In a prematurely ended Ligue 1 season, Lille finished in the fourth position. It’s been a largely decent year, with Champions League returning to the Stade Pierre-Mauroy.
One of the biggest reasons why Lille have had such a fine year has been their defence. They had the joint-3rd best defence in Ligue 1 this season, conceding only 27 goals from 28 games.
At the heart of this defence lied a young 22-year old Brazilian defender Gabriel Magalhães. Alongside captain José Fonte, Gabriel built a formidable centre-back pairing and Lille reaped the benefits of this.
Looking at his radar chart gives us a rough idea of his overall contribution on the pitch. Aerial duels and passing are the two aspects which stand out the most.
Defensive characteristics:
Aerial ability:
Any discussion about Gabriel as a player that doesn’t start with his aerial prowess is a waste of time really. In the 2019/20 season, he competed in 5.34 aerial duels per 90 and won 3.79 of them, at a staggering success rate of 71%.
Gabriel isn’t the best leaper around but since he stands at 6'2" tall, he can participate in most duels without having to jump to reach the ball. He shows good tenacity and doesn’t seem to shy away from competing against strikers. This is a huge reason why he won the 10th-most aerial duels in the league.
Down below is a graph that compares the aerial ability of U-24 defenders across the top 5 leagues in Europe. It’s no surprise to see Gabriel appear so high up on this graph.
Tackling:
Gabriel isn’t very aggressive as a defender. He prefers to stay on his feet rather than lunge into tackles. Looking at his tackling technique below, it’s probably a good thing he does that.
He’s still fairly good at tackling in an upright position when a striker backs into him, but it’s those sliding tackles where he suffers at. Looking at his tackling technique below, it’s easy to see why. He prefers to sweep both his legs across the opponent, leaving him vulnerable to commit dangerous fouls, which could very well result in some cards being shown.
Perhaps he’d be better off going into these tackles with only one leg, which could reduce the danger of being sent off and increase the likelihood of winning the ball.
Awareness:
When it comes to spatial and opposition awareness, Gabriel isn’t quite exceptional. But he’s also not so bad that he’s a liability when defending in space.
Gabriel is generally aware of where the defensive line is. Lille generally employ an offside trap so his trait of constantly scanning the pitch helps them defend against long balls in behind the defence. He also seems to have a good understanding of when to step up to intercept a pass and pressure the receiving player and when to hold back a bit.
He’s good at following instructions and a game plan defensively, but when he’s asked to make split-second decisions, he sometimes falters.
Here, as Neymar runs at the defence, Gabriel is presented with two options: a) step up to execute an offside trap or b) follow Kylian Mbappé’s run. He gets caught in two minds and ends up doing neither. Even though they didn’t get hurt in this particular instance because of the miscommunication between Neymar and Mbappé, errors like this can cause problems especially when you’re playing in a team that operates in a high line.
Here, as Willian receives the ball, Tammy Abraham makes a beautiful run in behind the left-back, capturing Gabriel’s attention. This run in and of itself isn’t quite dangerous, but since Gabriel chooses to track that run, it opens up space for Willian to pass it to Mason Mount, thus leading to a good quality shot.
Gabriel has to get better at making decisions in these scenarios. Protecting space, knowing when to trigger offside traps and being aware of decoy runs are crucial things for any centre-back. Most of all, he needs to start being proactive in his decision making, as opposed to being reactive. It’s a necessity if you want to be a good defender, especially in a team that operates in a high line.
Here, Gabriel is up against Ángel Di María in a 1v1 situation. Since Di María is predominantly left-footed, it’d be better to show him down the touchline on his right foot. Gabriel does exactly this. Even though Di María later shifts the ball onto his left foot, Gabriel has been successful in slowing down the attack, if not completely stopping it.
Knowing the tendencies of a player you’re up against is important. However, knowing their tendencies and actually being able to limit them are two different things. Sometimes, you’re not going to be able to limit them and that’s fine. The most important thing is to actively try to put your opponents in an uncomfortable position. Fortunately, Gabriel does that more often than not.
Another thing here is that when opposition players receive the ball in wide areas, just before crossing, Gabriel tends to instinctively protect the 6-yard box. He’s well aware of players making runs over his shoulder or even making blindside runs.
As you can see below, Gabriel sees that the attacker is making a dart into the box and quickly gets in front of him to deny a goalscoring opportunity.
This is an extremely important characteristic to possess as a lot of defenders often lose track of runners and movements around them. Going forward, this will be a solid foundation for Gabriel to build upon.
Body positioning and mechanics:
Gabriel isn’t a physical specimen by any means but he knows how to use his body well. Despite having a lean physique, he rarely gets manhandled by opponents in physical duels.
Here, you can see how he gets in front of the striker to shield the ball and holds him up, before eventually winning a freekick.
Gabriel is deceptively quick in the sense that he’s not very explosive in the way he runs, but rather has a quick first step. His long legs help him travel more distance in less time and he takes advantage of it whenever he can. His fairly decent acceleration also enables him to make recoveries and cover some of his partner’s mistakes.
Here, he sees Mbappé getting in a good position to take a shot and quickly heads in that direction, before making an incredible last-ditch block to prevent a certain goal.
Gabriel’s agility is good enough for him to make quick directional changes and shift his body from one side to the other. For the most part, he’s well balanced both on and off the ball and rarely gets caught in awkward positions that result in a fall to the ground.
Here, he stunts towards Thomas Meunier, delaying Neymar’s pass. When the pass does get played, he quickly shifts onto the other side to intercept a cross. He then finishes the sequence by blocking Meunier’s field of vision, thus forcing a bad cross, which results in the keeper’s hands.
If I were asked to sum up Gabriel as a defender in one clip/GIF, this would be it.
When it comes to 1v1 defence, Gabriel isn’t one of the best out there. As mentioned before, he’s not an explosive athlete so he can’t afford to square up to attackers, giving them room to blow-by.
He counters this by staying low to the ground. By doing this, he’s able to maintain a low centre of gravity which helps him change directions much quicker. He adopts a policy of ‘not to lose’ instead of ‘win’ when it comes to 1v1 duels. What that means is that his aim is to slow down the attacker more so than it is to win the ball back. He’s quite conservative in this sense.
On-ball characteristics:
Gabriel’s largest value on the pitch comes from his ability on the ball. For someone of his age, he’s very composed on the ball. As he’s naturally left-footed, his team benefits from the angles he can make use of.
His favourite type of pass is the floated ball into the wide channel, behind the defence and in between the opposition right-back and centre-back. Lille constantly used this connection to get the ball to their striker Victor Osimhen.
This type of pass is very useful against opponents who play a high line and leave space behind.
Lille tend to push their left-back up and Gabriel’s job is to progress the ball to him. He does this in two ways: a) a normal pass kept on the ground or b) a lobbed pass as shown below.
Gabriel is also capable of making these line-breaking passes which help release the creative burden on midfielders. Although it’s important to note that he doesn’t always seek this type of a pass, but that may be down to coaching instructions more so than him not being able to do it frequently enough.
Gabriel might not be the most press resistant defender out there, but he’s able to get out of tricky situations by opting for the smart passes which get him out of trouble.
Being proactive on the ball is a huge asset for any player as it helps them to wriggle out of tight spaces when met with obstacles.
Gabriel is pretty one-footed and that’s not a surprise. Though it’s surprising how rarely he’s caught off-balance when trying to shift the ball onto his stronger foot. He has a relatively small on-ball turning radius, which aids his agility when shifting his body from side to side.
For left-footed players, a ‘normal’ pass is towards the left-hand side of the pitch. They make these passes after opening up their body in that direction. But they often face trouble when that option becomes unavailable. They require a fair amount of time to shift the ball onto their right foot to play a pass and this wastes precious seconds in possession.
Gabriel seems to have an interesting counter to this problem. When the ‘normal’ pass becomes unavailable, he doesn’t shift the ball onto his right foot. Instead, he stabs the ball and makes an inward pass, thus saving a lot of time for his side.
Since Gabriel has been linked to some clubs in England, here’s another graph that compares his passing numbers to some left-footed Premier League defenders.
For any progressive team that enjoys a lion’s share of possession in most games, Gabriel would seamlessly fit in with his forward-thinking when in control of the ball.
Conclusion:
Left-footed centre-backs are an incredibly rare commodity in the transfer market, the good ones even less so. In the current market, €30m for Gabriel seems one of the better value-for-money deals you could find. While he might not have the ceiling of a centre-back that leads his team to tier-1 trophies, his floor is certainly high enough to be a solid rotational option in any good team.
For teams that constantly play out from the back, having a left-footed centre-back is priceless. And Gabriel Magalhães is worth every penny.
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