Thiago, A Misunderstood Genius?
AN ARTICLE BY BIRTHDAY BOY (MAN)
Behold, the first of my player-by-player breakdowns. This might be a regular thing, it might not
be based on how you all respond to it. I’m hoping for at least Thiago and Konate this week, the
rest is a bit up in the air. So if you’ve got any suggestions, let me know. Note that I’m only
doing Liverpool players or players we’re linked with. I might make an exception for Toni Kroos,
though, because that man is the most underrated player in world football and should be
recognized as the second-best midfielder in the world behind de Bruyne. Also, if the formatting
for this thing is butchered yet again, I’d really like to know what’s going on and how to fix it for
future articles, Stu. I know it’s not your fault, though.
So, according to the idiotic dinosaur Phil McNulty, Thiago is not good for us because he’s got
zero assists for us. Others are claiming Bayern fooled us, that Thiago’s past it, that he’s another
Morientes. One even blames him for everything that’s gone wrong this year Yet, it seems fans have a warped expectation of what Thiago was supposed to do for us. He wasn’t supposed to be our version of Fernandes or de Bruyne, constantly attacking in the final third and racking up the usual counting stats. Instead ,he’d be more like Marco Verratti, another extremely underrated player (notice how the creative midfielders that don’t score every other game are underrated as fuck). We see the British media constantly propping up Scholes and bashing Thiago when Thiago’s got more skill in his big toe
than Scholes ever had. Sorry, on a bit of a tangent now, where was I? Oh yes, what Thiago was
supposed to do for us. Thiago is not a flashy dribbler or scorer, that was Muller’s job at Bayern.
Thiago instead is the conductor, connecting play effortlessly. The no-look passes, the deft
touches and movements, the samba flair that’s common among Spaniards and Brazilians,
that’s all to manipulate the opposition and open up opportunities. He doesn’t snag the assists;
he starts up the play that can lead to an assist for someone like Robertson or Trent
If any of you have heard of Tifo Football, my favorite video of theirs is their video on the Don
himself, Andres Iniesta. While training with Barcelona’s first team under Pep, Thiago was
constantly exposed to two of the greatest midfielders in history in Xavi and Iniesta, yet they
were guys who didn’t always rack up assists either. I know, to some, creativity only means
assists and goals. But that’s not at all what Iniesta was about. Watch the video and you’ll see
what I mean, here’s the link: https://youtu.be/VYsVz9CwfAI. Note the wording used: “If the ball
was an angry toddler, then Iniesta’s first touch was a lullaby”, or “He has masterminded some
of football’s greatest heists, but his fingerprints are rarely found at the scene”. For me, that is
Thiago: for proof look at the Champions League final against PSG last season, when he
dictated the midfield’s presence and calmly guided countless attacks. He was consistently the
outlet for the Bayern defenders, creating space and then launching some famous no-look
passes to Davies, who was already past PSG’s right back. There isn’t one stat that can quantify
Thiago, which is why the assist mention is so uninformed and damning. Like Xavi and Iniesta
before him, Thiago is a genius that cannot be fully described. Fitting, since Pep brought Thiago
to Bayern as a way to recapture the magic of his two Barcelona legends. When you learn from
the best, you become the best and emulate their style. Thiago is, in many ways, the same as
Iniesta and Xavi. And the idea that he is to blame for our recent struggles is stupid.
So, if Thiago can’t truly be quantified by stats, then how can we determine if he’s good? There
is one stat that stands out in particular, for me, again from that Champions League final against
PSG: he had more passes into the final third than PSG’s entire team put together. I know what
some of you might be saying: why do you keep bringing up Bayern, that’s in the past and all
we care about is what he’s doing for Liverpool? Just watch and learn. When he’s played, you
see the entire opposition keyed in on what he’s doing this season. Then you watch him
effortlessly find some open space for a teammate or manipulate the three players around him
to drive through them all and be more direct. He can pull off any pass, equally adept with both
feet. Numerous times this season, you see him take the ball and immediately pass it, having
already seen the opposition movements and preparing a countermeasure. Thiago thinks three
steps ahead of the opposition, his mind constantly in motion even if his body stands still. I go
back once again to that Iniesta video: “It was the way he didn’t seem to control the ball so
much as absorb it”. Thiago absorbs the ball and immediately sets the play in motion once
more. Go back to his debut against Chelsea: 75 passes in one half set a Liverpool record. The
rest of the team constantly gave him the ball, almost as if in awe of his awareness and ability.
That is Thiago: not someone that stats can easily quantify, but rather an artist, using the pitch
as a canvas.
So, if you’re still not convinced that Thiago isn’t a massive bust of a signing, here’s some stats
from the UEFA Nations League, they’re pretty much straight out of a video game: 10 long
passes per game, 1.5 key passes per game (more than English darling Grealish, mind you),
94% passing completion rate, 100 passes per game. That’s insane, unlike any stat line I’ve
seen. Dude’s a straight up wizard with the ball at his feet. Yet the doubters will still call out “But
what about Liverpool, Matty! That’s all we care about!” His passing charts for Liverpool this
season look like a flower in full bloom: so many lines spreading outward to the flanks, yet
passes towards the middle filling it in and providing variety based on how close he is to goal. In
short, he can literally attempt any pass and complete it. And he has done so for Liverpool. Note
that some of our most dominant performances came when he was in the lineup. Chelsea in the
second half, Leipzig in the Champions League, even that fateful Everton game that cost us the
season. Thiago was Man of the Match in all three because he had the opposition on a string.
Furthermore, you’d think Leipzig would know how to deal with Thiago after he spent 7 years
playing for Bayern? Nope, he still had them going in circles. It’s tough to say because there
aren’t a ton of raw counting stats that really do him any sort of justice. It’s just feel and instinct
that tell you he’s good, not numbers. And really, the game of football has fallen into the trap far
too often of only using stats to quantify a player’s standing. Zinedine Zidane made a great
quote when Madrid sold Makelele to Chelsea to bring in Beckham: “Why put another layer of
gold paint on the Bentley when you are losing the engine?” Madrid’s results got worse after
Makelele was sold because the flashiness of goals and assists isn’t always necessary for a
midfield. Lastly, one final quote from that Iniesta video, which I highly encourage you to watch
for yourself: “Imagine if Barcelona is a car that you drive on manual. Well, Iniesta is the clutch”.
Likewise, Thiago can be the clutch that runs the Liverpool machine if we stop using stats as a
means to diminish what he does.
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