The international break is finally over! (There are still two more in 2024 anyway).
Such a strange time, the international break. Twitter (or X) got inundated of streets-won’t-forget player compilations, which were mostly great watches to be fair, just to kill time until the leagues returned. Don’t worry if you are one of those comp-lovers who did not pay attention to the tedious, nearly unwatchable national teams matches: we’ve done your homework so you only need to take some notes. We understand all of you, indeed.
We’ve brought you a list of 6 players who have just made their debut for their national team during this last break.
Nicolás Marichal – Central defender – Dinamo Moscow – Uruguay
Marichal must have returned to Moscow as a satisfied man as Uruguay did not conceded a single goal in either of their two World Cup qualifiers. He played 130 minutes out of a possible 180 in the two goalless draws against Paraguay and Venezuela. In Russia he has not been given as much playing time as he would have liked, but it’s only been seven games so far. He finished last season as one of the starting centre-backs. Dinamo missed out on the title by one point.
Marichal is a defender. He hasn’t really developed much in terms of his ball-playing ability since his early days at Club Nacional. However, he has become somewhat of a more proactive defender: he’s putting more tackles in, winning more duels, even if his share of successful duels is lower, and recovering balls on a higher average.
We’ve highlight this passage of play from one of his most recent games because it shows how he uses his body position when running backwards to minimize the potential danger of the attacker: in the second frame he has adjusted his initial body position to prevent the ball-carrier from passing it across to his teammate running through the central channel. When that passing option is closed, Marichal has already readjusted his position again, lowering his waist and running laterally so he can get down to make the tackle, which he does succesfully.
Igor Matanovic – Striker – Eintracht Frankfurt – Croatia
Croatia have no shortage of strikers: Petkovic, Budimir and even Kramaric were all selected for the EURO. However, Croatia scored only three goals in as many games and only one of them came any of these options (Kramaric). We are not saying Matanovic will be the answer for Croatia’s goalscoring woes but his profile, age and recent club performances make him an interesting option worth trying. He’s also gone up a level. His 14-goal-season earned a place in the Eintracht Frankfurt squad, who bought him after four season in Germany’s second tier.
We’ll talk goals in a minute but let me start by saying this is a 1.94m tall striker who wins an average of 4.49 aerial duels per game and completes an above-average number of dribbles in the opposition half.
Goals: Out of all strikers with at least 75 shots in the Bundesliga II last season, Matanovic had the 3rd best shot on target percentage and the 5th lowest average shot distance. One could argue that the shorter the distances, the easier it is to shoot on target. However, he had also the 4th best shot conversion rate, the 18% of his shots were goals. Not only he can get shots on target but score them. A quick remainder: he’s 21!
Kota Takai – Central defender – Kawasaki Frontale – Japan
Takai’s Japan new sensation. At just 20, he played for his country in the Olympics and has already started 15 matches this season for Kawasaki Frontale. On September 5th he won his first cap for the senior national team in the 7-0 victory against China. His 1.92m height makes him so difficult to get past. He’s a front-foot defender, who wins tackles and collects ball recoveries but needs refining in his passing game.
He is primarily a right-sided centre-back who has moved to the left when the situation required it. Last season, he had the 6th best percentage of dribblers tackled out of all 66 centre-backs in the J1 League. After a year, he’s clearly grow into a dominant, more rounded defender. He’s averaging 22.3% of the total aerial wins of his team, 11.2% of Frontale’s tackles and 10.6% of his team ball-progression in the opponents half.
Oussama Targhaline – Midfielder – Le Havre – Morocco
Targhaline has enjoyed a dream start of the season: he has taken part in Le Havre’s near-perfect start of Ligue 1 (6 points out of 9, with PSG their only defeat) and he has also made his debut with Morocco in the one-nil victory away at Lesotho. This is a deep-lying midfielder who often tucks in to form a back three with the centre-backs and that tends to favour his left side. His defensive number are okay-ish, though.
Targhaline excels in building up attacks, either through passing or carrying the ball forwards. While he’s a progressive player, he doesn’t want to risky the ball too much. A great attribute of the Moroccan is his decision making. If he does not have a clear picture of his passes, he will keep possession and opt to play it safely. He possess great variety in his game: he was one of 8 players in Ligue 1 23/24 who completed at least 2.3 progressive carries and 5 progressive passes while making at least 50 passes per game.
Petar Sucic – Midfielder – GKN Dinamo – Croatia
It smells like a new wave of players in Croatia. We’ve already spoken about Matanovic, but Sucic also made his debut with the Balkan country during this break. He had a 13-minute spell against Portugal and then the first half against Poland. He seems to be a well-rounded midfielder. In the game against the Polish side, Sucic played a compensating role to help Modric and Kovacic get to the ball in dangerous areas. For this reason, we’ve brought this two radars: a box-to-box radar (left) and a contention midfielder on the right (the role he has played at Dinamo).
He can play as a deep-lying midfielder (right radar) because of his tackling ability, his ball retention in the opp. half and his ball-progression numbers. In this role, his defensive output looks a bit thin for a proper ‘6’. On the other side, while the same can be said about his tackling numbers, he ranks above-average in both xG Build Up and xG Build Up in the final third. His xA and chances created numbers are nice as well. However, what stood out the most in the game against Poland was his off-ball movement: he would come short, turn and pass, then move to a free space and was constantly a passing option.
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