The 22-year-old Juan Brunetta has arguably been the best player of Godoy Cruz this season and has already been linked with several clubs, including giants River Plate. The young Argentinian, who also has Italian nationality, is a versatile midfielder who can play in every position in midfield, but also on both sides on the wing.
Starting his professional career at Arsenal FC (Argentina), Juan Brunetta has always been in the spotlight. He made his debut for the first team of Arsenal when he was 18 years old and he immediately played 23 games at the highest level in Argentina. In his first season, he scored four goals and gave two assists.
He moved to Club Atlético Belgrano after just one season and that move did not turn out to be a good decision. He was not a regular starter at his new club and after just two seasons he moved once again. Whether this move was a good one is debatable. He has been Godoy Cruz’ best player, but Godoy Cruz are currently fighting against relegation as they are in last place at the moment.
This scout report will provide a tactical analysis of the role that Brunetta performs at Godoy Cruz.
Positioning
This season, Brunetta has played as a central midfielder, an attacking midfielder, a second striker, a left-winger and as a right-winger. That is the reason why a heatmap of his full season would not be that useful, as it would include him playing in several positions. For that sake, this tactical analysis will include two heatmaps. One of him playing as an attacking midfielder and one of him playing as a left-winger.
The first heatmap includes Brunetta playing as an attacking midfielder. It can be seen that Brunetta covers a lot of ground and that he likes to drift wide often, especially to the left-hand side of the pitch. The young Argentine is often found in the box of the opponent, but he also appears in his own one. Later in this tactical analysis, it will be explained why he can be found nearly everywhere on the pitch.
The second heatmap of Brunetta includes him playing as a left-winger. It can be seen that he likes to take a central position and that he can be found on the right-hand side of the field as well. Also, he comes back to defend quite often. However, it would be more representative if a heatmap of him playing more matches in the same position would be available.
There is only one big difference between him playing as a left-winger and him playing as an attacking midfielder. When Brunetta plays as a left-winger, he often takes up a central place and drops back to get into possession. However, when Brunetta plays as an attacking midfielder, he often likes to drift wide to create space for himself. Because that’s the only big difference, we will provide an analysis of his playing style independent of the different positions.
Passing ability
Brunetta is technically gifted and has a decent first touch. He is good with both feet and has good vision as well. The young Argentine is a very active midfielder who wants to receive the ball from his teammates often. He always keeps moving around, trying to get into space. In the image down below, Godoy Cruz is in possession and Brunetta sees space to receive the ball and move it forward towards the opposites’ goal. However, his teammate does not see him and the chance goes to waste. These tactics are used by his teammates very often. They use nearly every chance they get to play the ball into the box.
Brunetta is a very creative player and always tries to create a chance for himself or to create a chance for his teammates. Per 90 minutes, Brunetta gives 0.88 key passes which is a decent amount, keeping in mind that Godoy Cruz currently sits in last place and does not have the ball that often. The Argentine has a great kicking technique, which leads to him being able to give key passes from distance as well. 56,67% of his key passes come from free-kicks, while 6,67% come from crosses.
His eagerness to create chances for himself and his teammates lead to Brunetta giving the ball away often as well. Per 90 minutes, the Argentinian midfielder gives away the ball 14.35 times. 52.1% of these possession losses were in the final third.
Brunetta only gives 22,19 simple passes per 90 minutes, which can be explained because Godoy Cruz do not have possession that often. In total, he has made 756 simple passes. 477 of them were on the opposites half and 372 were forward. Out of those 477 passes on the opposites half, he has a success rate of 89,1% which is quite good. The Argentine gave 35 passes to the box as well and 68,6% of those passes to the box are accurate.
The Argentinian midfielder gives 1.79 long passes per 90 minutes, which is a total of 61 long passes. 39 of them were on the opposites half and 84,6% of those were accurate. Brunetta gave 9 passes to the box as well and all of those passes were accurate.
Decision-making
As Godoy Cruz do not have the ball that often, it is important to keep calm when you do have a goalscoring opportunity. However, when Brunetta has the ball, he sometimes loses his calmness which leads to him making a bad decision. While there are teammates completely free, Brunetta sometimes tries to dribble past three or four men without seeing his teammate standing completely free. In the image down below, it can be seen that Brunetta shoots from distance while his teammate makes a good run.
Shooting ability
In the image above, it can be seen that Brunetta shoots from distance while a teammate makes a good run into space. The young midfielder shoots 2.05 times per 90 minutes and is not scared to shoot from distance as well. 62.6% of his shots were from outside the box. When it comes to his ability to shoot, it can be seen that he misses the target 47,6% of the time. Especially his higher shots are not on target often. Per 90 minutes, Brunetta averages 1.97 opportunities. Out of these 1.97 opportunities, he scores 10,4%.
Dribbling ability
As already mentioned before, Brunetta likes to shoot from distance and likes to dribble. Per 90 minutes, Brunetta averages 5.84 dribbles. The midfielder has a success rate of 66,3% which is very good. 63,8% of those dribbles were in the final third. When Brunetta dribbles, he likes to keep the ball close to his feet and he is very agile which means that he can twist and turn quickly.
Looking at his surroundings
One thing that immediately caught my eye is that Brunetta always looks at his surroundings, with and without the ball. This is why he nearly always makes the right run and why he can be very dangerous playing around the striker. In the image down below, an example of him looking at his surroundings can be seen.
Another example: Godoy Cruz have a free-kick and it can be seen that Brunetta watches his back and he sees that there is a lot of space for him. Brunetta tricks his direct opponent in thinking that he wants to receive the ball short and then sprints towards goal. Eventually, a good pass is being made by Gutierrez and Brunetta has a good first touch. He nears the goal line and decides to cut back, tricking his opponent once again. Then Brunetta composes himself well and scores a very good goal.
To be able to constantly look at your surroundings and to be able to see where the space is, is a very good quality of Brunetta.
Defensive contribution
As already mentioned, Godoy Cruz is in last place at the moment. Most of Brunetta’s teammates only try to clear the ball rather than keeping calm and playing it out from the back. This leads to Brunetta having a lot of aerial duels and ground duels as they do not have possession most of the time. Brunetta is only 1.75M tall, so he does relatively well to win 25.4% of his aerial duels. In total, he has 1.97 aerial duels per 90 minutes.
When it comes to 1-on-1 defending, it can be seen that Brunetta has 2.11 duels per 90 minutes. The Argentine only wins 19,4% of his 1-on-1 defensive duels. However, this can be explained. Because Brunetta is such an energetic player, he is too eager to recover possession. This leads to quite a lot of slide tackles which makes him easy to get past. He definitely needs to improve this. He needs to stay calm when he defends and look at the ball more.
The 22-year-old Argentinian has a lot of defensive duels per 90 minutes as well. In total, he averages 6,14 defensive duels per 90 minutes. Of those defensive duels, he loses 52,6%.
Brunetta is a hard-working midfielder and that can be seen by the number of interceptions he makes per 90 minutes. He averages 2.55 interceptions per 90 minutes, which is relatively high for an attacking midfielder or left-winger. In addition to that, 33,3% of his interceptions were made in the defensive third.
Conclusion
Logically, a lot of Argentinian teams are interested in the 22-year-old and he would provide creativity, work-rate and goals to his new club. Brunetta has some qualities that not a lot of players have, but he still needs to improve in some areas as well. First of all, he needs to compose himself when it comes to defending. Besides that, he needs to improve his decision-making and try to find his teammates more often rather than shooting from 35 meters. However, Brunetta is an exciting player to watch and it will be interesting how his career will turn out.
Rating: A1
This piece was originally published at Football Bloody Hell.