Is João Félix next superstar for Portuguese National Team?

Eusébio, Luís Figo, Cristiano Ronaldo -- João Félix heir to Portugese throne!

PROFILE

João Félix 4th most expensive player of all time. Felix was the youngest player to score a hattrick in the Europa League in a 4-2 win victory over Eintracht Frankfurt while playing for Benfica. Felix isn't a physically dominant player, So physical presence is not his strength. Thanks to his agility and dribbling skills, he can keep the ball against physical opponents too.

POSITION

His best position is to play the second striker in a 4-4-2. He can also play comfortably as a 10 in 4-2-3-1. He is a perfect player for Simeone's system at Atletico and a worthy replacement for Griezmann. He can also play at right-wing during the build-up he drifts inside which leaves space for RB to attack.

CONTRIBUTING TO BUILD UP

Off the ball, he always occupies the space in between the opposition's midfield's and just in front of the defense. When in possession he can drop deep to help, but it's not his best zone of influence which is slightly further up the pitch. He can receive the ball at tight spaces, before finding his teammates or dribbling past the opposition. He is impressive in the building of transition and can free himself and the team with his first touch. Blended with his speed and his ability to spot a pass, he is lethal on the counter. 

Here Felix is just behind the opposition's midfield, which allows his team to easily break the first line of defense. This is where Felix is at his devastating best, he influences the game from this position.

PASSING IN THE FINAL THIRD

When playing as the second striker, passing to the team's target man or wingers us an important attribute. Whenever he receives the ball, he looks up immediately to thread a defense splitting pass to his wingers or strikers. If he can't make the pass, he takes on his marker before laying it for his teammates or taking the shot himself. The central role is undoubtedly where Félix is most comfortable. This is reflected in his dribbles and progressive runs, 4.2 per game, and 1.8 per game respectively, compared to 3.07 per game and 1.02 per game when fielded elsewhere on the field. This central role gives him greater freedom to roam and allows him to put his technical ability to good work.

 After receiving the ball he immediately finds his teammates run and makes a beautiful pass to his teammate.

Here he receives the ball and starts to exploit the space in front of him, before finding his teammate.

Again receives the ball in a tight space uses the space in front of him to take a shot.

DRIBBLING AND POSITION

Felix is dangerous when he gets the space to dribble. When he has players running in front of him, he hardly fails to play them perfectly timed through ball. About his position, he has a tendency to get into the box and step out a little bit, to find the space to take a shot or thread a beautiful pass to his teammate. He can lose defenders with his movement too and he is willing to shoot off his weaker left foot, which unsettles defenders - this is an area he could do with improving though.

Here Felix gets into the box where he finds himself in plenty of space to receive the ball.

Here he finds himself tightly marked and uses his speed and dribbling ability, to get past through the defender.

Hangs back to take advantage of defenders watching the ball.

THE DEFENSIVE ASPECT

Despite his natural talent and explosiveness in the attack, he is currently in the process of learning how to position himself to be most effective as a defender. He is good at pressing and is naturally sticky and hard to get rid of but he often loses his man and doesn't know how to position himself to prevent attacks. When he plays on the wing, he tends to neglect his defensive duties and only has two recoveries per game.

CONCLUSION

It is still far too early to even consider writing off Félix as a success at Atlético Madrid. Indeed, the early flashes of brilliance that he showed proof that he does have what it takes to bring something to Atlético Madrid that nobody else can. Out wide is a role that clearly does not support him and has frustrated his movement, with the consequent impact on his confidence affecting his finishing. There are still plenty of reasons to be optimistic regarding Félix’s future at the Estadio Wanda Metropolitano given his impressive technical quality, but in his early months, it does not seem a clear tactical fit to put him into this side. With Suarez as a new number nine, he will help to get the best out of Felix.

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VAR(Video assistant referee) explained

Is Football Getting Slower and More Fair?

The video assistant referee (VAR) is an assistant referee in association football who reviews decisions made by the head referee with the use of video footage and headset for communication.Following extensive trialling in a number of major competitions, VAR was first written into the Laws of the Game by the International Football Association Board (IFAB) in 2018. Operating under the philosophy of "minimal interference, maximum benefit", the VAR system seeks to provide a way for "clear and obvious errors" and "serious missed incidents" to be corrected. FIFA officially approved the use of VAR for the 2018 FIFA World Cup during the FIFA Council meeting on 16 March 2018 in Bogotá. This tournament became the first competition to use VAR in full (at all matches and in all venues).

When is VAR used?

GOALS

The role of the VAR is to assist the referee to determine whether there was an infringement that means a goal should not be awarded. As the ball has crossed the line, play is interrupted so there is no direct impact on the game.

PENALTY DECISIONS

The role of the VAR is to ensure that no clearly wrong decisions are made in conjunction with the award or non-award of a penalty kick.

RED CARD INCIDENTS

 

The role of the VAR is to ensure that no clearly wrong decisions are made in conjunction with sending off or not sending off a player.

MISTAKEN IDENTITY

The referee cautions or sends off the wrong player, or is unsure which player should be sanctioned. The VAR will inform the referee so that the correct player can be disciplined.

These stats were gathered by the International Football Association Board (IFAB) across a study of almost 972 games that took place in 20 different national authorities worldwide.Interestingly, across matches covered in the study, the system was only called into action in just third of the games. Approximately two-thirds of games did not revert to VAR at all, even though the facility was ready and waiting to be used. The breakdown is as follows:

• 69.1% of matches covered did not need VAR replays
• Only 5.5% of games where VAR was brought into play needed more than one review
• 57.4% of VAR incidents related to penalty decisions and goals scored
• 42.1% were in connection with red card situations
• Mistaken identity calls were negligible 

In terms of the average VAR intervention time in a single match, it is approximately 55 seconds. This pales into insignificance with other match events such as:

• Corner kicks - 3 mins 57 secs
• Free kicks - 8 mins 51 secs
• Goal kicks - 5 mins 46 secs
• Making substitutions - 2 mins 57 secs
• Throw-ins - 7 mins 2 secs

With so many questionable decision made by VAR. Many fans and pundits were left baffled by VAR. Everyone believes in VAR but work is needed on implementation. VAR will not achieve 100 per cent accuracy, but will positively influence decision-making and lead to more correct, and fairer, judgments. In July 2020, the International Football Association Board (IFAB) transferred the responsibility of VAR to FIFA. IFAB will continue to work closely with FIFA, especially in terms of the VAR protocol, related Laws and qualification requirements. With two different sets of referee being involved in decision making and review. Mostly the decision made initially by field referee's are not changed. The VAR may advise the referee to change his decision, but the final call must always be the referee's. With increased use of the RRA(Referee Review Area), which will be used for subjective decisions in the three key areas -goals, red cards and penalty kicks. Decision made by referees won't be full of mistakes as compared to past season.

Who is in the VAR room?

There will be a lead official, who will make judgements on all reviews. There will also be an assistant official, who continues to watch the live game while the lead handles a review. The third person is the Hawk-eye operative, who controls the technology and is independent of the decision-making process.

Verdict

It's not perfect and there's been a few mistakes or perceived errors.Anything new that's brought into the game, there's going to be teething problems.A lot of the decisions  are still subjective calls.So there's still a 50-50 on which way people go. Given time it'll come good, despite the criticism players and fans have now become more accustomed to it.

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La Liga season review

In review: The 2019/20 LaLiga Santander season

And in the end, the race ends, the marathon reaches its finish line and the curtains close easily.  After 38 matchdays in La Liga, the final curtains were closed in style and left people wanting craving more action.The best league in the world for many fans finished on July 19, 2020 with emphatic wins, a close relegation battle and a surprising race for Europe. It is true, the title was sealed on the penultimate matchday, but the title race was exciting and the two clubs in it, Barcelona and Real Madrid, made the league enjoyable enough to keep both sets of fans watching the two clubs religiously. Los Blancos overcoming their rivals with a game to spare, ultimately finishing with 87 points  five more than FC Barcelona’s 82.The three-month hiatus of competition because of the coronavirus pandemic is the first event that springs to mind, but there was so much more.Barcelona were top of LaLiga Santander when Ernesto Valverde was sacked as head coach on January 13.The decision was made after the defeat to Atletico Madrid in the Supercopa de Espana, with Quique Setien coming in to replace him.Just not much from the season’s three most expensive signings, João Félix, Antoine Griezmann and Eden Hazard. And even less from Luka Jovic, the fourth. Talking of Europe, this year’s race was sensational, but after the COVID–19 outbreak, some teams lost pace in the race and fell off. So, in a deep review of this La Liga season, the following part will be a summary of the best and the worst of the 2019/20.

The sentencing of Catalan politicians caused tensions to rise so high in and around Barcelona that the first Clasico of the season was postponed.Real Madrid's trip to the Camp Nou on October 26 was pushed back until December 18 in an unprecedented move.

After beating Barcelona 2-0 in El Clasico in early March, Los Blancos appeared to be in the driving seat for this season’s league title. However, their 1-2 defeat at the hands of Real Betis gave the Blaugrana a two-point lead, which they couldn’t hold on to. Quique Setien’s men failed to overcome the likes of Sevilla, Celta Vigo and Atletico Madrid, games which cost them points and handed the advantage back to Real Madrid.For their part, Zinedine Zidane’s team embarked on a 10-game winning streak, often picking up points by narrow 1-0 victories. Despite claims of VAR coming to their rescue, the All Whites didn’t let their critics distract them one bit.For Real Madrid, this was their first title since 2016/17 and a record 34th in club history. It’ll have made Zinedine Zidane especially happy as the French coach has consistently spoken about how he believes LaLiga Santander is the most difficult league in the world and about how there is so much value in being the best team over a 38-match competition. As he said after mathematically securing the title: “the Champions League is the Champions League, but this title makes me happier because LaLiga is what it’s all about.”

 After all these years, we didn’t think Lionel Messi could do anything we haven’t seen from him before. And we were wrong.For the first time ever, the Argentina racked up over 20 goals AND over 20 assists in a LaLiga season. No player in Spain’s top flight even came close to his tally of 25 goals or his 21 assists.Now 33, even Messi’s heroics can’t make Barcelona the most feared team on the planet. But that doesn’t make his performances less impressive.This Barcelona team is old. Really old.Lionel Messi and Luis Suárez are 33 and were the only players to score more than nine LaLiga goals this season. In fact, only 29 of Barcelona’s 86 league goals in 2019/20 were scored by players under the age of 30 and nine of those were from 29-year-old Antoine Griezmann. Adding Miralem Pjanić, 30, for Arthur, 23, seems an odd deal from the outside.Where is the next generation? What will Barcelona look like two years from now?  If they’re not careful, this could just be the start of a long decline.

Atletico Madrid won seven of their 11 games after the league’s restart to rise up to third on the table, a far cry from the sixth place, where they were before the break. Sevilla FC love the Europa League and have won it more times than any other club in history (5). Even so, this season they’ve managed to displace Valencia – who’d finished fourth in the last two seasons – and nab the fourth and final Champions League spot for next season.In the first season back for sporting director Monchi and a debut season for coach Julen Lopetegui, they’ve ensured they’ll join Real Madrid, FC Barcelona and Atlético de Madrid in UEFA’s elite competition in 2020/21.

Having won just five matches all season, Espanyol became the first team to get relegated from La Liga after securing European football the season before. They changed four coached throughout the campaign and will have to reinvent themselves in the second tier now. Elsewhere, Real Mallorca will also bid adieu to La Liga, after having secured promotion in the 2018-19 season. But they failed to make any sort of impact upon their return to top-flight. Leganes, meanwhile, became the third and final side to be relegated to the Segunda Division, having won just eight matches, and a staggering 12 draws, falling just one point short of safety. 

For the first time in their 89-year history, Granada have qualified for Europe and will now enter the second qualifying round of the Europa League. Their achievement becomes all the more impressive when taking into account the fact that they achieved promotion to La Liga in 2018-19 season itself, and finished higher than Osasuna this term, who had won the Segunda Division last season.

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