A star signing in Liga MX, James Rodríguez

Photo from @clubleonfc on X.

Thought: Pass quality and reading of the game are concepts that players can continue to develop, after their peak years

It’s official. James Rodríguez will play for León in Clausura 25, before the FIFA Club World Cup this summer.

James arrives in Mexico after just 140 minutes played for Rayo Vallecano in La Liga this season. Therefore, apart from his commercial impact, what does he offer León in 2025?

To begin with a general analysis, I’ve created a table with data points from James’ last season with more than 600 minutes played (Sao Paulo, Brazil Serie A, 2023). The shown numbers are his percentile ranks versus other attacking midfielders in the Brazilian Serie A in 2023. The data comes from FBRef.

Red- Percentile 0-33. Orange- Percentile 34-66. Green- Percentile 67-100.

In this moment of his career, James doesn’t have the ability to frequently create his own goals, or to beat opponents on the dribble and progress via carries. Also, he lacks intensity out of possession to help aid ball recoveries.

James’ strength is his left foot and ability to read the game. With Sao Paulo, we can see a large impact in the build-up and progression of attacks, completing many progressive passes and passes to the final third, with good retention.

However, it seems that Rodríguez had more influence in midfield than in more advanced zones. Whilst his xA (expected assists) was better than league average, he didn’t make many passes into the box.

Exploit set pieces

James was the assist leader in the Copa América, with 6. Of those 6 assists, 4 came from set-pieces (2 corners, 2 free kicks).

Set-pieces can be an undervalued and undertrained part of football. Whilst teams can generate more threat with well-prepared plays to create space in the box, often the most significant factor in a corner or free kick is the delivery.

Rodríguez has the precision to find the necessary teammate or zone to create dangerous set-piece plays. León should work on their set-piece analysis and training of plays to make the most of James’ ball-striking skills.

More details with StatsBomb’s open data

Thanks to StatsBomb, we can visualize more aspects of James’ game with their open data set from the Copa América 2024.

To begin, in the heat map showing where he received passes, we can see the variety of his movements, to find passing lanes and get more ball touches.

In his Sao Paulo metrics, we saw that in this moment of his career, James has more impact in the progression of the ball to the final third, than progression to the box. His receptions map shows a similar concept, with more touches in his own half, to help in build-up, than touches in the final third. In the Copa América, James received very few touches in the centre of the final third, the traditional zone occupied by a “number 10”. His final third impact came more for the right side.

The second map, displaying his progressive passes and successful crosses, shows Rodríguez’s variety of creative passes. James generated progression from different zones, with longer switches of play from the centre, through balls in the half-spaces (especially on the right), and crosses from both flanks. The threat that he can create with different pass types, in different zones, is his main strength, and a challenge for all Liga MX teams to stop.

However, like many left-footed players, James does create more whilst moving towards the left, where his open body shape helps to offer a range of passing options. In the Copa, 14% of James’ passes whilst moving towards the left were progressive, this percentage was only 5% whilst moving towards the right. Therefore, he may be more effective operating towards the right-side, with the ability to move inside onto his left foot.

In the final graphic, we can see his carries under pressure in the Copa América, and when James lost the ball under pressure or won a foul. It shows that Rodríguez doesn’t have such an ability to progress the ball or take out opponents with ball carries. However, James didn’t lose the ball that often away from the final third of the pitch, despite often dropping-in to receive the ball.

James impressed with his progressive pass accuracy in the Copa América 2024, completing more than 60% of his attempts in total and almost 60% of his passes to the box. Both percentages were better than the tournament average for players with more than 20 progressive pass attempts.

Thank you for reading, if you’d like to contact me regarding any questions, comments or to consult my services, you can contact me on:

• Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/tomh36.bsky.social

• Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-harrison-a682a2175/

• Twitter/X - https://x.com/tomh_36

También, se puede leer este artículo en Español- https://cambiodejuego.beehiiv.com/