On May 23rd, 2023, the Spanish Council of Ministers granted Spanish citizenship to Robin Le Normand, making him eligible to become the 44th foreign-born player to represent the Spanish national team. This was a big deal for several reasons, the first being that an exception was made for Le Normand, the second being that in 2021, he was quoted as saying “My family will kill me if I play for Spain.”

Before we get to that, let’s rewind to learn how we got there. He was born in Pabu, France, which is a small commune in the northwest part of the country. At the age of 11, he was recruited to join the Stade Brestois youth academy, and in April of 2016, he made his professional debut for the club in a Ligue 2 match.

Unfortunately (for the club, as it turns out), he was not offered an extension to remain with the club, and he became a free agent at the end of that season. For those of you following along at home, the time difference between April 2016 and May 2023 is seven years – something to remember.

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Le Normand immediately landed on his feet after being released by Brest, signing with Real Sociedad. He has proceeded to play 221 competitive matches for La Real’s first team over the past seven seasons, cementing himself as a staple of their backline. 

Les Bleus to La Roja

A couple years ago, having not registered a senior cap for France, the then Spanish national team manager Luis Enrique reached out to Robin about the possibility of him representing La Roja, to which Le Normand (reportedly) responded with the aforementioned quote about possible family issues if he played for Spain.

However, in February of 2023, the now Spanish manager, Luis de la Fuente, reignited the recruiting pitch, and Le Normand acquiesced. In his way stood one major hurdle: to be granted eligibility for Spanish citizenship, one must live in the country for ten consecutive years, and if you remember back, Le Normand had only been there for seven.

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Luis de la Fuente must have some friends in high places, as three months later, Robin le Normand was granted an exception to the rule, allowing him to become a Spanish citizen, and thus represent the Spanish National Team. He got to work immediately, playing in the UEFA Nations League Semi Final victory over Italy. Funny enough, his back line partner was (and could very well be for part of the Euros) Aymeric Laporte, another French-born player. 

These days, Le Normand is still going strong for Spain, having played in eleven matches for them. He is now competing in the Euros, as well as gearing up for a potential transfer move this summer. Now that you know about how he came to represent La Roja, let’s learn more about his profile and playstyle.

Robin Le Normand Player Profile

Using DataMB’s center back radar chart template, we find that Le Normand has a couple of distinct strengths and weaknesses to his game. His strengths include his aerial abilities, carrying out of the back, and defensive duel win rate, while his areas that need improvement center around his volume of defensive actions and his progressive passing rate.

Having a low progressive passing rate but a high carrying mark makes perfect sense – he simply opts to advance the ball in possession with his feet more often than his passing. You will notice that despite having a 75th percentile for pass completions and 66th for forward pass accuracy, I did not list his passing as a strength. More on that later.

Aerial Duel Ability

This is probably Le Normand’s greatest strength. This past year, only two La Liga center backs averaged more aerial duels on a per 90 basis than he did (Antonio Raíllo and Kike Salas). His success rate (61.05%) was comfortably above the league median, but far from his best. In 2022/2023, he managed an impressive 70.23% aerial duel success rate, which led La Liga.

Defensive Duel Ability

This is another major strength for Le Normand. He was 11th in La Liga in defensive duel success rate at 72.41%. This represented a big improvement for him from last year, when he was slightly below the league median at 64.5%.

Progressive Carrying

Le Normand was 14th among all La Liga center backs this season in Progressive Runs per 90 minutes. This is a trait that has defined his game for awhile, as last year, he was 13th in the league with 1.39 per 90.

The interesting part about his ball-carrying is how selective he is about doing it. Despite the high progressive run numbers, his dribble take-on attempts per 90 have been in the bottom 10th percentile of La Liga center backs in each of the past two seasons.

This indicates that he does not risk possession by attempting to dribble past an opposition player. Rather, Le Normand uses his field awareness, often opting to dribble into space, setting himself up for better passing angles and allowing La Real to establish possession further up the pitch.

Robin Le Normand’s Passing Paradox

I will use this section of the article to get two outs with one pitch, by discussing why Le Normand’s passing might not be as stellar as it appears on the surface, and by previewing his much-rumored potential transfer to Atlético Madrid.

To begin, let’s compare his pass volume and pass accuracy to all center backs this season in Europe’s Top 5 Leagues, highlighting Atlético’s center halves in the image as well.

He has both the second-highest volume of passes and pass accuracy, indicating he is among the most skilled of the group. However, this is deceiving, as many of his passes are something I like to refer to as “empty calories”. As in, they register as passes, but they do not actually do much to impact the game. To get an idea of what I am talking about, below is the same sample group, but plotted by forward pass volume and accuracy instead.

A much more pedestrian standing when you take out lateral and back passes. This checks out with our previous observations – if you remember back to the initial profile radar chart, he was only in the 20th percentile for progressive passes per 90. As it turns out, his issue is not back passes, but lateral passes. He is 10th in La Liga in terms of overall passes per 90 minutes, but 5th in lateral passes per 90.

The reason his pass accuracy is so high is because he does not attempt “ambitious” passes. There is nothing wrong with this, especially in a Spanish side that dominates possession and will require its center halves to keep the ball moving side-to-side, but any claims that Le Normand is an “elite” passer of the ball are a bit misguided in my opinion.

Le Normand’s Potential Fit at Atlético Madrid

As I write this article, his move to Atlético Madrid seems increasingly more likely, so I figured: why not compare him to their current back line options? We have already touched on his passing abilities, so let’s focus on the pure defensive metrics.

To start, I have plotted defensive ground duels per 90 minutes and defensive ground duel success rate for Europe’s Top 5 Leagues, highlighting Le Normand and Atlético’s CB options this past season.

Not a single Atleti center half this La Liga season was above the median for defensive duel success rate, but Le Normand cleared that mark easily. On this alone, the now-Spaniard will register an immediate improvement. How about aerial duels?

Le Normand is in line with his potential future teammates in terms of success rate, but he attempted a much higher volume of aerial duels this season. Plus, if you remember back to the initial discussion around Le Normand’s aerial abilities, he led La Liga in success rate in 2022/2023, so he was definitely ahead of the Atlético center halves then.

Robin Le Normand Profile Summary

Few center halves in the world have his combination of elite level duel winning, aerial ability, and ball-carrying. In fact, statistically, there are only three center backs in La Liga that were in the 75th percentile or better for those three categories this past season.

If the Atlético Madrid move materializes as it looks like it will (I watched a video of Le Normand signing an Atleti scarf this week – I hope for his sake it happens), he will make just as excellent of an addition to their backline as he has to Spain’s since switching his nationality. 

Do yourself a favor, and watch him during Spain’s run during the Euros. I am sure you will see the under-appreciated, but exceptionally gifted player I do when I watch Robin Le Normand.

By: Spencer Mossman / @fc_mossman

Featured Image: @GabFoligno / Chris Brunskill / Fantasista / Getty Images