Irvin Cardona spent a good part of his young player days at AS Monaco, after five years in the youth teams, Cardona had his chance to play for the first-team in the 2016/2017 season completing 7 games in total. In the following season, however, Cardona wasn’t part of the plans for Monaco’s first team and was loaned out to Cercle Brugge in Belgium where he played for two seasons. Following Cardona’s good performances in the Belgium league, he completed a move to Stade Brestois in the beginning of the 2019/2020 season and the opportunity to play in Ligue 1 came for the young striker once again.
During the 2019/2020 season Irvin Cardona played 23 games, scoring 7 goals and making 3 assists, the Frenchman played at a very good level and showed great potential to improve.
In this scout report we’ll be taking a look at Irvin Cardona’s performances for Brest, a tactical analysis of his actions in the different moments of the games will allow us to identify his main traits, strengths and weaknesses, and a look at his statistical profile will allow us to access his output in certain key metrics while also comparing him with other Ligue 1 players.
Player Profile
Irvin Cardona is a 22 year-old striker that can also play as a winger and in the 2019/2020 season he played in both roles for Brest depending on the chosen tactics. When playing as a striker, Cardona would drift wide sometimes to find space and that reflects in his heat map below. The map shows us the areas of the pitch that Cardona occupies the most and gives us a good picture of where he usually operates in the pitch.
Because he is able and used to play in different positions, Irvin Cardona is a very versatile player in the attacking line. He is mobile and fast and that allows him to search for space in various areas of the pitch. Cardona is not a traditional striker that stays central and close to the defensive line, instead, he moves around the final third looking for space to receive the ball and combine with his teammates. In doing so, he is able to maintain himself in positions where he can attack the opposition’s penalty area, and that allows him to be ready to recognise and react to finishing opportunities. The heat map above shows precisely that with its spread all around the final third.
In order to have a better profile of the abilities and style of play of Irvin Cardona, we took a look at the data. Calculating percentile ranks for some key metrics allowed for a comparison with other strikers from Ligue 1.
