It’s not been all smooth sailing for Mattéo Guendouzi (185cm/6’1”, 68kg/150lbs), despite the PSG and Lorient youth academy product having been tipped for great things from a young age — even getting a high profile €8m move to EPL giants Arsenal while still but a teenager in 2018.
During his time as a gunner, Guendouzi made 82 appearances for the EPL side under Unai Emery, Freddie Ljungberg, and Mikel Arteta, respectively.
The majority of those games came under his first Arsenal coach, former PSG boss and current Villarreal manager Emery.
He was very young and still learning his trade, perhaps it was too big of a step up too soon, but things never materialised in the way they were supposed to according to the fairy tale at the Emirates Stadium for the young Frenchman, who fell out of favour at the North London club in quite a highly publicised way towards the end of his time there before being sent out on loan to Bundesliga side Hertha Berlin for the 2020/21 campaign, a stint that has been described as disappointing, and perhaps wasn’t one that was truly in the best interest of the young player.
At a sensitive stage of his development, Guendouzi’s next move after his Bundesliga experience was always going to be an important one.
This past summer, we saw the 22-year-old move back to his native France to join one of Ligue 1’s most historic clubs, Olympique de Marseille, on an initial loan move ahead of a permanent transfer in the summer of 2022.
Under renowned Marcelo Bielsa disciple Jorge Sampaoli, the young midfielder has been rejuvenated in Ligue 1 and, for my money, has been one of the most fun players to watch in France’s top flight this term, in addition to being one of the most effective creative midfielders in the league.
This tactical analysis and scout report aims to highlight how Guendouzi has been used by Les Olympiens this season.
In this analysis, I will highlight some of the most important details regarding Guendouzi’s role within Sampaoli’s strategy and tactics with the Provence-Alpes-Côte dAzur-based side to explain why the 22-year-old has even managed to earn his first cap for the France national team in 2021/22.
Les Bleus boss Didier Deschamps recently declared that the midfielder has made ‘enormous progress’.
Whats Mattéo Guendouzi Position?
If you want more of an in-depth overview of Sampaoli’s tactics at Marseille, I covered them in some detail earlier this season for Total Football Analysis: Ligue 1 2021/22: Three tactical tweaks that spotlight Marseille’s evolution under Jorge Sampaoli – tactical analysis.
To summarise, though, Marseille, in possession, have primarily played in a 3-3-1-3 shape (which sometimes resembles more of a 3-5-2 with the ‘2’ being two wingers as opposed to two centre-forwards), while out of possession, they’ve mainly lined up in a 4-4-2 shape, though it’s worth noting that Sampaoli still engages in plenty of experimentation, especially depending on specific opponents who he feels his team can better exploit by adapting some aspects of their gameplan.
Within this offensive system, it’s common to see Guendouzi either playing as one of the two wide midfielders or as the ‘1’ behind the forward line.
Here, he can link up with the forward, who’ll often drop in between the lines, forming a system with essentially two number ‘10’s operating behind the forwards.
The most important thing to note on this particular point is that Guendouzi plays quite an offensive role at Marseille, with a large emphasis placed on progressing and creating via both passes and carries.
Compare figures 1 and 2.
Figure 1 shows Guenouzi’s heatmap from his final season at Arsenal, the 2019/20 campaign and figure 2 shows his heatmap from the 2021/22 campaign with Marseille.
We notice th
