Often, the most fun part about hypothetical swap deals is figuring out who the winners and losers are. Last summer, there were speculations regarding Paris Saint-Germain’s (PSG) interest in Roma’s Miralem Pjanic. It was further mooted that the proposed deal could see Javier Pastore head in the opposite direction. Had the swap gone through, or indeed were it to go through in the near future, it is almost certain that Roma would get raw end of this deal.
The reason for it is more tactical than it is about the two players’ intrinsic quality, and that issue resides mostly with Pastore. The Argentine marveled fans in his first Serie A stint with Palermo in 2009. Pastore contributed 15 goals and 11 assists in 78 appearances in all competitions during his two years at the Sicilian club. Although the statistics don’t speak much in his favor, ‘El Flaco’ was a player of undeniable quality and destined for bigger and better things.
Today however, Pastore’s career has come to a halt at PSG. After a blistering start to his Ligue 1 adventure, scoring five goals in his first five games, it all went rather pear-shaped for the Argentine playmaker following PSG’s crushing 3-0 defeat to archrivals Marseille.
Pastore’s greatest weakness is his tactical inflexibility. He is a trequartista (playmaker) and this proved problematic when Antoine Kambouare failed to recognize it. In his second season, the presence of Zlatan Ibrahimovic operating in a central, free role forced Carlo Ancelotti to place him in a deeper midfield role before shunting him out left. Pastore managed as best he could but never really shone.
In fact, in Rudi Garcia’s preferred 4-3-3, Pastore would experience the same difficulties in terms of his positioning. Garcia deploys a flat midfield-three as opposed to the triangular midfield composition of the 4-2-3-1, 4-3-1-2 or any other such variation that would afford Pastore the central playmaker role he requires.
Pjanic does not have such limitations. When at Lyon under Claude Puel, he mostly operated as a central midfielder – in the same manner Garcia is deploying him at Roma – but also played as a central attacking midfielder or out wide on either flanks. It is his breadth of play and two-footedness that makes Pjanic a considerably more flexible player than Pastore.
Consequently Pjanic would easily adapt and fit into Laurent Blanc’s midfield, as the French coach uses the same 4-3-3 variant as his compatriot. Pastore, on the other hand, would require Garcia to change his formation in order to get the best out of him.
This would be problematic because Garcia’s midfield-three offers the defensive balance and platform for the front-three to stay high up and pin the opposition back, as well as allowing the fullbacks to bomb forward. Should Garcia switch to a 4-2-3-1, decreasing the number of players in the center would affect how much the fullbacks can afford to attack as well as it would reduce the number of players doing the defensive work. Should Garcia opt for a 4-3-1-2, the midfield-three composition is safeguarded but it would then narrow the formation and force Garcia to relinquish his wide attackers.
It is important to recognize that, despite Pastore’s positional imperatives, both players have ability. Pjanic offers more flexibility though, as well as the kind of work-rate that makes him the perfect fit in Garcia and Blanc’s respective midfield set-ups. But should Pastore arrive in Rome, the Giallorossi would also be taking in a player whose confidence has taken a severe nosedive.
The fact remains that as far as things stand, a Pjanic–Pastore swap is a non-starter. Walter Sabatini expressed to PSG last summer that the club had no intentions of giving up their midfield maestro barring a king’s ransom. Should Roma be considering trading their Bosnian playmaker for Pastore however, they would undeniably be losing out from the deal.
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