The Lazio midfielder is part of that category of footballers who are not fascinating due to the refinement of their touch, the beauty of their dribbling, their elegance in running, but who have the ability to be found in the right place at the right time
Paulo Sousa, Luciano Spalletti, Antonio Conte, Maurizio Sarri and Igor Tudor are different people in terms of their conception of football, character and nature. Yet there is something that unites them, that makes them, at least in part, similar. And that something is Matias Vecino, or rather the consideration they have for Matias Vecino. For all of them the Uruguayan midfielder was useful, very useful, therefore necessary.
Matias Vecino is part of that category of footballers who do not fascinate by refinement of touch, beauty of dribbling, elegance in running. Matias Vecino has total disinterest in aesthetics, it’s something he doesn’t even consider. Also because his place in the world of football, that place on the pitch that he has earned almost three hundred times in Serie A, has nothing to do with aesthetics. If he took to the field, if he played and it was considered necessary, it is because he ran, gave and took kicks, chased opponents and balls and stole loads of them from his opponents. And often without even having to run too much. Because if there is something that characterizes Matias’ game it is the ability to be in the right place at the right time, as if he had a sort of sensor in his body capable of picking up the magnetic field of the ball.
There are stronger footballers in terms of physical and technical abilities than Matias Vecino. Few can be said to be, or be said to be, better than him in timing and understanding what is happening on the pitch.
Of him, former Uruguay coach Óscar Washington Tabárez said: “There are certainly players of greater class than Matias and, perhaps also in Uruguay, but class is a small thing if you don’t have a head capable of controlling it. And Matias knows how to direct the resources he has where they need to be directed.”
There is no energy waste in Matias Vecino, there is almost no dissipation. It’s as if it were a totally efficient engine, something that engineers and technicians still dream of, aware of the impossibility of achieving it.
The absolute efficiency of Matias Vecino is sometimes lost in a few too many fouls and warnings, in some mistakes due to too much enthusiasm or an excess of good will. It happens, especially to those who on a football field cannot even conceive the idea of not giving their all.
Small problems for all the coaches he has had, something absolutely negligible. Because what really mattered to them is that Matias Vecino was on the pitch and that his totally efficient football went up and down the pitch, combined the recovery of the ball with the finalization of the action, opening spaces or throwing himself to conquer the damaged areas , where his magnetic field sensor of the balloon takes him.
It’s there again this year Olivesthe column of Giovanni Battistuzzi on (not necessarily) the protagonists of Serie A. Small portraits, unpitted, to read during an aperitif. Here are the (not necessarily) protagonists of this season: Jens Cajuste (Napoli); Luis Alberto (Lazio); Federico Chiesa (Juventus, told by Ruggiero Montenegro); Andrea Colpani (Monza); Romelu Lukaku (Rome); Yacine Adli (Milan); Albert Gudmundsson (Genoa); Giacomo Bonaventura (Fiorentina); Zito Luvumbu (Cagliari); Matias Soulé (Frosinone); Riccardo Calafiori (Bologna); Etrit Berisha (Empoli); Jeremy Toljan (Sassuolo); Lorenzo Lucca (Udinese); Joshua Zirkzee (Bologna); Lautaro Martinez (Inter); Pasquale Mazzocchi (Salernitana); Matteo Ruggeri (Atalanta); Ivan Ilic (Turin); Sandi Lovric (Udinese); Mike Maignan (Milan); Tijjani Noslin (Hellas Verona); Mario Pasalic (Atalanta); Jonathan Ikoné (Fiorentina); Matteo Pessina (Monza); Hamza Rafia (Lecce); Loum Tchaouna (Salernitana); Michael Folorunsho (Hellas Verona); Matteo Darmian (Inter); Roberto Piccoli (Lecce); Caleb Ekuban (Genoa); Andrea Consigli (Sassuolo); Nadir Zortea (Frosinone); Mile Svilar (Rome). Find all the articles here.
