After months of speculation, West Ham have finally confirmed the signing of 20 year-old Brazilian centre-back, Luizão, from São Paulo. The young defender, who has been extensively scouted by the club’s Head of Recruitment, Rob Newman, will join the Academy of Football on 1st January 2023.
Little is known about Luizão, but reported interest from Juventus, Benfica, Sporting CP, and Wolves suggest that Hammers fans have good reason to be optimistic about his arrival. This article draws on a combination of data and video analysis to explore his skillset, highlight his strengths and weaknesses, and ultimately work out what he might be able to offer to West Ham in the future.
At first glance
Though using data to assess defenders is far from an exact science, an obvious starting point is the most fundamental of all defensive metrics – defensive and aerial duel success. Interestingly, it is this data that your eyes are first drawn when analysing Luizão, and not for the right reasons. In the 1,111 minutes he played for Rogério Ceni’s São Paulo FC in 2022, the Brazilian centre-back won just 61.3% of his defensive duels, placing him in just the 23rd percentile amongst his positional peers. Whilst this might seem concerning, it is worth noting that Angelo Ogbonna, who has for a while been regarded as one of West Ham’s most competent defenders, has an inferior success rate of 60.7%.
Dig a little deeper and it soon becomes clear why Luizão’s success in defensive duels is so low, and it’s not for the same reason as Ogbonna. Where the veteran Italian tends not to be involved in too many defensive duels (4.2 per 90) thanks to his intelligent positioning and a conservative approach to engaging opposition attackers, thus skewing his overall efficacy, West Ham’s newest recruit couldn’t be more different. Unlike Ogbonna, Luizão engages in lots of defensive duels (6.1 per 90; 89th percentile), particularly for a player in a side that averages 55.1% possession, a product of his tendency to break from the defensive line and aggressively press opposition attackers.
A front-footed defender
It is worth noting that a front-footed defender can be a real asset to their side, and this has often been the case for Luizão at São Paulo – the Brasileirão’s most aggressive pressing outfit (9.7 PPDA). This press-heavy approach to defending is reflected in Luizão’s 7.7 possession-adjusted interceptions per 90 (86th percentile), an impressive return by anyone’s standards. He had a particularly positive performance in a 0-0 draw against eventual league champions, Palmeiras, when he finished the match with 9 clearances and 12 interceptions, the last of which he celebrated as though he had just scored the match-winning goal. Put simply, Luizão just loves defending, ranking in the top 11% for defensive duels and the top 15% for successful defensive actions per 90 in a possession-dominant side; that alone will have caught Newman’s eye.
The flip side of this is that a front-footed defender whose decision-making is not always spot on can quickly become a team’s achilles heel, and upon watching Luizão it would be fair to describe his approach to defending as trigger-happy. As mentioned above, this is partly by instruction, but knowing when and when not to press is a skill that any proactive defender needs to master. When played on the left-hand side of a back three it is a real strength of his game, as his long legs and sharpness out of the blocks allow him to get across quickly to deal with attackers that have gotten in behind the wing-back.
The issue comes when the attacker is in front of Luizão, who rather than back-pedalling and allowing his midfielders or wing-backs to deal with the attacker, often breaks out of the defensive line to close them down. Whilst this can be effective at times, more often than not it results in a) the opposition player exploiting the space vacated by Luizão with a smart pass, or b) they anticipate the press and turn so that the challenge comes from behind, winning a free-kick in a dangerous area.
This is probably why he has been viewed as a development option – Newman will likely have concluded that if Luizão is able to improve his decision-making he could develop into a good defender, particularly as a lateral centre-back in a three-at-the-back system. Perhaps his arrival is a nod towards us playing a wing-back system in the future. He already uses his frame well to jockey opposition attackers toward the touchline, something that Moyes will look favourably upon, and if he can learn to make better decisions when pressing vertically, he will become far more reliable.
Issues in the air
What is perhaps more alarming, especially in the context of Moyes’ side preferring to channel the opposition out wide and defend their box, is the fact that Luizão only won half of his aerial duels (16th percentile) last season despite being 6’2”. This is less of a concern for a lateral centre-back because when the attack is coming down your side you are tasked with closing down the attacker, something Luizão is good at, as opposed to clearing the cross. When the attack is coming down the opposite flank, however, you are responsible for defending the back post, and this is where his aerial inferiority could become a real issue.
We have seen teams score against us by exploiting this weakness before, with both Aaron Cresswell and Thilo Kehrer getting beaten in the air at the back post. With two aerially dominant players in Kurt Zouma and Nayef Aguerd, it is possible that you could mask this weakness by rotating with the central centre-backs or just tasking them with engaging in every aerial challenge. This is a recipe for confusion though and depends entirely on Aguerd and Zouma being able to reach the crosses in the first instance. If the opposition has a decent crosser of the ball and an attacker with intelligent off-ball movement, then it could be an easy weakness for them to exploit, so it is likely that Luizão will be working on his aerial ability at Chadwell Heath as well.
Progressive Potential
One area of his game that is unlikely to require too much tweaking is his ability to play out from the back, having shown that he already possesses both the quality and range of passing to take on an important role in first-phase build-up. Similar to Cresswell, when he has been deployed as a left-sided centre-back, Luizão is unlikely to carry the ball beyond the halfway line, let alone into the final third (0.3 progressive runs per 90; 25th percentile), but he is more than happy to provide a diagonal backward passing option and then play a forward pass into the feet of a midfielder or wing-back.
Over the course of the last season, Luizão maintained an average pass completion rate of 89.7% from 39.3 passes per 90. Whilst respectable, it is his forward passing that is more impressive, completing an average of 83.7% of his forward passes (77th percentile). There is still room for improvement, but for a 20 year-old playing in the Brazilian topflight these numbers are promising.
Luizão becomes an even more enticing prospect when you address his performances on a game-by-game basis. The young Brazilian’s passing performances against Goiás (52 of 57, 91%), Internacional (63 of 66, 95%), Cuiabá (58 of 61, 95%), Juventude (53 of 56, 95%), and Coritiba (37 of 39, 95%), will have given Newman a glimpse of the levels that Luizão can hit when he is in form; delivering such returns on a consistent basis would make him a valuable squad member. Looking even further into the minutiae is where things get most exciting with Luizão completing six of seven passes into the final third against Goiás. In Craig Dawson, West Ham have lacked a centre-back that is comfortable fizzing balls into feet in the middle or final third, so signing a defender with Luizão’s skillset should, in theory at least, allow us to transition through the thirds more smoothly.
As the club themselves have made clear, we should not expect Luizão to be first-team ready upon arrival, but there are enough signs to suggest that he could develop into a solid progressive defender. Though we are unlikely to see it any time soon, the thought of him spraying passes into the feet of Lucas Paquetá is something to get excited about after months of stagnant build-up play.
Understandably, fans are wary that Luizão could be the next Frederik Alves or Gonçalo Cardoso, but the fact that he has been scouted by Newman should ease those concerns somewhat. During his time at Manchester City, Newman was involved in the signings of Brahim Díaz, Pablo Maffeo and Angeliño for a combined fee of £200,000, three players that were then sold for £40 million. Fans and Moyes alike have long stated that they want to see us bring in young players with resale value, and whether Luizão turns out to be a West Ham stalwart or not, his arrival suggests a positive step in this direction.
