Joao Cancelo has made a fairly good start to life at Barcelona after joining on loan from Manchester City – and now, a very interesting statistic has emerged about the player.
The Portugal international has so far played for the club.
Barca are going well, and currently sit third place, just three points behind leaders Real Madrid.
Cancelo has played six times in La Liga, playing 90 minutes in five of those. He got half an hour for his debut just days after joining.
He has yet to taste defeat in Barca colours, and he is clearly an important player already in the eyes of manager Xavi.
One thing Cancelo is very well known for is his creation of chances from wide and midfield positions.
He may be a full-back, but Cancelo is a very technical and offensive player.
But one statistic now suggests he’s much more than that…
Remarkable statistic about Joao Cancelo emerges
Most people associate Cancelo with attacking play.
The common consensus with him has long been that his offensive qualities are much stronger than his defensive ones.
And there have been instances for City were he has looked defensively vulnerable.
But a very interesting stat has now come to light.
According to @Sofascore on X: “João Cancelo has won 70% (44/63) of his ground duels in the 2023/24 La Liga, which is the highest ground duel success rate in the top 5 European leagues this season among 301 players with at least 50 such duels contested.”
Cancelo statistic is impressive
It is fascinating to read such data from Cancelo.
At City, there was also criticism about his defending. It was never as bad as people made out, but it definitely could have been better.
This clearly indicates that he is relatively successful when it comes to engaging opponents in the tackle.
Perhaps the next thing Cancelo needs to bring up to scratch is his positioning.
In the recent 3-2 win over Osasuna, Cancelo was caught out of position. There is potential for this to happen though, with Xavi wanting to use Cancelo in a similar hybrid role to what he did at City.
