We’re now just over the midway point in the 2023/24 Ligue 1 season.
Yet again, the self-styled ‘league of talents’ has delivered teams packed with quality of all ages and styles squaring off with one another game-to-game, from teams at the top of the table all the way through the middle of the table and down to the bottom of the league.
There’s quality to be found all over France’s top-flight.
Still, those playing for the more high-profile, dominant teams often get a greater share of the attention than those playing for teams lower down the league table, which perhaps dominate games less as a collective yet include players whose individual contribution is as vital to their side as any other player in the division.
That’s why, for this scout report and data analysis of the league’s ‘most valuable ball-playing centre-backs’, we’ve gone a bit deeper than just looking at the raw per 90 data, instead focusing on the central defenders’ respective contribution to their team’s per 90 numbers in a few relevant areas (passes per 90, long passes per 90, progressive passes per 90 and passes to the final third per 90) as a percentage and comparing those values with their success rate in each of those statistics.
All centre-backs included in this analysis have played at least 400 Ligue 1 minutes at the time of writing in the 2023/24 campaign.
Possession involvement and long-passing tendencies
Our first section of analysis initially focuses on which centre-backs are most heavily involved in their teams’ possession play.
When just looking at the raw data, the ‘passes per 90’ statistic in Ligue 1 is dominated by PSG players, with four making the top-six — including all of the top three spots — among centre-backs, along with two Nice players.
When looking at each player’s respective contribution to their team’s number of passes per 90, though, the two Nice players referenced above — Dante and Jean-Clair Todibo — are far and away the biggest contributors in the league among centre-backs.
Though Marquinhos and Danilo Pereira of PSG also rank highly here, they don’t dominate simply due to the team they play for and other names that may be overlooked when purely looking at the per 90 data, such as Loubadhe Abakar Sylla and Gerzino Nyamsi of Strasbourg, Yunis Abdelhamid of Reims and Logan Costa of Toulouse catch the eye more.
By doing this, we reduce the dominance of the big teams when evaluating individual qualities, such as the ability to play as a ball-playing centre-back.
Of course, the context of the team’s style of play and tactics is also necessary, and we don’t get that purely from looking at these numbers.
Still, looking at the percentage contribution to the team’s passes per 90 does allow us to identify players who are heavily used by their teams in possession and maybe even more critical, pound for pound, than those playing for the bigger teams.
As we progress deeper into this analysis, we hope to create a clearer picture still of the best-performing ‘pound for pound’ ball-playing centre-backs in the French top-flight at this stage of the 2023/24 campaign.
The second half of this section focuses on those centre-backs who contribute a significant portion of their respective teams’ long passes.
Again, Dante and Todibo stand miles clear of the rest, highlighting the crucial role of Nice’s centre-backs in their team’s ball progression.
With PSG playing the most passes but fewest long passes per game of any Ligue 1 side, it’s interesting that this time, Marquinhos appears higher among the league’s long passers than he would if looking purely at the per 90 numbers due to his team’s style of play.
This emphasises that while his team doesn’t play many long balls, it’s still a notable aspect of the 29-year-old centre-back’s game.
Lorient’s 30-year-old centre-back Julien Laporte is a specialist long passer who also ranks highly among his peers here.
He combines a high volume of long balls with exceptional accuracy.
Meanwhile, for younger Ligue 1 defenders, Toulouse’s 22-year-old Logan Costa again stands out here, as does Le Havre’s 21-year-old Arouna Sangante.
Contribution to progression
Moving on to our next section of analysis, here we’re going to take a look at which Ligue 1 centre-backs contribute the most to their teams in terms of ball progression.
We’ll now move on from examining which players are most heavily involved in their teams’ possession play and who play the most long balls to examining which players play a significant role in actually advancing their team towards the opposition’s goal.
Again, the Nice duo stand tall, with 40-year-old Dante reigning supreme as king of Ligue 1’s ball-playing defenders.
Lens’ 31-year-old Jonathan Gradit — the player who tops the raw progressive passes per 90 numbers among Ligue 1 centre-backs this term, follows the Nice players closely, with Rennes’ 23-year-old Arthur Theate and PSG’s Marquinhos among those not too far behind.
In this metric, Metz’s 25-year-old Fali Candé, Strasbourg’s 25-year-old Lucas Perrin and Lille’s 24-year-old Alexsandro Ribeiro are some of those who benefit significantly from measuring their progressive passing by contribution to their team’s overall numbers rather than just looking at how many they play per match.
Moving beyond progressive passes and players who help get their teams up the field and closer to the opposition’s goal, we’re now going to turn our attention to those centre-backs who specifically drive their team into the final third.
Again, no surprises, Dante stands head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to his contribution to his team’s numbers, though Todibo — while still boasting impressive numbers — drops lower, making way for the likes of Gradit, Marquinhos and Danilo Pereira to get themselves higher up this particular table.
Reims’ 26-year-old Emmanuel Agbadou, Lens’ 24-year-old Facundo Medina and Monaco’s 23-year-old Wilfried Singo are among the others to rank very highly among their peers here.
At the same time, Perrin, Sangante and Fali Candé all once again fare far better with this measurement than they would by just looking at the per 90 data.
Experienced standouts
In the final three sections of this scout report, we’ve decided to highlight two standout players from each section: experienced players (31+), prime players (24-30), and young players (U23).
Starting with the experienced standouts, we’d be remiss not to give Dante (188cm/6’2″, 89kg/196 lbs) his time, given how critical his role in possession is for Nice and how well the 40-year-old has performed it not just this term but for several seasons now.
At the midway point of the season, Dante’s progressive pass map is extremely busy, another symptom of his central role in Les Aiglons’ ball progression play.
A lot of Nice’s play runs through him and has done for years now.
Francesco Farioli’s side have only kept the sixth-most possession of any Ligue 1 side (53.6%) at this stage of the season, which is not very high, but due to their quality with the ball and central role in possession, Dante and, as we’ll come to later, Todibo stand out significantly when looking at things through the lens we’ve used for today’s scout report.
The Brazilian centre-back typically occupies the left centre-back position within his team’s 4-3-3/4-1-4-1 shape and plays a significant amount of lofted crossfield balls towards the right wing, as well as line-breaking passes down the left.
The left-footer is a quick thinker in possession who’s constantly aware of his surroundings thanks to his scanning, which speeds up his decision-making process.
Technically, he’s excellent at driving balls through on the left, even if that means going through a tight gap between a couple of opposition players to arrive at his desired destination with impeccable accuracy.
All in all, the 40-year-old Nice man is an exemplary ball-playing left centre-back who benefits his team a lot in possession.
Our second ‘old but gold’ option, PSG’s Danilo Pereira (188 cm/6’2″, 83 kg/182 lbs), just about makes this section at 31 years of age.
The ex-Porto man has primarily played as a holding midfielder throughout his career but has been converted into a centre-back primarily over the last year or so with Les Parisiens.
Danilo will usually occupy PSG’s left centre-back position when he plays, but that’s purely out of possession.
In possession, Luis Enrique’s system sees Danilo shift over to the centre of a back three between the right centre-back and the left-back who slides across.
This gives the Portuguese centre-back the chance to play with a full view of the pitch from the centre and decent access to every part of the field around him, increasing his passing radius and allowing him to be central to his team’s build-up and ball progression play.
Danilo is agile and well-capable in receiving under pressure and escaping with the ball.
He also loves to drive forward with the ball from the backline into midfield, from where he can dictate play almost as a holding midfielder but without having to receive on the half-turn or lose a marker as he starts slightly deeper. When he opts to do this, the other two defenders in PSG’s back three must tuck in further to provide defensive cover.
You’ll frequently find Danilo bravely punching balls into valuable positions further upfield to players in central areas inside the final third, quite often, whether from a deep position or from the higher area his carry leads him to.
Overall, his role in possession of PSG has grown into quite a large one, which his current central role encapsulates.
Prime standouts
Sticking with PSG as we move on to looking at players in their prime, both Marquinhos (right centre-back) and Lucas Hernández (left-back) also play a tonne of progressive passes for Les Parisiens from deep, but we’ve opted to highlight 29-year-old Marquinhos (183cm/6’0, 75kg/165 lbs), who is an out-and-out centre-back and has been one of the absolute best in the world in his positions for many years now, as our first prime standout.
Of course, Danilo and Marquinhos will have certain possession statistics exaggerated when playing for PSG.
While our methodology here helps to even the playing field a bit more, it doesn’t altogether remove the difficulty of comparing players across teams and playing styles.
Danilo and Marquinhos stand out in any event; they’re in their current position as critical men in PSG’s backline on merit and deserve plaudits for the quality they bring to their team.
Usually playing on the right of PSG’s back-three, Marquinhos also loves to play long balls across the pitch, switching the play to try and isolate his ball-far winger with the opposition full-back as well as driving passes — lofted and ground — down the right-hand side of the pitch.
The 29-year-old Brazilian has admirable vision, which helps him quickly spot excellent passing options near and far—undoubtedly aided by his intelligent and diligent scanning.
Marquinhos is also fantastic at creating good angles for his teammates via his off-the-ball movement prior to receiving the ball, helping to make himself available as an option for those teammates.
On receiving, then, he’s often happy to play quick passes under pressure, either covering a distance with them if that’s the best option or linking up with not-too-far teammates via some intricate passing play to move the team forward.
In any event, he never wastes time on the ball, acting decisively with accuracy and reliability, key for a player central to a very possession-based side’s progression play.
Second in the prime standouts section—we won’t keep you in suspense—is 24-year-old Jean-Clair Todibo (190cm/6’3″, 88kg/194 lbs), whose name we’ve already had to mention several times, especially during the data analysis section, as he kept popping up as a standout player.
Todibo doesn’t just stand out for his percentage contribution to his team’s possession play, which is obviously influenced by Nice’s system, which places quite a heavy amount of responsibility on the central defenders for moving their team up the pitch — he stands out for the level at which he successfully completes the relatively large quantity of passes, progressive passes, long passes and passes to the final third that he successfully plays for his team, hence his inclusion in our young standouts section.
Furthermore, it’s evident from watching both him and Dante play that they’re so central to their team’s progression because they are two really high-quality ball-playing centrebacks.
Todibo, a Manchester United-linked Toulouse academy product who played for Barcelona before moving to Nice for a reported €8.5m transfer fee in the summer of 2021, has developed well at the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur club, building up his reputation—which his Transfermarkt valuation also indicates, with Todibo rising from a €12m valuation to €35m over the last two and a half years.
Todibo won’t typically cover as much ground with his passes as Dante next to him would, with his 40-year-old partner playing more of the longer passes.
Still, Todibo is well capable of playing longer balls with accuracy as well, though he won’t look to switch the play quite as much, with his passing distance rising up as a result of balls covering ground along the right-hand side of the pitch.
The 24-year-old oozes composure, calmness and confidence on the ball playing passes with style and quality to move his team forward.
He also loves to clip balls forward gently setting the players ahead of him off up the pitch.
He will make mistakes as a progressive passer at times, but it’s to be expected as he is just 24, which is still relatively young for a centre-back. He’s got the perfect mentor alongside him to work through issues and develop his game, making Todibo very much one to watch, especially if he aims to emulate Dante in terms of longevity!
Playing alongside the experienced Dante has undoubtedly been doing Todibo a lot of good and helping him to hone some aspects of his game, polishing the raw diamond that he has been for some time; whether or not that polishing is now complete is up for debate, but at the very least, he’s on the right track to the top of the game, currently shining as arguably Ligue 1’s best early-prime centre-back.
Young standouts
Our final section of analysis aims to highlight the young standouts from our analysis and first up will be Rennes’ 23-year-old Arthur Theate (185cm/6’1, 171lbs), who turns 24 in May and just about makes the cut for this section.
Theate, who joined Rennes from Serie A Bologna for €19m in the summer of 2022 — so not exactly a bargain or hidden gem — is a left-footed centre-back who plays on the left of a back-four for Les Rouges et Noirs.
It’s no wonder Rennes spent so much money to sign Theate.
He really is an exciting talent when it comes to ball-playing centre-backs, now on the verge of entering his prime years.
Theate is very well-rounded, capable of playing with his right foot along with his left. He’s a quick thinker with excellent scanning tendencies and all-around spatial awareness who never plays with speed while never compromising on accuracy and quality.
The young Rennes player is great for getting his head up and ensuring his pass is on before clipping it forward gently and with a good weight or punching the ball forward to a creator ahead with the necessary pace to avoid an interception while still making it an inviting ball for the receiver to take.
This is without going into the rest of the centre-back’s game, which also deserves some attention, but that’s for another time.
As far as left-sided ball-playing defenders go, Theate is clearly a big one to watch and given the premium often placed on left-footed centre-backs — especially ones who are good on the ball — it doesn’t take much guesswork to understand why Rennes made this particular investment.
The second player in our young standouts section was a difficult choice between Toulouse’s Logan Costa and Monaco’s Soungoutou Magassa.
However, given that we featured Magassa in our TFA 24 for 24 magazines just this month, we felt it’d be too soon to gush over him again.
So, we’ve decided to analyse 22-year-old Logan Costa (190cm/6’3, 91kg/200lbs), currently away on international duty with a high-flying Cape Verde side at AFCON, here.
Playing for Toulouse, who have kept just 48.7% of the ball on average this season, the 22-year-old plies his trade for the least possession-based side of any in this scout report.
However, that’s really the point of this kind of analysis—to find players like Costa whose team context may obscure their individual quality to some extent and aim to separate their individual abilities a bit more from the collective dynamic.
Typically playing at right centre-back in a back-four for Toulouse, Costa is a brave ball-playing defender who is capable of accurately lofting one forward towards a target man’s head or drilling a defence-splitting pass from deep into a runner’s path.
Costa is one that’s been on our radar since he was playing in the fourth tier with Reims B in 2019/20, through to his time with Le Mans the season after and now to his Toulouse tenure — a journey that’s seen him rise through the ranks from fourth tier to third tier to second tier and then to the first tier.
This season is his first as a starter in France’s top flight, and while he’s playing for a struggling Toulouse side, he’s still been able to demonstrate a lot of quality on the ball, which he’s shown at every level he’s been at.
If one of the ball-playing centre-backs from Rennes or Nice or a club of similar quality were to be tempted away by another club, I’d be looking at Costa as a sensible replacement.
Conclusion
To conclude the analysis, ball-playing centre-backs are highly desirable in the modern game. We have shone a light on some of the standouts who offer the most value and quality to their teams in their current roles, some of whom are more experienced and some of whom are younger.
Indeed, others who deserve a mention and haven’t received a spotlight in our analysis, such as Magassa, to whom we recently dedicated a whole scout report, as mentioned, Lille’s Alexsandro Ribeiro and Lens’ experienced Jonathan Gradit.
Overall, we’re confident we’ve shed light on the necessary ball-playing centre-backs to know from France’s top-flight in 2023/24 and why there are key players in this area.
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