Since an injury against Napoli, Roma have had to contend without their midfield metronome Kevin Strootman. The Dutchman has been a revelation in Serie A since his €17 million switch from PSV Eindhoven. He therefore leaves a rather large-sized hole in Roma’s midfield, but one Rudi Garcia seems to have creatively filled.
Against Napoli, Garcia compensated for Strootman’s early exit with Rodrigo Taddei. Prior to the Brazilian’s introduction against Napoli, Taddei had only started once [against Bologna] and made seven substitute appearances accounting for 122 Serie A minutes. More pertinently was the unorthodox role, as a holding midfielder, Garcia has assigned him since that Napoli game. Indeed, Garcia repeated the experiment in Roma’s recent 3-2 win against Udinese.
Taddei offers an option far different from Strootman. The Dutchman adds more athleticism to the Roma midfield. Both players boast of the ability to keep possession and both safeguard the flow of the game. The main difference is in Strootman’s ability to change the rhythm through his ability to run with the ball. In addition, Strootman adds more of a goal threat with his late runs into the box. The statistics hint at this, with the Dutchman scoring five goals and providing six assists this season.
Although both players are very important in their ability to keep the ball, which ultimately is Garcia’s prevaling aim for his midfield, they both do so with differing purposes. Strootman keeps possession but plays vertically whenever possible to hurt the opposition. Taddei’s use of possession os more to protect his side. The Brazilian uses the ball more horizontally, but intelligently lays it off to players he knows can use it with more incisiveness. Against Udinese, Taddei exchanged the most passes with Vasilis Torosidis (16), Miralem Pjanic (10), and Francesco Totti (9).
Taddei’s influence may have been understated in an offensive sense, but he has proven an important cog of Roma’s midfield in the past couple games. Taddei does match Strootman’s influence in his defensive effort however. Taddei made the second most tackles against Udinese (6/10) as well as he was one of the top performers in terms of ball recoveries (7). Taddei had also won the second most tackles (4/5) against Napoli.
Garcia’s re-invention of Taddei is something that is actually quite contradictory to Brazilian football ideology. Sometimes, Brazilian coaches have turned athletically gifted but technically lacking central midfielders into fullbacks. Daniel Alves is an example of this, now excelling as a marauding right-back, whilst Ramires escaped such a conversion. Taddei experienced the reverse, as he has mostly played as a fullback or winger in his career, and has very quickly and very successfully adapted to his new role as a holding midfielder.
It is difficult to say if Garcia’s idea to cover for Strootman’s absence with Taddei is a long-term solution or simply punctual. Indeed, it will be curious to see if Garcia still calls on the Brazilian once Daniele De Rossi becomes available again. For now however Taddei is proving a very serviceable option, even if there have only been two games to make this assessment. In this short time though, Garcia has found effective cover for Strootman. Garcia’s midfield may have lost a bit of its forward impetus, but in spite of the Dutchman’s absence it has successfully safeguarded its balance and ability to keep the ball.
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