Leonardo Balerdi: Boca Juniors’ defensive prodigy

Leonardo Balerdi has quickly established himself as one of the brightest defensive starlets in Argentina. His mental strength, anticipation and physical attributes have been turning heads since his Boca Juniors first team debut in August. It didn’t take long for the plaudits to come rolling in.

In only his second game, Balerdi received the man of the match award and a huge whoscored.com rating of 7.96. German giant club Borussia Dortmund has recently made a bid of ₤10 million for his services. It seems inevitable Balerdi will leave the club soon.

Balerdi is a centre-back by trade and likes to play on the left of the back two. Following on from my previous piece on Agustin Almendra this tactical analysis will break down his defensive strengths and how these work into the dynamics of the back four. I will then analyse areas he could work on when he makes the move to Europe.

Showing the attacker onto the weaker foot and defending diagonally

Balerdi has demonstrated almost perfect defensive positioning and body orientation since his debut. He has barely been dribbled past in the five games he has played for Boca. When Balerdi is being attacked his body orientation is superb. He turns his body to show the attacker onto the sideline or onto his weaker foot.

Balerdi also doesnt lunge into challenges if he doesnt need to. He perceives his teammates location and usually makes the correct decision to close down and isolate the attacker.

You can see in the above images that Balerdi identified the sideline and simply orientates his body by defending at a right angle to show the attacker onto his left. This is a simple but effective defensive skill as the sideline acts as an extra defender in this situation. The back-pass option is also negated.

Compression and decision making

A valuable skill in defending is maintaining compact shape as a unit but also being dynamic in positional rotations. Great defences are built upon defenders who have an understanding of where each other is situated relative to themselves. You need not only to be disciplined in keeping your defensive shape, but to exhibit the decision making to come out from the line and drop in when required.

Good attacking