One common thing among all the biggest transfer stories this summer window is that FC Barcelona are involved. One such big transfer story was Raphinha’s move from Leeds United to FC Barcelona. The Brazilian winger looked set to move to Arsenal. Then, Chelsea hijacked the move, and everything was agreed with the current World Champions before Barcelona took the player away from the Londoners’ grasp.

Raphinha was linked with Barcelona since the January window, and the player’s preference was always to move to Catalonia. This move, in some ways, seems almost a perfect match and could prove to be a rare transfer success story for the La Liga club in recent years.

The below visualization shows where Raphinha ranked last season when compared with the wingers from Europe’s top-five leagues.

Raphinha can pretty much play on either side of the front three or even centrally at times. However, he is most effective when he plays on the right side. He is most lethal when he cuts in from the right side to shoot. The 25-year-old Brazilian winger ranked 90th percentile for shots attempted per 90 minutes. He also ranked above average for goals per 90 minutes (83rd percentile).

However, he did not have as many assists as someone would have expected him to, ranking only 36th percentile for assists per 90 minutes, although he did rank 84th percentile for Expected Assists(xA) per 90 minutes.

So, it isn’t wrong to say he was a bit unlucky not to have ended up with a lot more assists. Raphinha’s biggest strength is his dribbling, as indicated in the visual above. He is also getting closer to the goal quite frequently, as indicated by his percentile rank for touches in the box. An aspect of his game that he might aim to improve is his crossing.

Barcelona and Raphinha is a story that was destined for a happy ending this summer. Now that it has actually happened, all eyes will be on Raphinha to see if he can replicate his Premier League form at the Catalan club. Raphinha can be one of the most lethal players in Europe and it will be interesting to see where manager Xavi deploys him, given that Barcelona have multiple players in their forward line who can play from that right side Raphinha is used to operating from.