Typically, during the European club football season, I tend to watch highlights of some games I may have missed. I start with the Premier League, then proceed to the Bundesliga, and occasionally I would watch some Serie A. However, on one particular evening early last month, I was compelled to watch highlights of a Ligue 1 match between Rennes and Olympique Lyonnais. Frankly, whenever I saw Endrick score a goal for Lyon in my football app, I’d watch the highlights of the match. But within the first few minutes of the highlights, I learned the name of another football player: Rennes’ Mousa Al-Tamari
The match ended in a 4-2 win for Lyon, but I love how decisive he was in his play. He didn’t think too much, and those quick actions made the difference. His goal and assist in this match speaks to exactly that ability. He opened the scoring with one of the best goals I’ve seen. It must be a Puskas contender. I mean, look at this:
I started the highlights an Endrick fan, I left as an Al-Tamari stan.
Al-Tamari: the focal point against Algeria
Al-Tamari’s split-second decision-making against Olympique Lyonnais was not a once-in-a-blue-moon occurrence, but rather commonplace. Thats his style. And the data in the match against Austria last week supports it. He had tied for the most shots in the game with 4. Al-Tamari ventured into the opponent’s box seven times. And his style of play offers something different from the way Jordan plays.
Jordan, as a team doesn’t, shoot the ball or pass the ball a lot, nor do they do it well. In the Asia World Cup Qualifiers, the team only averaged 191 successful passes in a game (or 78% pass accuracy), 17th worst out of a possible 18 teams participating in the World Cup Qualifiers. So 78% success rate of only 245 passes in a game is pretty low. Their successful passes was second to worst in the Asia Football Confederation (AFC). They averaged three successful crosses a game, which was 12 best out of 18 teams in the qualifiers, and they also averaged about 17 long balls per game, which was dead last in the AFC.
But Al-Tamari passes the ball well. He may not have exhibited it against Austria and its father of gegenpressing, but he did show it during the AFC World Cup Qualifiers, with nearly a third of his long ball attempts being accurate and 80% pass success rate.
And one thing is his speed. Thats his biggest asset. The guy can run past almost any defender, especially in a one-on-one opportunity.
Algeria is a possession-based team and will keep the ball. But with a possession-heavy team, the best way to beat them is with more long balls over the top. Algeria plays compactly and they don’t clear the ball much, which suggests they rarely often get a lot of activity in their box to clear the ball.
But when a team is able to break up their organization, Algeria does foul, committing the 6th most fouls in the Africa World Cup Qualifiers.
Jordan’s game plan must be one that generates activity in and around the box, where long balls are aplenty against a heavy passing-oriented team. Once that pressure is applied, Algeria will not be used to it, forcing them to commit fouls.
Even though Jordan doesn’t pass a lot or well in their games, Al-Tamari can. For Jordan to get a result against Algeria, Al-Tamari must be the focal point.
And who knows, maybe he could score another Puskas-worthy goal akin to the one against Olympique Lyonnais!
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