the counter-attacking players, so his initial positioning and the angles of his challenges were important.
However, the ability of Ruiz to access a player was weak, and the body orientation was always suboptimal.
The opponent could quickly knock him off balance and dribble past Ruiz with a few simple moves.
In the meantime, he also lacked the awareness to draw tactical fouls on the opponents, and his teammates covered large parts of the defensive transitions.
This was why Ruiz was no longer starting as the sole pivot; he left the defence exposed.
Your team would never want Ruiz defending in 1 v 1 situations.
Even when defending in a block, his teammates would sometimes get mad at Ruiz for his unwillingness to step up.
The image below is an example.
When he had to approach the ball, Ruiz easily went off-balance because Luis Alberto changed direction.
When the former Liverpool man sprinted, Ruiz was left behind, and the defenders had to deal with it.
Potential moves
After analyzing Ruizs strengths and weaknesses, we are down to explain his potential next club, as he was a wanted man in the market.
According to the rumours, we identified three clubs that could sign Ruiz, as they needed a new, energetic midfielder.
These three clubs were suggested: City, Barcelona, and Real Madrid.
Given Ruizs vulnerability as a sole pivot, he was more likely to play as an advanced midfielder at his new club.
These teams would want Ruiz as their original midfield option was ageing.
David Silva was leaving City as a free player this summer.
If Phil Foden did not take his position, then Txiki Begiristain would have to find a new player in the market.
Ivan Rakitić was also likely to leave Barcelona, and Barcelona could have tried to sign Ruiz to play alongside De Jong and Sergio Busquets.
Luka Modrić of Real Madrid was already 34; clearly, he could not play every game for Madrid next season.
Toni Kroos might need a creative midfielder to play with him.
Intriguingly, Ruiz shares many similarities with Modrić, and Madrids budget makes the transfer possible.
First, we compare the heat map of these players.
From 1 to 4 are Ruiz, Rakatić, Modrić, and Silva.
In terms of the pitch coverage, Ruiz (1) had a very similar pattern to Rakatić (2); both nearly shaped a square at the central third.
Also, they were more active at the right half-spaces.
Ruiz had a wider coverage at both flanks in his tactical role at Napoli’s build-up, as explained.
By contrast, Modrić (3) and Silva (4) mainly focused on their own half-spaces, as their ages hindered their ability to cover the entire pitch.
The signing of Ruiz might complement or even upgrade the team’s coverage on both half-spaces, easing the partners workload.
We also compared some other attributes of these players in the following table:
|
|
Ruiz | Rakitić | Modrić | Silva |
| Shots per game (xG) | 1.93 (0.07) | 0.9 (0.06) | 1.1 (0.08) | 1.39 (0.16) |
| Progressive runs per game | 2.44 | 0.84 | 1.63 | 1.75 |
| Dribbles (%) | 2.625 (69.04%) | 0.31 (41.67%) | 2.33 (54.29%) | 1.93 (59.26%) |
| Passing length per game (m) | 17.78 | 16.06 | 17.88 | 15.31 |
Ruiz had the highest average shot per game, but the xG only ranked 3rd.
This hinted that the Napoli man was more likely to shoot from a far position.
In the meantime, Ru
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