Alejandro Baldé: Scout Report
Diving deep into FC Barcelona’s emerging sensation—Alejandro Baldé. The article comprises of his scouting from the last season followed by my opinions on him.
Preface
2021 saw the debut and beginning of Alejandro Baldé’s professional career as a left-back for FC Barcelona. The soon to be turning 20 year old left back had a breakthrough 2022-23 season where he became a starter and has now finally replaced club legend, Jordi Alba. Alejandro Balde's meteoric rise from Barcelona youth prospect to first-choice left-back has been a sight to behold. His blend of pace, power, and technical ability makes him a nightmare for defenders, and his arrival at the top of the game is a breath of fresh air for the Catalan giants.
Under Xavi, the 19 year old played in 33 matches of which he started in 30 league games predominantly as a Left Back. In some of the games, due to injuries, Baldé also played as a Right Back and as a Left Winger. Xavi’s system lays heavy emphasis on ball possession especially while building up which there is a lot of U-shape circulation going on. Also, generally, the 1st line of defence is often a back 4 witch Full Backs wide or sometimes moderately high and getting high volume of touches.
Higher up, the team has many permutations for offence but mostly, Baldé is given a wider role with freedom to receive and linkup with the 8s, drive forward freely or drive inside the half space to find a player centrally. Against settled blocks and even against mid-blocks the wide players like Raphinha and Baldé are tasked to deliver crosses. The Catalans, almost every time press high if the opposition tries to build short.
Defence
1v1s
The 19-year-old Spaniard, standing 5 ft 9 in (175 cm) with a lean body, has quick feet to follow opposing players and deny them time on the ball. Even when close to the opposite marker, he does a tremendous job of dealing with dribbling wingers and wing-backs.
He mostly stays side-on to slow down the opponent during transitional threats and keeps an open body against more slowed-down situations. This also makes him less vulnerable against tricky 1v1 wingers. The 19-year-old has great foot control to deal with the opponent. He starts by maintaining close proximity to his opponent and prioritizing slowing down the opponent who usually receives the ball diagonally or vertically.
Baldé deals with the vertical threat much better by positioning his body with adequate distance compared to dealing with some of the diagonal passes or switches. This is because he sometimes gets pinned by a player in the half-space or the wide player. In both situations, the best way to deal with it is to have good understanding and sync with his teammate, usually an 8 (Gavi/FdJ/Kessié), who can cover the half-space positioned/running player while Balde rushes into the receiver.
One of the downsides on his 1v1 technique is that when he’s tasked with covering a large distance to apply pressure, he often commits early which puts him in an awkward position leaving him in a no-man’s land. This allows the wing-back/winger more time for their next action potentially a penetrative vertical pass.
Dealing with switches & long balls
While defending positional attacks, the opponent often attempts the switch towards Baldé’s side to which he deals nicely using his pace & 1v1 ability to his advantage. However, pre-switch there are aspects where he sometimes struggles. Whilst the ball is on the strong zone (usually the right side from Barça’s perspective) he may be seen unaware of his marker’s position as he tends to remain ball-facing and not scanning enough. This leads to the opponent obtaining an advantage when they receive or run in behind. With that said, he does a decent job to make up for that my covering the large space and defend it well.
A part of the problem is that he doesn’t scans enough which leads to him being too narrow in these instances. To take further advantage of this, his marker could drift wider which is quite normal. All these cases as a whole does make him a bit vulnerable to long switches and in-swinging long balls in-behind.
Defending as a unit
While defending these positional attacks, it is imperative to be well organised tuned well with your teammates. Baldé often communicates with his teammates giving them cues when necessary. Mostly, he initiates the pressure out-wide meaning sometimes he can be dragged out of his place but that is just a trait meaning there’s not much positives/negatives you can pinpoint in that.
Pressing
As a left-back in a high press, Baldé is mostly tasked with pressing from out-to-in on the opposite RB, mostly as a wide pressing trap. Due to his quickness, he always gets the better of the opponent if they make a mistake or take a heavy touch. However, when he sprints for applying pressure, he finds it difficult to curve his press meaning if he arrives any late, the opponent can easily change the direction and find an inside angle for a pass/dribble.
Aerial Ability
His aerial ability is definitely not one of his strongest areas of his game and hence can be in future targeted by oppositions. Being 5 ft 9 he’s not the tallest of the players and with a lean body he does has problems dealing with duels. He wins almost a little more than 50% of his aerial duels.
With the ball
Baldé loves taking on defenders or carrying the ball forward or inside into the half space when necessary. However, the tendency when not in higher positions is mostly to avoid dribbling situations and Baldé loves to circulate the ball and playing safe even though he’s got the ability to but that does seems due to a recurring team pattern/tactic nevertheless.
Dribbling & Carrying
He still attempts a large volume of take ons (3.50 per 90) with 52.1% accuracy (79th percentile). A very common tendency of Baldé is of him driving forward with the ball. Most of the times he attempts it when the tempo of the game is slow and in attempting such action, he is able to disrupt opposition line of defence. A fundamental reason why he’s so successful & lethal is due to his variation of pace both slowing down and accelerating while carrying. This combined with his dribbling ability and flair inherently makes him a deadly threat in the final third. Mostly, his forward runs are aimed at exploiting space and arriving into the final third, after which he could attempt a cross or dribble into the box and attack which is the more frequent thing.
He attempted 3.50 progressive carries per 90 last season.
Upon receiving higher up and wide, another frequent way of attacking is when he drives inside into the half-space. Again fundamentally his variation of pace is key which is what makes Baldé’s dribbling skills so lethal. When he drives inside, he inherently pulls his marker inside with him + creates more passing options and angles. Mostly, these inside movements pave way to switch ball to the far-side.
The positives here is that he’s aware of this ability and has ‘the knowledge to use what tool when’. He almost always handles his forward momentum quite well in such scenarios. What needs to get refined is his syncing with his teammates to complement each other’s movements and make the best out of these attacks.
Crossing
Statistically, Baldé is not a high volume crosser attempting only 2.44 crosses per 90 (35th percentile as FBs in La Liga). Baldé struggles while delivering crosses mostly when he receives/arrives in tight spaces. He most frequently delivers crosses from the left wide channel beyond the box and sometimes from the half-space he can deliver chipped through balls. His wide crosses come from both his left and right foot actually but however, a large amount of times they land inaccurate/teammates in the box could rarely create something out of it.
According to WyScout, Balde has the highest crossing accuracy (47%) of any player under the age of 21 in Europe's top five leagues. This is a very impressive statistic, but it is important to note that it is only based on a small sample size of 10 crosses.
Baldé hence seems inconsistent with both his deliveries either far-post or near-post as he's usually not tasked with this. If he finds himself in such situations, his priority is to recycle or beat the man 1v1. I personally feel Baldé’s crossing is mostly below par when his body is static or his opponent has slowed him down. When running with the ball at his feet, his crossing efficiency is much better probably because he makes good use of his forward momentum while delivering such crosses both far-posts & near-posts.
Cutbacks/Low whipped crosses
Like mentioned earlier, Baldé likes the forward momentum in these higher areas and makes good use of it. His timing for the delivery is near perfect as he premeditates before attempting it. This can be seen much more clearly and more accurately in these scenarios where he attempts these low whipped crosses or cutbacks mostly much inside the box in the cutback zone instead of the wider channel where he's kind of hesitant.
Dealing with pressure
It’s already been stated earlier multiple times how good Baldé is in his variations of pace and his dribbling ability. Dealing with pressure in his own third, he’s just as good and mature. With this press resistance he initially looks to attract pressure higher up on which successful he can make the desired decision to handle it, which he’s really good at sensing.
He’s also very risk-aversive and patient especially in buildup phases against teams trying to block passing lanes and sit mid/deep. So, he could rather play safe and circulate instead of taking a risky pass. Baldé has 88.7% pass completion rate which is 95th percentile for full-backs - really means his pass selection tilts more towards playing safe.
Passing
His short passing his very good and he’s able to find tight passing angles more frequently than not. Interestingly, Baldé has impressive numbers when it comes to pass completions rate and passes attempted. However, when it comes to key passes and progressive passes his numbers show a decline with 0.80 key passes (45th percentile) & 2.88 progressive passes (29th percentile). What seems to me is that he’s not much tasked in that role which is more dependent of circulation. He attempts 3.86 long passes distance-wise which is 8th percentile for Fbs!! This really shows how risk-aversive he is (which to me is an indifferent trait)
Receiving switches & long balls
Especially in buildup phases, Barça commonly evade pressure using him by means of chipped balls from the right side. His receiving of these chipped balls is splendid and he also asks for chipped balls to himself frequently enough as well. Again, his excellent on the ball ability both dribbling and finding short passing lanes after receiving these chipped balls is also what makes these buildups more dynamic and difficult for the opposition.
Even higher up, Barça use him as an option for a direct switch from the left very frequently. Here as well, he excels and he’s even better if given space to which he would attack himself by driving forward/inside and by dribbling.
–CONCLUSION & MY THOUGHTS–
Baldé has recently renewed his contract with the club till 30 June, 2028. The Spanish International has solidified his place as a first-choice left back for the Catalan club. With all said so far in this piece, he’s definitely an extraordinary asset and the fact that he consolidated his position at left back while Jordi Alba was still giving great performances speaks volumes on his talent as well as the coaching staff’s trust on him. His rapid and promising development excites me as a fan about his future.
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