Finding Sevilla Their Next Right Back
Using a mix of different data methods and eye-testing to identify some players who could potentially be the heir to 34 year old Jesús Navas.
Jesús Navas, what a player. Since returning to Sevilla in 2017 after a spell of four seasons at Manchester City, the Spaniard has undergone an incredible resurgence. Especially in these last two campaigns, Navas has been one of the best full backs in La Liga. With his low center of gravity, incredible crossing ability, and ridiculous pace for his age, he’s been a nightmare for opponents.
In 2019/20, he helped lead Sevilla back into Spain’s top four, in addition to playing a crucial role in their run to a sixth Europa League title. With these accolades, many brilliant performances, and 67.5 league nineties played in these last two seasons, Navas hasn’t showed signs of slowing down yet. However, at 34, his time is running out.
Navas is older than the likes of James Milner, Manuel Neuer, Sergio Ramos, David Silva, and many more who seem much more commonly brought up in the “oldies but goodies” discussions. No matter how much of a phenomenon he’s been for Sevilla, without a doubt they have to start looking ahead before it’s too late.
With this in mind, here is my — amateur — attempt to use data and some more traditional scouting to find Sevilla some targets for their next right back. I’ve never been a fan of those lazy, “Using Data to Find the Next…” Twitter threads, because in football, there is never a second coming of anybody (yes I went there). Rather, it’s important to try and identify players with similar ability and style, who can fit well in their new team’s system, and who fit the outside restrictions (age, cost, etc.). Let’s get into it!
Note: All stats are from the 2019/20 season for Europe’s big five domestic leagues. Players needed to have at least 1,000 league minutes played in order to qualify. All stats are from FB Reference. All positions are from Wyscout. All stats are measured per 90 minutes.
Step 1: Identifying Similar Teams
One factor of a transfer that I feel tends to be undervalued by many fans — even clubs (looking at you Barça) — is that the player’s style, strengths, and weaknesses have to translate into their new system. In my attempt to account for this, I’ve identified the teams who share the most similarity with Sevilla, and these teams will provide our pool of right backs to choose from.
In measuring this similarity, I chose to break it down into three aspects of the game: attacking, defending, and possession. I chose not to combine them all, or boil it all down to one number, as to me, it’s important to remember that teams can be similar in different ways — one side might press like another one, but they attack in totally different manners.
These are the metrics used in each of the three categories:
Attacking: Shots on target, non-penalty xG per shot, passes into penalty area, crosses into penalty area, % of shot-creating actions that were live ball passes, % of shot-creating actions that were dead ball passes, % of shot-creating actions that were dribbles, attacking third touches, and attacking penalty area touches.
Defending: Possession-adjusted tackles in each third, possession-adjusted pressures in each third, % of tackles made in each third, % of pressures made in each third, and pressure success rate.
Possession: Average possession, passes completed, pass completion rate, progressive distance of passes, % of pass attempts that are long, passes into final third, through balls, switches, touches in defensive penalty area, touches in defensive third, touches in middle third, progressive distance of carries, and % of total progressive distance (passing+carries) that came from passing.
Note: These metrics were all scaled with a standard scaler before calculations.
All 97 other sides in the big five leagues were then compared to Sevilla for each of these three categories. This was done using euclidean distance, which you can read a bit about here. I went euclidean instead of cosine similarity because, in this case, the magnitute of the vectors does matter —we want teams who put up the most similar numbers to Sevilla, not just those who had a similar distribution of numbers.
So, here were the top twenty-five teams most similar to Sevilla across the three categories (went with 25 because 98 total teams, a quarter of that is 24.5, so we round up to 25 to get something close to the top quartile of teams closest to Sevilla).
Definitely some interesting results — some bigger teams, some smaller teams, some rivals. Now, for using this as a way to narrow down our “selection pool”, let’s see the sides who popped up in at least two of these categories, or who are similar to Sevilla in a “majority” of their play.
Once again, a unique blend of teams, and especially funny seeing their archrivals Betis. I should also note that Milan and Strasbourg were the only sides within the top twenty-five for all three categories — keep note of that for later.
We now have our similar teams, similar systems to Sevilla’s, from which a player could hopefully make the transfer without too much trouble. We’ll now get into the player side of things.
Step 2: Identifying Similar Players — Raw Stats
We now have twenty-two teams to choose a right back from. To start identifying some actual players, let’s follow a similar process for what we did with teams. Once again, we have three different categories for stats, but there are some different ones here as we shift from evaluating the collective to the individual.
Attacking: Expected assists, key passes, passes into penalty area, crosses into penalty area, shot-creating actions, % of shot-creating actions that were live ball passes, % of shot-creating actions that were dead ball passes, and % of shot-creating actions that were dribbles.
Defending: Possession-adjusted tackles, possession-adjusted dribblers tackled, dribblers tackled rate, possession-adjusted successful pressures, pressure success rate, and possession-adjusted interceptions.
Possession: Completed passes, pass completion rate, progressive distance of passes, long completions, passes into final third, progressive passes, successful dribbles, dribble success rate, progressive distance of carries, and turnovers (miscontrols+dispossessions).
Out of our Sevilla-like teams, these are the right backs with stats closest to Navas. Once again using a standard scaler and euclidean distance, as we want players whose numbers actually match up with Navas’, and aren’t just distributed in a similar manner.
Now, we can really start to narrow down our search. Across these three categories, which right backs had the lowest average distance to Navas? These are the ten who are moving on to the next stage.
And then there were ten. These guys all play for clubs who performed close to Sevilla statistically, and put up numbers like Navas on paper. Now, we go deeper into those numbers.
Step 3: Identifying Similar Players — Style Metrics
Like many others in the analytics space, I’ve been trying to work quite a bit on “style metrics” recently. They are, in fact, the reason I wanted to write something like this — to put them to the test, and see how I could work them in with other methodologies. Well, here we go.
There are different style metrics for each position group (full backs, center backs, center midfielders, attacking midfielders/wingers, and center forwards), and they are each designed to help represent a player’s actual traits and tendencies on the pitch. So instead of looking at who is the best (or has the most) at dangerous passing per se, it looks for players who, when they get on the ball, are very likely to attempt a risky, dangerous pass.
These are each of the style metrics that I came up with for full backs, along with their ideologies and the stats that go into them:
Style Metric 1: Advanced Attacking Positioning
Ideology: Identify full backs spend much of their time high up the pitch, and when they get up the pitch, get themselves into very dangerous areas. The inspiration for this one was Matt Doherty of Wolves, who sometimes seems to be a poacher at wing back — he ended up in the 92.1st percentile for this metric.
Stats Involved: % of a player’s touches that are in the attacking third, and % of a player’s attacking third touches that are in the attacking penalty area.
Top Full Back: Gelson Martins (Monaco)
Bottom Full Back: Noah Katterbach (Köln)
Style Metric 2: Frequent Crosser
Ideology: Identify full backs who are very likely to whip a cross in when they get on the ball, and who rely on crosses to create most of their danger.
Stats Involved: A player’s rate of crosses into the penalty area vs. passes into the penalty area (so more crosses=higher score), and a player’s rate of crosses into the penalty area per attacking third touch.
Top Full Back: Cristian Ansaldi (Torino)
Bottom Full Back: Facundo Roncaglia (Osasuna), Christophe Hérelle (Nice), and Sam Byram (West Ham)
Style Metric 3: Dangerous Passer
Ideology: Identify full backs who are most likely to produce a dangerous pass when they get on the ball. It’s not who provides the most danger with their passing, but whose passes are most likely to be risky and into dangerous areas. So Trent Alexander-Arnold isn’t first — although he is 89.6th percentile — because remember, this is style, not quality.
Stats Involved: A player’s rate of “box entries” (passes+crosses into penalty area) to their total number of completions, and a player’s expected assists per completion.
Top Full Back: Danny Da Costa (Eintracht Frankfurt)
Bottom Full Back: Christophe Hérelle (Nice)
Style Metric 4: Ball Carrier
Ideology: Identify full backs who are likely to dribble forwards and progress the ball with it at their feet whenever possible.
Stats Involved: The % of a player’s total carry distance that is progressive, the progressive distance covered per a player’s carry, and a player’s successful dribbles per touch.
Top Full Back: Gelson Martins (Monaco)
Bottom Full Back: Adrian Mariappa (Watford)
Style Metric 5: Retaining Possession
Ideology: Identify full backs who work to keep possession for their team and avoid giveaways. This one seems to be a bit more about quality, but there are some very talented players — Renan Lodi, Bukayo Saka, Max Aarons, Emerson (Real Betis) — who rank very low. So don’t think of those at the top as just “these players are better at keeping the ball”, rather that they are a bit more calculated and controlled with the risks they take.
Stats Involved: xTurnovers — Expected turnovers is a simple multiple regression in Excel, still using the basic FB Reference data. In short, it looks at how much a player should be turning the ball over (miscontrols+disposessions) based on factors like in which third (and attacking penalty area) and how often they get on the ball, how risky they are with it (dribble attempts), and how often they’re under pressure.
A player’s xTurnover over/under performance, a player’s pass completion rate, and a player’s progressive passes.
Top Full Back: João Cancelo (Manchester City)
Bottom Full Back: Kévin Rodrigues (Leganés)
Style Metric 6: Stays Deep In Possession
Ideology: This may sound like just the inverse of Advanced Attacking Positioning, but it’s not (trust me I thought so too when I first conceived these). While that looked for players who get up into advanced areas in the attack, this looks for players tend to stay deep in build up, potentially even acting as a center back. So a player can stay deep and then burst forward, do one or the other, or really do neither and stay mainly “in between” most of the time.
Stats Involved: % of a player’s touches in the defensive third, % of a player’s defensive third touches in the defensive penalty area, and a player’s rate of middle third touches to attacking third touches.
Top Full Back: Aleš Matějů (Brescia)
Bottom Full Back: Filip Kostić (Eintracht Frankfurt)
Style Metric 7: Aggressive Defender
Ideology: Identify full backs who love to step up/step out of defense and engage high up the pitch. So not aggressive in the sense of going in hard and whatnot, but aggressive in a positional sense.
Stats Involved: A player’s % of their team’s tackles in the middle third, a player’s % of their team’s tackles in the attacking third, a player’s % of their team’s pressures in the middle third, a player’s % of their team’s pressures in the attacking third, and a player’s possession-adjusted attempted dribblers tackled.
Top Full Back: Ricardo Pereira (Leicester City)
Bottom Full Back: Javi Moyano (Real Valladolid)
Style Metric 8: Efficient Defender
Ideology: Identify defenders who take a more conservative approach when stepping to challenge for the ball, and miss out less often.
Stats Involved: A player’s tackle rate vs. dribblers and a player’s pressure success rate.
Top Full Back: Calum Chambers (Arsenal)
Bottom Full Back: Peter Ankersen (Genoa)
Now, let’s apply these style metrics to our top ten targets, and see who matches up even more closely with Navas.
With that in mind, time to go through each of them one by one, and start to make our final cuts.
Martín Montoya
The La Masia product certainly has some of the traits needed in our Navas replacement, but I think it’s fair to cross him off of our list. He just doesn’t have that same explosiveness and dynamism with the ball at his feet that Navas does, and he’s racked up only 4.5 expected assists over his past three league seasons (not bad for a full back, but Navas bettered that in 2019/20 alone, and in 2018/19 alone). Plus, the ultimate deciding factor: Montoya has just joined Real Betis, on the other side of the Seville derby. So, he’s definitely out of the running.
Dani Carvajal
A serial winner, and undoubtedly one of the world’s best right backs for much of his career, Carvajal is the biggest name left on this list. It would be interesting to see him come in at Sevilla and potentially be handed a bit more attacking freedom, but it’s hard to see that happening. He’s still within the traditional prime years of his career, balling out for one of the world’s biggest clubs, and probably on some very luxurious wages. I think it’s fair to classify this one as a bit of stretch for Sevilla.
Kenny Tete
Now at Fulham, the former Lyon and Ajax man has long been considered a talented player (he’s still only 24, wow). But, the Dutch international hasn’t quite taken that next step as a player yet. In our case, he simply doesn’t match well with Navas’ attacking style — outside of retaining possession — so he is on the way out.
Reece James
The only wonderkid remaining, James is certainly a bit of a different physical profile than Navas. In addition to his tall, built frame, James is English, plays for one of the richest clubs in the world, and is already one of the position’s most established talents. I can never see this transfer coming anywhere close to happening, but it’s incredibly fun to speculate over him as a Navas replacement with his frightening potential.
Bruno Peres
Peres is someone who comes very close to to Navas’ attacking style, and he’s got the pace to burn as well. But, he’s already 30 years old, and the last time he played over 1,200 minutes (or around 13 full matches)in a big five league campaign was in 2016/17. Also, though it’s certainly not a deal breaker, Peres has a career total of just 462 Champions League minutes, despite his age. He’s a player who has shown flashes and bursts, but he lacks the pedigree and consistency to be a key player for Sevilla, and there would be no chance at selling him on for anything decent.
Ruben Aguilar
Aguilar is definitely someone who could be on Sevilla’s watchlist. He’s been consistently putting up very good all-round numbers these past few years in Ligue 1, and, even if he doesn’t age like Navas, at 27, he’s got good production left in him. He’s not quite the Spaniard in terms of technical ability, attacking style, and end product, but he would provide a much more active defensive presence, who’s also very efficient. Aguilar definitely made some of my final decisions tough.
Antonio Candreva
Like Navas, Candreva is an experienced veteran, whose winger-like qualities are apparent. According to FB Reference, the Italian lined up at wing back for 28 out of his 32 Serie A appearances in 2019/20. In that Antonio Conte system, Candreva racked up an incredible 12 goal involvements, and was one of few in the position group to better Navas’ expected assists per 90 tally. This move has potential, but at 33 years old — while we certainly aren’t forcing Sevilla to look for U23’s only or anything, it just makes no sense replacing an aging player with someone one year younger — and considering that he’s just joined Sampdoria, it’s going to be a no.
Hamari Traoré
Traoré is probably the the least-known name on this list. At 28, he has only four full seasons of football in Ligue 1 under his belt, and only six total seasons of top flight experience including his time in Belgium at Lierse. A late bloomer for sure, but Traoré has certainly found his home at Rennes. In 2019/20, he played a big role in the side’s incredible 3rd place league finish, getting them into this year’s Champions League. He may be quite the low profile option, and he isn’t someone who can grow and develop much at his stage in his career, but Traoré should definitely be considered.
Leonardo Spinazzola
Our second Roma player on this shortlist, and another Italian winger-wing back-full back hybrid. FB Reference had his 24 Serie A appearances last season split up like this: 9 at right back, 9 at wing back, 5 at left back, and 1 at right wing. While he’s had some issues with consistency — especially in 2018/19, where he really struggled for minutes at Juventus — Spinazzola is a very dynamic player, who I, and the stats, feel could definitely be a potential heir to Jesús Navas. He is a pretty important player at a big side in Roma, but as he isn’t a wonderkid or super marketable name, and Roma don’t have Champions League football, it’s hard to see Sevilla not being able to make this a financially shrewd purchase as well.
Kenny Lala
The FIFA legend, the man who rocks the number ten at right back — what else do you need to hear? Seriously, though, Lala has been putting up incredible numbers for these last few years at Strasbourg. He’s a player with “do-it-all” ability, and he compares very well to Navas. He is 29, he may lack that experience at the highest level, but the potential is there for this to be an absolute bargain of a signing. I would seriously love to see Lala with a bit more talent around him.
Step 4: Final Picks and Eye Test
Well, here we are, time to make the final decisions and back them up with the old fashioned eye test/video. We’ll start with Navas himself, just to get even more comfortable with the kind of player he is.
Eye Test Report: Jesús Navas
Pros:
- Incredibly dangerous crosser
- Can hit them with both feet, and always keeps the defense guessing
Watch here.
- Low center of gravity, is able to weave through defenders
- Adept at carrying the ball forward and driving into the attack with great speed
- Always ready to spring forward on a counter attack, whether it’s providing an outlet or taking the ball himself
Watch here.
- Usually a good decision maker with his passing
- Has the technique to go vertical in behind, or play the long switch
Watch here.
- Recovery speed, and getting to loose balls
Watch here.
Cons:
- Weak in the air (an easy one, I know, and not super important for the role, but I’m still going to include it)
Watch here.
- Sometimes he looks to eager to simply cut to one side, semi-beat his man, and then whip a hopeless cross into the box. Is this just something you have to accept sometimes as a crossing team? Yeah. Is there some of my own personal bias here as a Barcelona fan? Yeah. But still, it just seems so rushed and unnecessary at times
Watch here.
- Can be lazy with his defensive technique and dive in poorly (in addition to just not being a very active ball winner in general)
Watch here.
Now, we do the same for all of our final choices.
Top Pick: Kenny Lala
I’ve gone with the Frenchman as my number one choice. While he is 29, and lacks Champions League experience, there is just so much that points to him being a prime candidate for Sevilla’s right back role. If you remember, Strasbourg were one of two sides in Sevilla’s top 25 most similar teams for all three categories (4th in attacking, 12th in defending, and 6th in possession). Then, out of right backs in our group of similar teams, he ranked 3rd closest to Navas for his raw stats, and out of our top 10 list, he was closest based off of the style metrics.
On top of the numbers, it would be hard to see Strasbourg being able to hold off Sevilla from making this move. Plus, when you watch this guy play, he exudes confidence and personality, which I think would be crucial in making the step up to a bigger side, and dealing with the pressure of replacing a fan favorite.
Pros:
- Deadly deliveries from set pieces. This obviously isn’t the main reason you’re buying him, but it’s a great skill to have. He’s even scored 7 out of 8 penalties in his league career
Watch here.
- Surges forward in counter attacks, very comfortable carrying the ball
Watch here.
- Brilliant cross-field passing ability, especially on some ridiculous whipped crosses from deep
Watch here.
- When he’s switched on, he’s very tough to beat defensively with his mix of physical attributes and ability to read/contain
Watch here.
Cons
- The main thing I found with Lala was lapses in concentration. Defensively, this meant just switching off and lazily throwing out a foot at the ball, or getting turned with a fake shot
- I feel like some of this is because Lala is probably the most talented player on the pitch for Strasbourg, so sometimes he can get a bit bored and drift off. This sounds very bad, I know, but it’s only enough to be a weakness, nothing unforgiveable. With the motivation of better teammates and coaching around him, maybe this would be cut out of his game as well
Watch here.
He’s certainly got a different physical build than Navas, and wouldn’t be a 100% like-for-like replacement, but as I said before, that’s really never possible. Navas is a bit more technically and creatively skilled, although Lala is still very good in those aspects, and Lala would provide a bit more activity and solidity in defense.
Ultimately, the age is the only thing that prevents me from being totally all in on this, but every other aspect of Lala’s ability, style, what I think his price tag would be, lines up incredibly well. Sevilla have also signed 33 year old Ivan Rakitić and 28 year old Marcos Acuña (who’s a left wing/left back) in this most recent window, so they’re not afraid to go for experience.
Wildcard Pick: Leonardo Spinazzola
He definitely isn’t a wildcard based on the data, but from what I’ve seen, most of the general public opinion on Spinazzola is just that he’s an Italian winger who showed promise at Atalanta and then failed to take the next step at Juventus. With his talent and versatility, especially going forward, I believe it’d be stupid for Sevilla not to consider him.
Pros:
- Very comfortable on either foot — 77% right footed per FB Reference. Even Navas, who’s capable with both feet, is up at 91% right footed
- Can play up and down either wing, and is dangerous with his crosses from either side
Watch here.
- He can play play those switches that we’ve seen from Navas and Lala, once again with either foot
Watch here.
- Very comfortable carrying the ball, and can be very dangerous with his takeons (can’t be forced to one side)
Watch here.
- Has good burst of pace for recovering and pushing forward
Watch here.
Cons:
- Not a very active ball winner — important to remember that Navas isn’t either, but it’s definitely not Spinazzola’s strong suit
- Can be very lazy and sloppy at times with his technique and body orientation when closing down attackers. He also doesn’t close down with much intensity, which makes it easy for attackers to make a simple cut and open up quite a bit of space for themselves
Watch here.
The main area of Spinazzola’s game that doesn’t match with Navas’ is progressive passing. Although, I think he shows the technique required to improve these numbers should it become more of his duty. His carrying numbers are excellent (literally second to none for progressive distance carried per 90), and not many can beat his attacking output. Sevilla might have a bit of a trickier time trying to pull him away from Roma than say Lala from Strasbourg, but it’s definitely doable — especially if Sevilla continue qualifying for Champions League football, and Roma miss out again. Spinazzola has also started this season in scintillating attacking form, so definitely keep an eye on him.
Totally Unrealistic But Cool To Imagine Pick: Reece James
As I alluded to, this will never happen outside of maybe FIFA career mode. There are just too many economic and social obstacles, so I can confidently claim that Sevilla will never — especially within the next year or two — have the pulling power to pry Reece James overseas and away from his boyhood club.
Regardless, his ability and ceiling as a player make it impossible not to at least wonder what it would be like to see him take over as Sevilla’s right back. He’s still got some polishing left to do in his game, and he’s got at least a few inches and a few dozen pounds over Navas. However, he would be able to fill in for all of Navas’ strengths, and even give Sevilla a much more active and efficient defensive presence.
Pros:
- Very dangerous with his deliveries into the box. He is adept at putting defenders into uncomfortable situations, which is helped by his ability to play first-time balls
- Comfortable crossing from a variety of positions. Can stay on the inside of the winger and float one in from just outside the box, can get all the way to the byline, play from deep, etc.
Watch here.
- Moments of great technique mixed with his bursts of pace make him almost impossible to stop at times when he carries the ball forward
Watch here.
- Much better ball winner than the others mentioned here
- Closes down attackers with far more intensity and intent than the others, and does so with far more frequency
- There are simply not many full backs (or footballers in general) who match his blend of size and quickness (and an ability to use them both intelligently). This makes him very hard to beat in defense, plus it helps for evading/holding off tacklers himself
Watch here.
Cons:
- There are still moments when his lack of experience/polish is shown
- Sometimes he just doesn’t position his body well and open himself up when receiving a pass. This forces him to boot it long
- He can dribble himself into a corner
Watch here.
All in all, James is one heck of a talent. The numbers he managed to put up in 2019/20, in his first (yes, first!) season of top flight football are just ridiculous. While he may not fit our criteria here, there was no way I was just going to leave him out.
Chelsea fans, you’ve got a very special player. It’s cool to imagine our parallel universe, where he’s terrorizing La Liga opposition, but I think he’ll be just fine remaining in England, and balling out for the next decade or so. If anybody like James emerges in the future, please let me know!
Final Thoughts
I didn’t think this would end up being so long, but I really wanted to try walking through the whole process, and explaining all of my methodologies along the way.
Now, for some potential limitations of this process, some questions I have, and some things that I would definitely look to add if I were say, actually working for a club:
- If I had the resources, it would obviously be great to include other leagues outside of just the big five. There are many bargains to found out there, and an increased pool of players to choose from would be awesome.
- Should I switch to average euclidean distance across the three categories for classifying the most similar teams (like I did for players)? I went with teams who were in the top 25 for two or more categories, because I felt like with teams, it was important to find those who were similar in most of their ways, and not just decently similar for all three (maybe I should go to median then). Does my current methodology make sense? Is it just stupid? Too arbitrary?
- Is it better to have team similarity as a restrictive factor, like I did here, or only as another way of comparison? So, instead of only looking into players from those most-similar sides, would it be better to expand the pool and then just use team similarity to “reward” certain players later on?
- On that same note, I know a team like Bayern Munich were not included in Sevilla’s most similar sides. This not to say that Bayern’s world class players, wouldn’t be able to play for Sevilla, just that there is risk involved due to the differences in systems. If Sevilla are looking for a readymade, perfect replacement, that player would ideally be on a team who already plays like them.
- If I had more time, more experience with video analysis tools, and increased access to them, I would definitely go more in depth with the video stuff. I hope I at least provided enough examples of visual evidence for each point that I found when evaluating the players.
- It’d be great to add some more advanced metrics to this, such as PV, xT, or VAEP. This I actually could have done, but once again, I just did not have the time. Maybe in future pieces — I hope to do similar ones of these for center backs, center midfielders, attacking midfielers/wingers, and center forwards eventually — I can add a bit of this for the top targets.
- I did check some of the DAVIES metrics (created by @SamGoldberg1882 and @mimburgio) and found some pretty good results. For 2019/20, Navas had a predicted goals added per 90 of 0.22, Lala had 0.25, Spinazzola had 0.26, and James had 0.2. They were also each classified as an “offensive wide progressor” for their playing style.
- Also a good idea to check out some models, like those of @macro_football and @Goalimpact.
- With tracking data for things like positioning and velocity, this could be taken to a much higher level.
