From Brahim Díaz to Iván Jaime to Dean Huijsen, Málaga’s academy has produced a treasure trove of top-class footballers in recent years. The latest player to emerge from Los Boquerones’ academy and excel at the highest level is none other than Juan Cruz Díaz Espósito.

Born in Quilmes, Argentina, Juan Cruz moved across the Atlantic Ocean at a young age and grew up in Rincón de la Victoria, Málaga, Andalusia. He joined Málaga’s academy in 2010 and worked his way up the youth ranks before eventually making his LaLiga debut on May 19, 2018 in a 0-1 defeat to Getafe — the same year that he won a gold medal in the Mediterranean Games with Spain’s U-18 side.

On July 1, 2021, Cruz left his boyhood club after his contract expired and joined Real Betis, with the youngster eventually making his first-team debut on October 16, 2022. Two weeks later, he scored his first professional goal, opening the scoring in a 2-0 win at Real Sociedad. Whilst Cruz managed 14 appearances for the Verdiblancos, he wasn’t quite able to become a consistent performer under Manuel Pellegrini and eventually joined CD Leganés on loan on February 1, 2024, which was later made permanent for €1 million.

Óscar Rodríguez’s Sensational Return to Leganés

Cruz’s move to the Spanish capital was a fruitful one, scoring 4 goals and 2 appearances in 16 appearances as Leganés finished atop the Segunda for the first time in the club’s history. After ending a four-year absence from LaLiga, many were skeptical about Los Pepineros’ ability to cope with the adjustment to the top-flight. Instead, Leganés currently find themselves in 15th place, three points above the drop, having accumulated 18 points from their first 18 matches.

At 24 years of age, Cruz is finally getting regular minutes at the top level and has emerged as an attacking protagonist under Leganés manager Borja Jiménez. He’s scored 4 goals and 1 assists in 17 league matches (twice as many goals as the next-best scorer), and he leads Leganés in Expected Assists (2.01), scoring frequency (one goal every 247 minutes), successful dribbles per game (1.4) and goal contributions (5).

What’s more, Cruz sits level atop the Leganés squad with 1.1 shots per game alongside Óscar Rodríguez and Miguel de la Fuente as well as 0.5 shots on target per game alongside De La Fuente. He’s shown his value on the playmaking side — only Rodríguez (5) has created as many big chances as Cruz in Leganés’ team. Today, we’re taking a deep look at Cruz’s importance for the club.

Name: Juan Cruz

Position: Right Winger/Attacking Midfielder

Country: Spain

Age: 24

Height: 180cm

Preferred Foot: Left

Goals + Assists

Here, we can see that Juan Cruz is significantly over-performing his xG as even though his xG is still high reaching almost 0.2 xG, he is close to averaging a goal every 2 matches with almost 0.5 xG. 

This tells us that although he has started the season with a high goal tally, this is unlikely to continue and his goal streak will lower down to around 1 goal every 5 matches. Nonetheless, these numbers are not low and this tells us that he has the ability to get into goal-scoring positions.

In this image, we can observe that Juan Cruz is above average for both xA/90 and assists/90 which shows his ability to generate goal-scoring opportunities for his teammates. Both of these scatter plots suggest that he is a very capable and decisive player for his team with xG and xA numbers above the expected for a team that is in the bottom half of the table.

Most of the opportunities he creates come from crosses using his left foot. Nonetheless, he doesn’t have to resort to this as he is also able at times to perform dangerous passes leading to big chances. Against Sevilla, he often tried to play passes in behind the defence like this one.

Crossing

Crosses are a fundamental part of how a winger plays and can also tell us the profile of the winger. If he attempts many crosses that means he likes to stay on the wing, and vice versa, if he doesn’t attempt many crosses that means he likes to play more central and in between the lines.

Thanks to this image, we can say that Juan Cruz is a player who likes to cross the ball with over 3 crosses per 90. Nonetheless, his precision is below the average, however, considering Lamine Yamal’s crosses have lower precision, we can say that his crosses are effective. These crosses are probably one of the factors for which his xA is quite high compared to the rest of the wingers.

Juan Cruz is a player with excellent technical attributes and being an inverted winger without the explosiveness to be successful in 1vs1 situations, he usually resorts to cutting onto his left foot to cross or shoot.

Dribbling

Dribbling is usually one of the standout traits of wingers as the ability to dribble past opponents in 1vs1 situations can be very helpful for the team, and they are usually in situations to make this happen.

This image tells us that Juan Cruz is a winger who likes to dribble and participate in 1vs1 situations with more than 5 dribbles per 90, and an average success rate. In fact, his numbers are similar to other great dribblers like Rodrygo or Bryan Gil, so it is fair to say that he is a very effective dribbler and can create dangerous situations with this ability.

Overall

This chart compares Juan Cruz with the rest of the LaLiga players in his position using percentiles in different aspects of the game. The percentiles work in the way that whatever the number, he is better than that percentage of players. If it is 70, he is better than 70%.

This chart shows us that Juan Cruz’s offensive output is in lower than average percentiles for expected assists and expected goals. However, this may be due to the fact that the chart includes attacking midfielders as in the previous scatter plots we could see that he was above the average in his position. In addition, in the video footage we see that he has some great technical attributes and another factor leading to this could be that Leganés are not a team that has a lot of the ball.

In addition, we see that he is not a player who is successful in progressive passes or carries, and shows that he does not excel in these aspects of the game. Nonetheless, it is viewable that his defensive output is quite high and this is due to the fact that Leganés are a team that usually spends most of the match without possession which leads to Juan Cruz having to defend for large portions of the match.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Juan Cruz is a player who has great awareness and technical abilities, fitting considering his past as an attacking midfielder. Nonetheless, with time he was moved to the wing where he could use his crossing and ball-playing ability to generate goal-scoring opportunities. In addition, he is committed defensively which is important for Leganés, a team who don’t usually have possession.

If he were able to participate in a side that participated more on the ball, he could be a great asset as with his ability he could play more penetrating passes and attack the box with crosses to a greater extent. For now, though, Cruz’s sole task is helping the Cucumbers stay afloat in the Spanish top-flight.

By: Juan Fernandez Valencia / @ScoutLaLiga

Featured Image: @GabFoligno / Alex Caparros / Getty Images