Thiago Alcantara and sacrificing ourselves to the Machine God
Tough tackling midfielders or delicate architects of ambition?
Using Thomas Tuchel's appointment at Chelsea as something of a marker, the stable of managers boasted by the Premier League is better than it’s ever been. For years, the league and its proponents often baselessly claimed some kind of underlying superiority about top-level English football. Sure, other leagues started possession sequences at the back and varied their approach, giving top-level football on the continent a kind of ‘tactical rhetoric’ that was said to be more sophisticated than that of the British Isles, but Andy Carroll was Andy Carroll. Forget the ‘salida volpiana’ and numerical superiority- a goal’s a goal. They all count the same.
Of course, this oversimplification of either ‘kind’ of football is exactly that. There was certainly more nuance to English play in the early 90s and 00s than what many might imagine, and to say people were ascribing cultural assumptions onto continental European leagues might open a can of complicated worms. The racial, cultural, and social undertones that inform our conceptions of anything, even something as seemingly inconsequential as football, are vast and deeply rooted. But for however outlandish claims about the Premier League’s inherent quality used to be, there is some degree of legitimacy to them today. With Guardiola, Klopp, Mourinho, Ancelotti, Bielsa, Tuchel, Hassenhuttl, Potter, Rodgers, and many more all battling it out with ample resources, it’s not unfair to imagine the league is finally living up to the standard it always claimed. That said, has the tradition of rough and tumble English-ism all but disappeared? Or has it informed a greater evolution of European idealism?
Some would suggest this synthesis is evident in the past two league winners. Guardiola spent his first two seasons speaking ad nauseam about second balls and the physicality his players needed if they were to be successful. And Klopp’s brand of pressing inspired transition is something unmistakably born of the context many would associate with hard English football. But sport isn’t played on a whiteboard, and tactics go out the window if those who implement them find it hard to do so. For as much as an ostensive idealist like Guardiola has bowed at the altar of British-ism, he still spent many an early press conference batting away questions about the legitimacy of more intricate play. How English football fans and their sieves of interpretation, also known as those who ask the questions, accept or reject the tools of footballing philosophy remain mired in the views of yore.
For as much as it is a literal meme, the suggestion that the greatest player to ever kick a football would perhaps be troubled by the ‘je nais se quois’ emanating from the very air in Stoke on Trent is indicative of how certain kinds of players are viewed. Big Sam quotes aside, the expectation for midfielders to be as stout as they are superior on the ball remains to this day. Be it Jorginho, Kante, Rodri, or Fernandinho, deeper midfielders looking to test their mettle in the Premier League have all been weighed and scrutinized relative to expectation, background, and performance. No different is the arrival of Thiago Alcantara as a weapon of organized possession for Liverpool. Though claims of ‘defending with the ball’ are bound to anger people who believe Scott McTominay would make a World XI if he looked like Sergio Busquets, that’s undoubtedly what Thiago was brought in to provide.
With Liverpool looking to solidify their place atop the table and not just around it, their performance against lesser sides -ones who might be a bit more hesitant in being drawn into the game of basketball they like to invoke- would have to be more consistent and sustainable. Having a player that could offer a greater sense of stability when breaking down deep blocks would allow them that consistency within the league. While Thiago’s résumé in that department is one of the best in the business, questions over whether he could adapt to the physicality and transition heavy style Liverpool are often associated with casted doubt over the transfer. At the tender age of twenty-nine and with some pretty significant knee injuries, those worries weren’t outlandish- but one would also have to imagine Liverpool would be meeting the midfielder halfway. As much as Thiago would need to fit into his new shade of red, the club would likely try and temper their approach given the capabilities of their new midfield dynamo.
Statistically, Thiago has largely done the same great work he did at Bayern. With the caveat that this early comparison is based on a measly 700ish minutes, the most significant difference is his direct goal involvement, seeing his xA move from a meager .03 to .09 (per 90). With some variance in tackles (2.6 to 2), Thiago’s codifiable performance has been nearly identical to that of his previous club. And yet the consensus on whether on not his performance at Liverpool has been ‘good’ or ‘bad’ seems in contention. For a player who usually puts up numbers that would be enough to label him the best in his position for exits from their own half, long passes, forward passes, final third entries, and dribbles, it seems that shouldn’t be the case.
Though context is paramount, our conception, or perhaps rather, the conception held by those dedicated servants of The Greatest League In the World™, of how a midfielder performs specific roles needs scrutiny. Thiago performing at a high level in one of the winningest teams in Europe versus one losing pace to a title rival is certainly worth considering. But what also needs to be taken into account are the moulds with which we choose to cram malleable bits of noumena. Thiago’s proficiency as both a physically disruptive force and that of an organizing presence on the ball are two distinctly different actions that, for Liverpool, look to achieve the same goal. Thiago, despite the optics, is doing both of those things relatively well. Despite failing to fit the bill of a classic premier league midfielder, his performances suggest most pale in comparison.