Thiago Alcantara: From La Masia Grad To World Class Midfielder
Lack of opportunity, injury, and positional variance have hindered Thiago’s ascension to world class status, but have also made him the special player he is today
Why Thiago?
I’ve been spending time recently watching tape on some of my favorite (not best) midfielders from last season. Lesser-known registas such as Julian Weigl and Jorginho have caught my eye, destroyers such as William Carvalho and Fabinho have intrigued me, and surprise players(for me at least) Wylan Cyprien and Milinkovic-Savic have piqued my interest. One player has been a cut above the rest though and is undoubtedly my favorite player from last season, Thiago Alcantara.
I’ve been a fan of Thiago back to his early first team Barca days. My brother would always pester me about this midfielder at Barca who will take the mantle from Xavi, so I watched some games and looked to his Barca B tape.(he wasn’t getting enough first team game time to gauge him.) For midfielders I like to watch them play the whole game in order to understand what role they have in the team and see the different ways in which they effect the game.
What Made Him So Good?
Thiago was magnificent. His composure on the ball struck me the most. Tiki-Taka was still heavily emphasized then and he fit it to a tee. In his early days, Thiago released the pressure caused by the opposing press easily, by identifying and finding the spaces vacated by the press. When a defender engaged on Thiago to make a tackle, he easily evaded them and played the ball forward to teammates who were afforded extra space. That single skill may be simple, but Barcelona’s whole tiki-taka style was built around drawing out opponenets and taking advantage of spaces. His ability to hold on to the ball kind of reminded me of Iniesta, just impossible to dispossess because of the skill and foresight they had. At the academy level Thiago’s intelligence and technique caused him to dominate with ease, and he developed skills that were easily transferable to the highest level.
From the moment I discovered Thiago I began to follow his game, so when he was heavily linked with the club I support in Manchester United you might guess I was excited. However,the return of the prodigal son, Cesc Fabregas, to Barcelona had scuppered Thiago’s attempts to replace Xavi and prompted his move away with Guardiola to Bayern. Thiago’s time at Bayern is where he became the multifaceted midfielder that he is, and where he carved out a unique role for himself.
What Changed At Bayern?
Under Guardiola’s tutelage at Bayern Thiago learned how to play multiple roles in midfield that prepared him for his evolution. Bayern’s midfield was and is stacked, the competition for places was probably just as hard as Barcelana, however Guardiola almost made it his duty o play Thiago. Guardiola’s devotion to playing Thiago meant that at times he was forced to play deeper in midfield than usual and out on the wing at times. With players like Xabi Alonso, Philip Lahm, Javi Martinez, Bastian Schweinsteiger and David Alaba competing for spots deep in midfield and Muller and Gotze vying for the attacking midfielder spot Thiago had to become multifaceted and fight for minutes on all fronts.
Thiago’s natural talent for football and Barca schooling meant that he didn’t struggle to acclimatize to new positions, in fact he thrived. Thiago’s intelligence and gritty attitude brought him great success in a deep-lying midfield role. Thiago began to portray the skill to anticipate passing lanes and plug them, garnering interceptions by the bucket load as a result. Teams that pressed Thiago while he was further back were punished greatly by his ability to exploit spaces and ping passes to open teammates. Thiago essentially developed the skills of a regista from his experiences while also retaining the mobility of a box to box midfielder.
Ribery’s injury woes meant that on occasion Thiago was tasked with playing on the left as essentially a passing outlet and presence on the flank, who could contribute as a traditional winger at times. Bayern Munich held possession so much under Guardiola partially because of the way they overloaded the area where the ball is, providing outlet passing lanes to the ball carrier which allowed them to make short quick passes. Thiago acted as the outlet on the right and had to learn how to beat a man in more ways than one. The overlap of the left back was used as a way to create space by pulling away the opposing fullback, this made Thiago even more dangerous and he learned to create space for himself and his teammates by drawing in opposing midfielders and defenders to occupy the space vacated by the opposing fullback.
Guardiola’s system at Bayern did not succeed totally, particularly in the Champions League, mainly because the personnel on the team to execute the system were perpetually injured, including Thiago . It is well documented that injury problems have plagued Thiago’s Bayern career, particularly the year long injury that he sustained during the 2013/14 season that meant he missed almost all of the 2014/15 season. There is a great documentary(with English Subtitles) on Youtube about his return to health below that I encourage all of you to watch. Despite the ordeals the Spaniard’s development as a player has skyrocketed to the point where he is at now. A world class midfielder.
Ancellotti completes Thiago’s Evolution
Thiago’s unique schooling culminates in him playing in his natural positon of a number 8 regularly, a role perfectly tailored to him. Ancellotti has give Thiago free roam across the field to pass the ball around and be the central hub for the team. Thiago completed the second most passes per game in Europe’s top five leagues and had the highest pass success rate in the Bundesliga among midfielders according to Whoscored. Now, pass completion can be misleading but if you look at the context it becomes clearer how well he performed.
The only player to beat out Thiago in passes completed per game is Jorginho, a regista who sits deep and has plenty of time on the ball, Thiago is a quasi-attacking midfielder and is afforded a lot less space and time to complete his passes making it all the more impressive. These statistics may be excellent, but for someone with his natural footballing intelligence it could be expected. What might not be expected is that Thiago got the most interceptions of any player in Europe’s TOP 5 Leagues! Let me quickly compound that with this, he is a box to box, creative midfielder in an advanced position. He averaged 4.6 interceptions per game, that is absolutely ridiculous, that number can’t be by chance. Thiago proactively hounds opposition players and forces them to release the ball, he also closes passing lanes effectively(a skill acquired from playing deeper in midfield) and sneaks up on players who dilly-dally on the ball.
To be honest my first reaction to watching some extensive tape on him was that he is a perfect Mourinho player, in the same style(not same quality) as Ander Herrera for Manchester United or a Wesley Sneijder in the Inter Treble winning side. It could be argued that Thiago is even better than Sneijder was in 2010, he’s been that good. Thiago’s game, in my eyes at least, has next to no flaws. He can execute at the highest level in a variety of positions and has proven it at a high level. My only concern is his injury struggles, he only played in 27 Bundesliga games this past season because of niggling injuries. My hope is that he continues to progress and adds goals and assists to his game,he only had 5 goals and 6 assists in Bundesliga play, but he is still world class without that.
What Next For Thiago?
Lahm and Alonso have retired, and Tolisso and James Rodriguez have joined Bayern, they are absolutely stacked. I’m not going to pretend like I know what Ancellotti is planning for next season, but I can at least speculate. I expect a 4–3–3, 4–2–3–1 hybrid formation where Vidal and Thiago/Tolisso sit deeper while James/Thiago play the attacking midfield role with Robben and Ribery/Coman on the wings and of course Lewandowski up top. The problem with what I have theorized is that Muller doesn’t have a spot. He struggled to start the season but progressed well at the end of the season to rack up quite a few assists. I suspect that Bayern will rotate across their midfield and winger positions because of the injury problems players like Robben, Ribery, and of course Thiago suffer from. Not to forget the signing of Rudy nor Javi Martinez who could both contribute as rotaional players.
I hope you guys enjoyed the article I just wanted to share with you guys one of my favorite players to watch this season. SO I want to ask you if you think Alcantara is a world class midfielder and is he the best? Who was your midfielder to watch this season? Also provide me with suggestions on what to do next, I’m thinking an analysis on Sandro Ramirez to Everton because I’ve followed him for a while and think he will do well in the Premier League. I’m available to talk to on Facebook and Twitter about the article or about football in general. Thank you for reading.
