22-year-old João Mário Neto Lopes, known as “João Mário”, is the latest player to establish himself within the first team after coming up through FC Porto‘s academy.
Having left hometown club A.D. Sanjoanense to join the Portuguese champions at the age of nine.
João Mário has represented his club and country at every level and is now being tipped to be called up to Portugal’s senior squad.
He made his debut for Porto in 2020, and even though he was kept as part of the first-team squad from that point, it was last season when he enjoyed his breakthrough.
After being trained to develop himself in a new position, João Mário was one of the success stories as the club regained the Primeira Liga title.
In this scout report, we will provide a tactical and statistical analysis which focuses on the attacking and defensive phases of João Mário’s game.
João Mário Position and Data profile
João Mário started his career playing as a winger.
Naturally, he started as a right-winger, being right-footed, but he also operated on the left-hand side, acting as a winger who comes inside and attacks the half-space.
However, since Sérgio Conceição joined the club’s first team, Mário has been converted into a full-back.
Since last season, he has established himself as the first-choice right-back and one of the success stories in Porto’s title win.
As you can see from the heat map below, João Mário looks to provide width as he maintains his position in the right channel throughout Porto’s possession.
The role he plays within the team is fundamental to how Conceição uses tactics and his overall approach.
Sérgio Conceição has implemented a philosophy that is built on intensity, aggressiveness, and organisation.
Conceição lines Porto up in a 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1 formation.
He sets his wingers to cut inside and his fullbacks to overlap and join the attacking line.
As his teams look to overload their opponents during attacking transitions, this is when João Mário will join Porto’s attacking line and provide an outlet out wide.
Defensively, Conceição sets Porto up to maintain a solid defence that relies on an intense, man-oriented pressing system.
They generally keep a compact shape and aim to prevent the opposition from playing through the centre of the pitch.
This forces the opposition to play through the wide areas.
This is where João Mário’s traits as a winger assist with the team’s defensive strategy, as his ability to quickly engage the play out wide helps the team win the ball back in the areas they strive to.
João Mário Defensive phase
When analysing data on fullbacks, it’s essential to evaluate both their defensive and offensive capabilities.
With João Mário transitioning from a winger to a full-back and playing for Portugal’s number one club, we have compiled several data visualisations that provide a clear outlook on both his strengths and areas for improvement to continue his progress.
As the full-back position is part of the defensive line, it’s conceivable that most defenders will always complete a higher number of defensive actions than attacking actions.
The position they take up on the pitch puts them in situations where they can perform more defensive actions.
The data visualisation below compares the number of successful defensive actions averaged per 90 minutes to the number of successful attacking actions averaged per 90 minutes for every right full-back that played over 1000 minutes in the Primera Liga last season.
As expected, you can see how João Mário rates higher for successful attacking actions per 90 minutes when compared to how he rates for defensive actions over 90 minutes.
The Portuguese under-21 international averages 5.38 successful actions per 90 minutes, which was the highest amount for a right-back in the Primeira Liga last season.
However, when compared to the rest of the league, he performed below average in the number of successful defensive actions he made, averaging just 7.97.
The data above shows that João Mário is an attack-minded full-back who has vulnerabilities when it comes to defending.
This would be natural for a player of his age who has recently been developed into a fullback.
When analysing a player’s data, you must put it into context before confirming what the player is good at and what they are bad at.
For example, João Mário plays for FC Porto.
Last season, Porto averaged 60% ball possession, the highest in the league; therefore, Porto’s players spent less time defending against the ball than any other team.
However, this doesn’t mean that João Mário’s lesser defensive stats are a direct result of Porto defending less.
With the data below, we assessed the possible defensive frailties that João Mário still needs to develop, taking into account possession-adjusted statistics that allow us to calculate his defensive statistics to account for Porto’s higher possession value.
We have compared the PAdj interceptions with the defensive duels per 90.
He performs on average in both areas when compared to the other right-backs in the league.
His possession-adjusted interception value was 6.07 per 90, and he averaged 7.44 defensive duels per 90.
The reason we chose to measure these two statistics was because of the defensive approach taken by Porto under Sérgio Conceição’s guidance.
Because they tend to force the opposition to play out wide, the fullbacks are required to press the opponent immediately and either win the ball by intercepting it or by winning a defensive duel.
These two examples below show João Mário defending 1v1 in the wide areas.
His ability to quickly close the space gives him the advantage, as the ball carrier cannot position himself to be able to attack the space vacated by Mário as he presses.
You can see how he leaves his defensive line in both passages of play.
Although he doesn’t intercept the ball or win his defensive duel, he is successful as he stops both wide players from being able to progress the play out wide and forces them to keep the ball in their defensive third.
João Mário Attacking phase
Conceição style of play puts a lot of emphasis on his fullbacks when Porto looks to attack.
As Porto has possession of the ball on average for 60% of the game, the fullbacks play an essential role in the team’s attacking phase of play.
This will be the main reason why João Mário was converted into a right full-back, so the team now has a player with a natural attacking instinct to play in the full-back area.
You can see below how Mário’s ability to run with the ball can be effective when Porto can progress the play.
He makes 3.03 progressive runs per 90 minutes and makes 7.12 progressive passes per 90 minutes.
Although he performed above average for the number of progressive passes he made last season, he is a top performer for the number of progressive runs he completed.
Being a progressive ball carrier can be beneficial when playing against teams that defend in a low block.
Whether it be high up the pitch or during the build-up phase, it can stretch the opposition and pull them out of their defensive shape.
A progressive pass is a forward pass that is 30m long when the pass starts in the team’s half or at least 10m in length in the opponent’s half.
Even though João Mário was highly ranked against the other right-sided full-backs in the Primeira Liga, he shows good vision and good distribution to be able to create with his passing.
Attacking players are primarily judged on their ability to score goals or win points for their teams.
As João Mário is an attacking full-back, his most productive output is likely to come in the form of chances created, assists, and his creation from the wide areas.
The two data visualisations below show his smart passing against his key passing, both measured over 90 minutes, as well as his assists versus his expected assists.
His assist record shows how many times he played the last pass before Porto scored a goal.
He performed well with both metrics compared to other right-backs, and although he only finished the season with two assists, the data below shows that his expected assists were 3.7, which was the highest for right-backs in Portugal last season.
Both the assist and expected assist metrics should be evaluated in the correct context when assessing a player’s creativity.
Both of these metrics rely on the actions of the player’s teammates and are not necessarily reflective of the player’s quality, in this case, João Mário.
If the player you pass to doesn’t shoot, you don’t get a chance to create, and if a player doesn’t score, you won’t get an assist.
You must keep in mind that it works the other way, too; if a player achieves multiple assists within a season, it doesn’t necessarily make him creative, as the assist could just be a simple pass.
It’s essential when evaluating a player’s creativity to consider not only the number of assists they achieve but also the frequency of smart passes and key passes.
A smart pass is a creative and penetrative pass that attempts to break the opposition’s defensive lines.
A key pass is a pass that immediately creates a clear goal-scoring opportunity for a teammate.
João Mário’s creativity in this area is impressive for a player of his age.
He completes the 5th highest number of smart passes per 90 at 0.65 and completes the highest number of key passes per 90 with 0.77.
This academy product has more to his game than just providing an outlet out wide for their team to maintain width.
His ability to attack space down the right-hand side is crucial to the tactics Porto employ.
During this last campaign, a big part of the attacking approach was to build the play down the wide areas and draw the opposition to one side before switching the play to the other side, where they have more space to attack and a numerical advantage
The two images above show João Mário being the player who stretches the opponent and looks to exploit the space created.
You can see in both examples how both teams have been pulled towards the left-hand side.
That is the advantage of a player with attacking instincts playing as a full-back on that side.
In the future, we believe the full-back position will be where João Mário remains for the rest of his career.
His attributes will enable him to play as a wing-back should he join a team that employs a wing-back formation.
At Porto, he plays as a full-back who occupies the right flank, providing width and looking to overlap the play.
He could be deployed as an inverted full-back, given he can use both feet, be pushed further forward, and play in his old position as a winger.
Both Jordan Lotomba of OGC Nice and Joakim Maehle of Atalanta are current players in Europe’s top five leagues who share a similar style of play to João Mário’s.
Like João Mário, they have been converted into attack-minded fullbacks, and they both occupy positions on both sides of the pitch.
Conclusion
Even at this early stage of his first-team career, rumours are starting to circulate that João Mário will be the next big-money move out of Portugal, although it is still too early in his development for him to leave Portugal.
He plays regularly, he plays an integral part in the team’s approach, and he is playing Champions League football.
There is no need for him to leave at this stage.
He has started this season in good form, already having 2 assists to his name, and has completed 1.35 key passes per 90, as well as 4.72 dribbles per 90, with a success rate of 71.43%.
And with him notably playing higher up the pitch, there is no reason this form can’t continue.
In this scout report, we provided data analysis and tactical analysis that identify key traits within João Mário’s game.
Although the data analysis focuses on last season, we have identified components within his overall game that play a pivotal role in Sérgio Conceição’s tactical approach.
