The French striker has proven to be the ideal attacking partner for Lautaro Martinez.
On 16 September, the Milan fans who had gone to San Siro to watch the first derby of the new season had already been overcome by anguish: the thought of the Champions League semi-final that had just ended, the Super Cup final lost badly in January. Ultimately, it is a theme that affects Stefano Pioli closely, that of having built a brilliant, vertical team in these five years, which has dragged an old and fallen nobleman of our football out of the quicksand, yet capable of losing (almost) always against Inter. And if a then subtle trace of fear had already crept into the thoughts of the AC Milan fans before the match, who knows what they thought when in the fourth minute Marcus Thuram he set the Rossoneri left flank on fire. After having extended a pass to Dumfries’ body with the left winger to escape the defense, Thuram brought down Thiaw in the stride and crossed the ball into the center which arrived at Dimarco’s feet, and finally deflected into the net by Mkhitaryan.
It was simply as if Thuram was being pushed by the wind, running with his legs awash with an energy outrageous to Serie A’s athletic ecosystem.
Support Sportellate: associates Our work is based on the commitment and passion of a young editorial staff. Through the association you help us grow and always improve the quality of the content. Join now!
That match, we all know well, ended with a sumptuous 5-1, the first afternoon which showed us how serious Inter and Simone Inzaghi were when there was talk of the second star in the summer. Of those five goals only two bear the signature of Thuram, one goal and the leadership in which he burned Thiaw mentioned earlier. So what led Dazn to dedicate a video of individual highlights to him? In reality today, after 16 championship games, it’s easy to recognize Thuram’s talent – given that he has already scored 7 goals and provided 6 assists. When he arrived we were full of questions: where will he play, a historic left winger of the 4-2-3-1 in Inter’s two-man attack? Will he be able to act as Lautaro Martinez’s partner or will his tendency towards entropy, towards a game made up of wide spaces in which to run and dribble, collapse into the defenses’ funnels?
Let’s say that in the sixty minutes he played in that Milan derby it was already clear what the proportions of the impact that Marcus Thuram caused by landing in Italy were.
In the 24th minute he widens to the right again and receives a deep pass from Lautaro. Thuram is so explosive that he doesn’t need to do anything in particular: he puts the ball straight in front of him, because he knows it would arrive before the opponent, and then Thiaw knocks it down and gets the yellow card. Thirteen minutes later the malice with which Inter is demolishing Milan in transition – based on slingshot actions in which one of the attackers drops to play vertically on the opposite winger or, if he is pressed, to support a midfielder who replaces him – and made iconic by Marcus Thuram, from his a very violent shot that nails Maingnan, a passive spectator of the parable that goes out under his intersection. It is the reaction of the Milan players that speaks clearly: Theo Hernandez spreading his arms disconsolately, as if to say “And what can you do, it’s over again”Thiaw still troubled by the clumsy and useless run-up to the French attacker, Maignan observes the goal with a glassy gaze.
Thuram’s long runs to cut behind the opposition defense finally offset the more associative movements of Lautaro Martinez, this year the championship’s top scorer with 15 goals. In recent years it was the current Inter captain who smoothed out his own game to reveal that of his teammates: Edin Dzeko, whose conservative and dry style with the ball at his feet sometimes flattened the Nerazzurri’s offensive maneuver, and Romelu Lukaku, who returned from his experience at Chelsea evidently transformed in his physique and, consequently, in his performance on the pitch.
What seemed to be Marcus Thuram’s flaw to be ironed out most of all had to do with his ability to fill the penalty area. Having arrived at Borussia Mönchengladbach in 2019 as a second striker playing with the number ten, he had been transformed by Marko Rose into the “classic” Bundesliga left winger: a chaotic player, at ease in one-on-one situations but also inconsistent, a little punk without the ball. Last year Thuram became Gladbach’s center forward almost naturally, given the club’s difficulties in finding players on the market and Alassane Plea’s difficulties in scoring. The team, coached by Daniel Farke, ultimately finished tenth and Thuram decided not to renew his contract. Hence Beppe Marotta’s usual interest in free transfer deals, and after a few weeks of negotiations which then collapsed with PSG, on 1 July his arrival at Inter to replace Lukaku was announced.
In Serie A he is among the attackers most present in the penalty area – 6.1 touches per game, in the 85th percentile according to Fbref – and the goals he scored also prove it to us. Against Lazio a nice crossing shot with the left-footed player always in transition, against Roma and Fiorentina respectively a header and a tap-in close to the small area, as an experienced center forward. Like those once upon a time, we often say in the throes of nostalgia for a football in which the attackers elbowed the defenders, the penalty area transformed into the field of a western film in which the smartest one wins. Not really the style of Thuram, who attacks the goal with more intelligence and timing than by force in the pure sense of the term. Thuram is over six feet tall but has a not very powerful physique, his biceps are toned but lean like those of a pentathlete. His slightly squared shoulders make him look like a sort of zinc box that rolls over his opponents as if he were on an inclined plane.
«For me, being a number nine means making the right choice on the pitch» Marcus Thuram said in an interview with the channel Youtube of Serie A, explaining his original vision of the role of the attacker. «You can’t shoot if there is a free teammate» has continued. It’s an uncommon way of thinking, which we also saw in the match
at the end of November against Juventus, in which he provided the assist for the equaliser.
In that case, Inter’s goal was an example of Thuram’s qualities in the open field, but also of his footballing chemistry with Lautaro Martinez.
In the 32nd minute Inter attracted Juventus’ pressing out of the comfort zone of their own half with an action woven with patience. Dumfries receives and is held close to the sideline by Kostic; the Dutchman manages to pass the ball through Stretcher and then Inter spread out, climbing up the links with vigor in the open field, as they have been used to doing since the days of Antonio Conte.
Thuram takes advantage of the release of Rugani on Barella and cuts behind him, passing in front of the figure of Bremer. In theory it is a movement that would lead him to isolate himself on the wing, away from his teammates and engaged in a duel against one of the best defenders in our league.
Thuram’s progression, however, is unstoppable when the field spreads out in front of him and he has the space and time to hook the ball as he wants. Here he not only controls a loose ball well, with Bremer trying to push it with his usual brutality as a central defender refined by Juric: Thuram even manages to dribble it with technique, feigning a double step and taking the ball forward on the wing.
It’s as if Thuram had rewritten Bremer’s distance from his body, and so as he got closer to the goal his opponent ended up further and further away.
Thuram is free to cross and…
…Lautaro Martinez’s movement to parade behind Gatti does the rest. As if he was aware of Thuram’s choice for the cross to the near post, the ‘Toro’ first feigned an attack at the far post to induce Gatti to cover that area, and then he cut in front of him with impetus to anticipate him. It’s the law of number nine: put your eyes where the defender has the back of his head, command the action even without the ball.
From the first few days there has been talk of Thu-La, Inter’s new attacking pair who should have taken the place of Lu-La, the one made up of Lautaro and Lukaku.
«We complement each other because we are two intelligent players» said Thuram, who provided other assists to Lautaro: a cross from the left against Salernitana and a masterful opening, as a classy centre-forward, against Fiorentina. “It’s easy to play with someone like Lautaro” are the first words of love from Thuram, who will perhaps try to dig into the wounded heart of ‘Toro’ after Lukaku’s failure to return in the summer.
We couldn’t have expected it but Thuram’s game seems to have improved slightly even in the strait. He is an attacker who never stands still, who likes to wander around the pitch until he finds the right space in which to make use of the titanic energy that he has condensed in his body, and yet even with his back to goal he has started to have a value. A good first line against Bologna, again for Lautaro Martinez, accelerated his teammate’s shot on goal. If you add that Calahnoglu’s pass was tense and strong, almost a sweep, the fact that Thuram caught him with that calm is even more unprecedented for his style of play. Due to his nature when he arrived in Italy.
According to statistics, Thuram is now one of the best attackers in Serie A. He doesn’t shoot a lot – on average 2.85 times per game – but he completes 78% of the dribbles he attempts and is among the 15% of center forwards who complete the most progressive passes: 2.62 every ninety minutes. With him, Inter rediscovered the attack on forgotten portions of the pitch, in which Thuram turns on the engine to arrive first and give the team an advantage. Arrived as a son of art and a whimsical but in some ways enigmatic player, It took Marcus Thuram just over three months to conquer Serie A. «I understood after a week that we would have had great satisfaction with him» said Simone Inzaghi in October. Hearing such a subdued, almost impassive coach like Inzaghi lose his balance, perhaps we should have suspected that the best was yet to come for Marcus Thuram. And indeed it is coming.
2023-12-21 15:00:00
#Marcus #Thuram #plays #Inter #paired #Lautaro
