Over the years, Brazil has been responsible for producing some of the most exciting talents in world football. Some of them choose to stay in Brazil, while some of them look for big-money moves to climb the football status ladder. One player who is currently turning heads is Santos striker Marcos Leonardo, whose clinical performances up front have been vital to Santos’ 2022 Brazilian Serie A campaign.
This scout report will provide a tactical analysis of Leonardo, looking at his key attributes but also how he operates in line with the Santos tactics. In this analysis, we will look at his profile, how off-the-ball movement in attack allows him to score so many goals, how he lends his services in midfield areas to contribute to build-up play, and his work out of possession.
Player profile
Marcos Leonardo is a centre-forward who came through the ranks at Santos and is now a staple of their team week to week. Standing at 5’7”, height is not something Leonardo relies on, yet his jumping reach makes him very effective in aerial situations.
He is also not blessed with raw pace, but his agility, quick reactions and decision-making make for good replacements, as he is able to recognise dangerous spaces early, often before any opponents, and uses it to his advantage.
Positionally, he plays as a centre-forward, or occasionally as a second-striker, but he tends to stay rather central. As you can see from his heat map below, he does get involved in deeper areas — this occurs both in and out of possession.
As we can see, he has low involvement in wide areas, only rarely drifting into flanks between midfield and attack — left more than right. On the ball, his deeper involvement occurs when he drops in to help his team build possession into an attack. Off the ball, he isn’t one to apply a high level of pressure, but this seems to be in line with Santos’ tactics, as he tends to linger, awaiting the opportunity to steal the ball when an opposition mistake is made.
Movement in attack to get into scoring positions
In some ways, Leonardo is reminiscent of an old-fashioned centre-forward. He thrives in the box and feeds off of any chance he is given. As mentioned, he doesn’t possess great pace, so he uses his movement and agility to carve out chances. This segment of analysis looks at how he identifies exploitable space and puts it to good use.
The image above reflects a usual situation where the defending team is anticipating a cross into the box, hence their set-up. While the marking looks tight initially, Leanardo uses good timing and movement to get ahead of his marker, where he meets the delivered ball to calmly head the ball past the keeper. Despite not being a tall player, Leonardo has a real talent for being dangerous in the air, similar to Diogo Jota at Liverpool.
The next example shows good movement from Leonardo again but also his awareness and judgement over a longer period. Above, we see Santos attacking in transition, catching the opposition off their guard. The Santos midfielder fires a perfect pass forward, with Leonardo already anticipating the situation nicely. He lingers just away from the defender, keeping a small distance between them. He does this knowing that the defender cannot leave his current position — he can’t close down the Santos midfielder, but he can’t just shift across to mark the young forward and leave space out wide. As his teammate carries the ball towards the edge of the box, Leonardo pulls away from his defender just a tad more, giving him a better angle to receive the pass. He then shows immense composure to fire the ball into the top corner without requiring a touch first.
Showing composure while being able to anticipate how the move will unfold are signs of a deadly striker in the box, and the way Marcos Leonardo reacts in this attack makes it seem as though he’s watching the thing in slow-motion! The initial cross from the right is lofted towards the far post — it really could have just gone directly into the path of Leonardo, but it just didn’t pan out in such a way. Nonetheless, Leonardo shows a mature mentality in his reaction to this. We would see some players react negatively with bad body language as they wanted to receive the ball; however, the Santos striker shows exceptional movement to slip into space away from defenders as the ball is cushioned back across goal for Leonardo to bury.
Again, the movement is nothing overly complicated or difficult to get your head around, but the sheer ability to recognise space and move into it with good speed and timing to be in the right place at the right time is an immensely under-appreciated attribute of a forward.
This final analysis only confirms and reiterates the previous points about Leonardo’s ability in spatial awareness and movement. But one thing that has not been touched upon enough yet is how clinical he is after the movement when the ball arrives. His headers are accurate and often powerful, and with his feet, he finishes as any talented striker would. He has demonstrated composure in several areas of the pitch, and that reflects in front of goal.
Again, he uses his marker almost as a reference point in attack when anticipating a delivery. He starts the move just wandering, not giving the opposition back line any reason to pay special attention: this is when he strikes.
He reads his teammates well too i.e., he knows when the delivery is coming in, which influences his movement and its timing. He pulls away from his marker, and the cross is placed nicely for him as he buries yet another header.
Marcos Leonardo’s xG map of the 2022 season gives us a clearer overall idea of his scoring actions in the box. As you can see, he is highly involved in attacks and doesn’t shy away from a shot, even from a speculative range. While he has attempted a good number of shots outside of the box, he didn’t score once from range, with all of his goals occurring within 18 yards of the goal. Looking to the future here, should he make a move to a big, lucrative club, that long-shot tendency will likely be toned down. Without penalties, his xG sits at 12.15, with 11 non-penalty goals, which suggests he may be slightly unlucky not to have another goal on his tally.
Linking up with the midfield in build-up play
The composure, awareness, and all those mental/psychological attributes Marcos Leonardo demonstrated in attack are also present in the build-up phases. He doesn’t play fancy Hollywood passes or anything like that, but he drops in deeper at good moments and plays an important role in Santos making their possession more dangerous.
We’ve seen his aerial ability on display now, but in this instance, we also see his strength, as he controls an awkward ball using his chest, and brings the ball down well despite pressure from the nearby defender. His attacking intent shines next, as he immediately looks to drive into a more attacking and productive position, bringing the right midfielder into play.
Again, simple yet extremely effective play from the striker. How effective? Well, after playing that pass out wide, he makes a clever darting run into space between defenders, which ultimately gives him a free run in on goal. He receives the return pass, shows more composure and fires the ball home with impressive power.
Subtle movements in key areas can provide success in attack or at least great progression of possession. In the first image above, Leonardo weighs up his options. Does he run in behind? No, instead, he slowly drifts back at an angle to give his midfield teammate an option. Receiving the ball he continues to angle backwards slightly, opening up space to find his teammate who is unmarked in a wide area.
The ability and tendency to have your head on a swivel instead of having tunnel vision i.e, only playing the way you’re facing, is another under-appreciated attribute for a player of any position. Leonardo could have played the easy pass backwards, as we see quite often in many elite leagues. Instead, he hooked out a well-weighted pass to the wing before making his way into the box.
For a 19-year-old, Leonardo’s tactical knowledge, awareness and application are quite impressive and give him a tremendous foundation on which to build over the coming years. With his teammate in possession as Santos look to break into the final third, Leonardo throws the opposition off by feigning a bursting run forward before checking that run and quickly dropping to the space you see above, putting him in an excellent position to take the ball and drive at the Flamengo defence. However, this is where we see an area for improvement.
With pressure approaching, Leonardo is forced into making his next move. Now, if he had shown a similar rounded vision as he did in an earlier example, he would’ve seen his teammate on the left flank, in dangerous space, where they could have turned this possession into a dangerous attack. But Leonardo doesn’t show the same quality as before, instead opting for a near-impossible pass for another teammate making a run. While it could be argued that this highlights an ability of vision, this pass was never going to be fruitful for Santos. The best pass was out to the left flank. Like his long shot tendency, this is something that can be improved on the training pitch.
Off the ball
Leonardo’s role out of possession seems to give him some freedom to decide what to do. At times, we will see him drop deep with his midfield and invite pressure. At other times, he will apply minimal pressure just to speed the opposition up, while in other situations he will chase the ball down — this usually happens when he senses a pressing trigger. He also sometimes comes all the way into midfield to lend his defensive traits in that area.
Here we see an example of him inviting the pressure. When you look at the positioning of his teammates, they are in no shape to apply a high-intensity press. His positioning here also keeps a decent distance from his two central midfielders. This can be helpful in two ways. The first is that it gives the opposition a smaller space to pass through, while the second is that Santos have a clear way forward in the event of a turnover in midfield.
We mentioned how he occasionally drops into the midfield region to get his hands dirty. Looking at the Santos team in this image, their midfield unit is sat deep, so Leonardo’s presence allows for pressure to be applied while also maintaining shape in midfield. In terms of individual impact, Leonardo shows good but clean aggression, with determination to win the ball. His strength and aggression force the opponent back and, in the end, he was unlucky not to regain full control of the ball.
His stats and high regain map of the season indicates this role doesn’t require a huge defensive contribution, but this is likely to suit Santos’ tactics, as he has shown some potential in defensive and attacking duels. As you can see, he has made a decent number of counterpressing recoveries in midfield and in the final third too — and we all know how an attacking transition in these areas can be.
Conclusion
Several clubs are reported to be sniffing around the Santos starlet; Arsenal, Manchester United, and Napoli have all been mentioned thus far. He would best suit a team that creates plenty of chances inside the box, as Leonardo is immensely dangerous in that area. There are obviously some areas in his game to be fine-tuned, but he is already a player of good quality. It would be of little surprise if he made a move to a big European club in the next two years.
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