Nicolò Barella Scout Report At Inter Milan 2021/2022 – How Inter’s Midfield Maestro Is Adapting To Simone Inzaghi Style Of Play

Nicolo Barella (5’8 & 68kg) has had a fine start to the season in Serie A for Inter Milan, leading the league in assists and playing a key role in Inter’s good start to the season under Antonio Conte, as well as Italy’s European Championship success this summer.

Barella is a 24-year-old Italian midfielder who started his career at Cagliari before his move to Inter in 2019. He has developed into one of the best midfielders in Europe and has lived up to that tag this season. With Inter looking to generate revenue, Barella has been rumoured to be on the move away from the San Siro, with Liverpool the most common link. Barella has recorded five assists this season, the highest tally in Serie A. In addition to this, Barella has created nine goal-scoring actions this season (according to Fbref), which is also the highest in Serie A.

This tactical analysis and scout report sets out to examine key traits and attributes of Barellas game and how they have impacted his impressive start to the season.

Nicolò Barella Positioning

Barella is a right-sided midfielder, within Inter’s tactics they use a 3-5-2 formation which was used by both Conte and Inzaghi Barella will occupy the right side of the midfield 3. This can be supported by examining Barella’s heat map, shown below. With the majority of his positioning being the wide right channel. The role Barella takes up is what the Italians call a Mezzalla. In Italian, this term means half or wing and refers to midfielders who occupy those wide central areas. This is demonstrated brilliantly by Barella’s heat, showing that most of his positioning is in those wide areas on the right-hand side. Playing in this role allows Barella to maximise some of the strongest attributes, which we will touch on later in the analysis.

Using the wide space to make crosses

Here we have an analysis of one of Barellas key attributes. Playing in those wide central channels means Barella has many opportunities to cross the ball to his attackers, and with Inter playing two central strikers in Martinez and Dzeko, he has two aerial presences to work with. Barella loves to pick the ball up in the wide spaces of the oppositions half and play a beautifully whipped right-footed cross, which we look at now. In the following example, Inter are on the counterattack, and Darmian is carrying the ball forward. Barella has made an overlapping run into the space that you would associate with a mezalla. You can also see Dzeko and Martinez making runs towards the box.

Darmian has now played the ball to Bar