Who Is Sávio?
Throughout football history, Brazil has always developed world-class wingers.
The unique flair and talent is consistent in the many prospects that come out of the Brasileiro.
One of the leading talents of the next generation is the 17-year-old winger, Sávio.
As per Fabrizio Romano, Atlético Mineiro have agreed to a reported €6.5m plus add-ons offer from Man City.
Sávio burst onto the scene in 2020 — just 16 years old at the time.
Since making his professional debut at a very early age, he has been slowly breaking into Atlético’s star-filled first team.
In addition to impressing in Atlético’s academy, Sávio has also performed for Brazil’s U15 and U20 sides.
Still very young at 17 years old, he is very much a raw product.
Aspects of his game such as the end product and decision-making are still being polished.
However, he definitely has the talent and abilities to develop into a tremendous player.
The City Group will certainly loan him out and take his development very seriously.
Similar to another Brazilian talent signed by Man City, Kayky, Sávio should be expected in Man City’s first team in a few years.
In this scout report, we will conduct an analysis of Sávio’s playing style, looking at his strengths and weaknesses.
His role in both Brazil and Atlético’s tactics will be discussed as well as his best position and role.
Sávio Position & Style of Play
For both Brazil and Atlético, Sávio’s role has been fairly consistent.
In most matches, he has operated on the right-wing.
Despite being left-footed, he is far from an inside forward.
As shown in his heat map below, he is often near the side-line maintaining width.
His right foot is fairly good as we will look at in-depth later, so he is either able to drive inside or take it down the wing.
As he is predominantly left-footed, though, his heat map naturally bleeds over into the right half-space.
Sávio DribblingAbilities
Sávio is a very skilled player.
He brings an aggressiveness and willingness to attack which is often important.
He is very successful in doing so due to several components.
Overall, his dribbling ability is very good.
More specifically, he has the ball control and technique to match his flair.
In addition, his reactions are great as he is able to quickly react to the defender’s movements and perform the best move to get past him.
Finally, his acceleration and pace allow him to attack spaces, both on and off the ball, with great danger.
He is also able to use this pace to beat defenders with quick changes of direction.
Throughout his short career so far, he has averaged an impressive 10.32 dribbles per 90.
He has had a success rate of 53.2%, which is fairly high given how often he performs a dribble.
It is important to note this number is slightly inflated due to matches for Brazil U15 and Atlético’s academy, but he has been able to maintain a very high rate for Atlético’s first team.
At any rate, his tendency to drive at players and find himself in 1v1 situations is very consistent.
As we have seen with his heat map, he is often positioned as wide as possible.
This positioning allows him to maximise his time and space on the ball.
He is also able to have a much better view of the game in front of him.
As he is left-footed, he often looks to cut inside and combine through the middle.
However, he will also look to dribble onto his right foot with just as much frequency.
Naturally, the middle of the pitch will be much more crowded and consequently with much less space.
Taking players on down the wing allows him to progress with much more space and ease.
At any rate, his ability to be very threatening with both feet makes him very unpredictable and difficult to defend against.
As we can see in the image below, he receives the ball very wide in a 1v1 situation.
Centrally, his teammate checks in, bringing a defender with him.
As a consequence, the left half-space is very crowded.
That is no problem for Sávio, however, and he beats the defender with a quick change of direction to the right.
He can then dribble closer to the box and deliver a dangerous cross.
In another instance, Sávio again looks to beat the defender on the wing.
The creativity and technique in his dribbling make him very dangerous.
He is able to not only get past defenders but to beat them in a way where they can’t recover as quickly.
He is not simply dribbling past players to then have them right on his back.
He will often get past them in ways that create time and space for him.
In this case, he performs a move that essentially turns the defender the wrong way.
He then advances with time into a favourable 2v1 situation on the wing.
Sávio Passing Abilities
Despite still being a rather raw player, Sávio has good passing abilities.
In his career so far, he has averaged 26.6 passes per 90 at a 75% completion rate.
By itself, the success rate is far from impressive.
However, context matters very much.
From these 26, Sávio averages 4.04 passes to penalty area per 90 and 6.75 forward passes per 90.
These types of passes are naturally much more difficult and with a lower completion rate.
Upon a closer look, it is clear he is very aggressive and attacking with his decisions.
There is very much a pattern in his passing behaviour, and it can be illustrated through his pass map.
Against URT, he played 75 minutes and attempted 32 passes at an 81% success rate.
Since he plays as a right-winger, most of them originate from the wing.
The length and type of pass also vary a lot.
In the middle third, the majority of his passes tend to be lateral or back passes.
As he gets closer to the final third, nearly all of them go forward.
While passing is not a major strength of his, it still definitely poses a threat.
He has decent vision and awareness to put his teammates into dangerous positions.
However, this is not done enough and should be something Manchester City look to develop.
The raw ability is definitely there, but it needs to be developed in order to be a constant threat.
Against Boa Esporte, he is able to play a fine through pass to put his teammate in a 1v1 with the goalkeeper.
As usual, he receives the ball on the wing near the sideline.
He then drives forward and sees his teammate making a run into the space behind.
He cannot only break the last defensive line but take three defenders out of play.
As we have examined, his passing can progress through the zones and create chances.
In addition to this, his crossing ability should be explored by Manchester City.
His dribbling allows him to get into optimal areas to deliver these crosses.
He has averaged 2.65 crosses per 90 in his career so far, which is not necessarily frequent enough.
It is important to note, however, in the past year he has often featured as a substitute with limited minutes.
This lack of consistency and limited playing time has, of course, affected a lot of his statistics.
The ability is certainly there, but there are a lot of factors that will influence frequency and success rate.
A good illustration of this took place against Boa Esporte.
After receiving the ball wide, he beats the defender and drives closer to the box.
He gets into a very good position and has three people to cross to in the box.
He is able to find his teammate in the middle who is able to get a header off.
His strengths and tendencies certainly give him the potential to be a dangerous threat crossing-wise, but his delivery and consistency should be developed.
It is also important to note he is crossing with the right foot, his weak foot.
His ability to not only use both feet but also cross and create with both feet expand his potential tremendously.
Sávio Areas to improve
While Sávio has many strengths as we have seen above, there are some areas he must improve.
He will be 18 years old when joining Manchester City in the summer, so he will definitely have a lot of time to improve and develop into a world-class player.
At any rate, if he wants to compete in Manchester City’s first team in the future, he will have to improve these areas.
First, his finishing ability lacks.
His shots do not pose a large enough threat and as a consequence, he does not score very often.
He also does not create many chances for himself.
His dribbling and passing make him a significant part of his team’s attack, but those usually create for others.
Given he plays with his strong foot inside, he could be looking to create many more chances for himself.
Sávio is very intelligent with his off-the-ball movement.
He is able to get into good spaces and make good runs.
His pace also allows him to beat defenders with ease.
Given these strengths, he should be scoring and getting on the end of many more chances.
His overall finishing needs work.
That is his actual shooting as well as his behaviour to get into these situations with more frequency.
His goalscoring output could also be enhanced by improving his shot selection.
The best goalscorers in the world are not only there due to great finishing, but also due to shot selection.
The expected goal model quantifies the quality of a shot by taking into account several factors.
One of these factors is the shot location.
An xG map illustrates areas with the highest probability of scoring.
It essentially shows where players and teams should be aiming to finish chances from.
Taking this into account, we can examine Sávio’s shot map.
A significant portion of his shots come from very poor locations, locations with a low probability of scoring.
Additionally, almost no shots are from the optimal area.
This area is in the middle of the box around the penalty spot.
Rather than settling for these long-range and poor shots, he should look to keep developing play and getting into better areas.
This will drastically improve his goal-scoring rate and develop this area of his game.
In summary, Manchester City should look to develop Sávio’s end product.
Some aspects of his crossing and passing ability can be enhanced with less work, whereas his finishing and shot selection need a lot of work.
Conclusion
Manchester City may have gotten a bargain for the young Sávio.
While still a very raw player, he has characteristics and strengths that can be nurtured and developed.
His potential is very high, especially as he is a very young player.
In addition, the City Group certainly have the structure to carefully develop him into a world-class player.
Sávio is one of the leaders of the next generation of Brazilian stars, and Manchester City have done a good job in securing his talent.
The future certainly looks very bright for the 17-year-old.
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