Real Madrid: Assessing Luka Jovic's path into the first team

Luka Jovic‘s form from his breakthrough season that earned him his move to Real Madrid has not carried forward to his new league and team. This piece looks to assess what the future looks like for Jovic.

Before trying to assess any other striker at Real Madrid, we have to look at our current starter and all-time legend Karim Benzema, as he is the player anyone would have to replace. Benzema is the second-greatest striker in club history to only Raul in terms of overall impact.

Even if that point itself is up for debate, one thing is for sure: Benzema is an extremely difficult act to follow for any player. Not only is it notoriously difficult to succeed as a striker at Madrid, when the task is about trying to be successor to an all-time legend it becomes even more difficult.

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In the specific case of succeeding Benzema the normally difficult task of becoming a striker at Real Madrid – made harder by having to do it after an all-time legend – becomes even more difficult when you start to assess Benzema’s playing style.

Benzema is not a typical goal-scoring striker. While he is equipped with fantastic shooting technique – and he has been putting it to perhaps the best use he ever has at Madrid, – his standout quality is not in the scoring but in everything else he does.

He drops deep to help build up play and carry the ball when the team is struggling with progression. Benzema drifts wide (usually to the left) to help provide overloads when the center becomes too packed. He is extremely intelligent tactically and was a big support to Cristiano Ronaldo to create space for him to find good and frequent shooting positions. Benzema also makes assists comparable in rate to many midfielders. In terms of pure goal scoring, his numbers do not compare too favorably to the top strikers of his era, but barring a couple of seasons, he has put up respectable figures.

On top of all of that he is a good header off the pitch as well. We are talking about an all out multi-talented player who performs many different roles in the team other than just goal-scoring. Add to all of this the fact that he has been our starting striker for many seasons, and you realize he has come to define Los Blancos’ playing style. This also means most of the team that plays behind the striker have spent their Madrid careers playing in the style Benzema facilitates.

Comparing Jovic’s playing style to Benzema’s

Now that we have understood Benzema’s style we have to look at Jovic’s to assess how a transition can happen from Karim to Luka. If you look at Jovic’s last season and his goals, you see a much more traditional striker’s set of positions (centrally and in and around the box). The case is the same looking at his time at Madrid: you’ll almost always find him occupying spaces in a central channel. Lately he has started to drift a bit to the outside channels, but this is already a change coming from the training Zidane has been providing him.

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If we look at his assist yesterday for Modric, he was in a fairly central area as well, and he spent most of his time last match around those spaces looking to connect with his team to find an assist for himself to be in a good shooting position.

Jovic is also very economical with his touches compared to Benzema, preferring moves that will help progress the ball quickly and open up vertical runs for him. Unlike Benzema, he is not much of a dribbler either, preferring touch-and-move sequences instead.

He has good heading ability and has gotten close to goal utilizing it, but his height makes this part of his game harder to benefit from. During build-up play, Jovic will look to create pass-and-move opportunities, expecting to receive the ball back quickly and in space.

Benzema, on the other hand, gets involved with the play itself, will hold the ball, dribble past players and often remain in the center left channel looking to have quick and short interchanges to find himself a shooting position. While Jovic looks to use his movement to find himself in space, Benzema uses his dribbling ability and quick interchange play with his teammates.

What we have then are players who tend to occupy different zones and who approach chance creation differently as well. Where Jovic looks to be a player whose available for a pass, Benzema gets involved in making a pass and creating the play that provides him a shooting position. This difference means Benzema is used to operating in very tight spaces and helps his team-mates move defenders out of position for his own shots. Jovic, on the other hand, looks to find pockets of space, find a good position, and then finish well and economically when he gets a chance.

These are very big differences when it comes to how a team plays. If Real are used to Benzema creating his own space, having a striker like Jovic who finds and uses space well means the club need their play-making to change somewhat to include the creation of space for the striker. In fact, it was Benzema himself who played that role for Ronaldo, but Jovic naturally does not have anyone to do that for him when he plays.

So, how will it work?

Once we understand Real has a striker in Jovic who occupies different spaces to Benzema – and also contributes to play-making in a different way – they can start to find a solution. This is where Jovic’s qualities start to come to the fore: while he remains central and is not as cultured in play-making, he is a more effective scorer than Benzema. He also occupies a zone that promises more consistent scoring as long as Real Madrid can playmake well enough to find him in the box. The zones he plays in means he’ll always be positioned in a space that his shots are not as difficult to score from.

The players who will be important in enabling Jovic’s play are Fede Valverde and Eden Hazard. Valverde’s runs down the center right channel and his cut-back into the center of the box is an ideal play to provide Jovic with chances. Hazard’s ability to pull players with him and then make accurate leading passes are another asset that can help.

As Hazard drifts into the center, he’ll take the attention of the defensive midfielder and center backs, meaning Jovic will be ideally placed to receive a pass and have the right space to run into before taking a shot. Existing players like Isco highlighted how Real are not used to a player like Jovic. In the last match, Isco made runs collecting the ball in a wider channel and cutting towards the center where Jovic was positioned a bit further up. Jovic never had the chance to make a run as that move to the center meant the angle to pass to him was gone.

Conclusion

The coach reaffirms his confidence in Jovic, and you can see subtle changes to his game as a result; he’s listening to the development Zidane is trying to accomplish. This can make fans confident Zizou has a plan for him that will increase his scope of influence and will make it easier for him to integrate into the team.

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He won’t change the zones he occupies typically, but he will drift a bit more to the inside wide channels from the center to provide more running lanes to himself, and hence passing options for his team-mates who tend to play-make more from wider areas. Newer starters like Hazard and Valverde will also make it easier for him to get chances in the more central area that he is used to operating within.

As long as he continues to listen to his coach, work hard, and make the changes that integrate him there should be no reason why he cannot become a key member of this team moving forwards.

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Real Madrid: Assessing Luka Jovic’s path into the first team

By Ali Malik | Jan 11, 2020