Khvicha Kvaratskhelia has arrived
Words on Kvaratskhelia who has set Serie A alight with 3 goals and 1 assist in his first 2 matches, with 2 goals vs Monza
Around 1.5 years ago I was made aware of a terrific talent on the rise via L’Equipe — Khvicha Kvaratskhelia. A Georgian international plying his trade at Rubin Kazan, but was published in the list of top 50 best born players in the 21st century.
This interest spiked as news of a transfer to Napoli materialised followed Kvaratskhelia getting a brace and an assist on his Napoli debut.
On his league debut Kvaratskhelia scored and assisted while this past weekend, he set the Serie A on fire with 2 well-taken goals. In this piece of analysis, I analyse both goals and his all-round play vs Monza.
Analysis
Relationship with Osimhen and Rui
Relationships are very important in the world of football, as they are in most other places to. For a LW, in this Napoli set-up, the player must be able to understand how the ST, LCM and LB work, in particular, due to their presence on the same side of the pitch. From the game vs Monza, Kvaratskhelia’s understanding with Osimhen (ST) and Rui (LB) came to the forth.
When Osimhen leads the line, Kvaratskhelia, at times, plays up front alongside the Nigerian. Why? 2 reasons. It allows for Rui to advance down the left and stretch play in that direction…
…also seen here:
…as well as being close to Osimhen to play off his partner’s movements. In the example below, you can see how Kvaratskhelia plays off Osimhen’s movement and conjures a shot for himself that is narrowly deflected wide.
The move picks up drastic past as Zielinski turns into a bit of space vacated by Monza. Keep a close eye on Kvaratskhelia and Osimhen — Osimhen is all over the central CB Marlon (in place of the injured Ranocchia):
As Osimhen spins off his man and makes the blind-side run behind Marlon, Kvaratskhelia holds his position as he notices both Antov (RCB) and Marlon (CB) get attracted to Osimhen’s run:
It allows Kvaratskhelia to receive the pass inside, and get off a shot which is deflected narrowly wide:
These 2 forwards combine in excellent combination play where Kvaratskhelia feeds off the STs presence. As the ball advances to Osimhen, Kvaratskhelia is in good knowledge of how well the frontman holds up the ball and therefore advances. He proceeds to receive the pass from the Nigerian international and plays it back to Osimhen with a first stride, first touch pass, which the ST blazes over the goal:
With Mario Rui, there is almost a trigger movement from Kvaratskhelia. I explained it in my other piece on Trossard/Welbeck, where when the former receives the ball, it is almost an alarm for the latter to perform the planned movement. This is no different here.
When Rui receives the ball, Kvaratskhelia is commonly in line with the Monza backline, always playing on the shoulder and looking for a slid pass in behind to latch onto. The 2 examples below show this:
(1) Here Rui receives the ball and Kvaratskhelia is playing between the RCB and RWB of Monza, but is on his toes ready to move in behind:
So as the pass is played, he is forever alert at attacking the space. But unfortunately for him though, in this attack Rui’s pass is underhit and cut out by the defender:
(2) The second example starts of with a chipped pass from Rrahmani to Rui. As Rui takes total control of the ball, Kvaratskhelia sets off to stretch the Monza defence in behind. The resulting duel between the RWB and Kvaratskhelia, results in a corner for Napoli:
Pressing
This was another impressive aspect of his game, where he showed his nous in who and when to trigger the press.
In the scenario below, Napoli lose the ball high up-field. With the presence of mind of Napoli players around him and how condensed the play is, Kvaratskhelia triggers the press by applying pressure to Marlon, who has just received a backward pass from his RWB partner, Birindelli. The pressure applied by Kvaratskhelia is infectious and forces Zambo-Anguissa to apply pressure to the man receiving the pass from Marlon and Napoli turn over the ball in the attacking third:
In the second example below, Kvaratskhelia notices that the Monza RWB is marked up by the Napoli player behind him and surveys the situation. Osimhen is ready to press the central CB and Napoli have an overload on Monza’s left:
These actions lead Kvaratskhelia to press the Monza RCB, Marlon, who is forced to play the pass back to the GK. This action from Kvaratskhelia, has further condensed play. The passing option to the deepest midfielder is cut off as well as pass to the LCB cut off:
Which results in Napoli winning the ball high within seconds:
Analysis of the 2 goals
I pick up the action here as the ball runs across the d-shaped area. One thing to note is that of Kvaratskhelia’s body shape. The way of describing it is almost like a Neymar — where he approaches the ball, looking as if he is about to roll it inside with his in-step:
Kvaratskhelia doing this creates the separation he requires between himself and his man, allowing him space to pull off the shot for the 1st goal:
The second Kvaratskhelia goal had a sort of foreshadowing twist to it. Looking at the clip below, you can see clearly that Kvaratskhelia is a close-touch dribbler of the ball. The thing to pick out here though is the subtle body shifts with his hips to the right and left. These movements result in Birindelli (Monza RWB) pulling up tight to him, allowing Rui to overlap and pull his marker away from him — leading to Kvaratskhelia recycling play:
And Kvaratskhelia’s second goal comes from this body movement. I start the analysis with Kvaratskhelia’s movement. As Lobotka carries the ball forwards, Kvaratskhelia drifts at a more passive angle away from the box instead of attacking the space as you are commonly instructed to do in that situation (black line — attacking the space, white line — passive line):
Why? The reason of ball shuffling. The close touch dribbling of Kvaratskhelia allows him to shift the ball from right to left or left to right and he knows he can square up any defender and pull this off.
So here, he can step over and push the ball wide of Marlon and get a shot off (black line) or do what he does by rolling the ball into his instep, and go outside the defender (white line), who doesn’t expect Kvaratskhelia to go onto his weaker left foot:
And he sweeps the ball into the back of the net with his left, as a result:
An all-round outstanding display from Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, where the Georgian international displayed excellent link-play with Osimhen and Rui in particular, an exemplar on how to press as well as a showcase in attacking brilliance.
The world will undoubtedly be now put on notice.
— H23Football