After an excellent season at Las Palmas, Saúl Coco has earned a move to Torino for €7.5 million. His first season in a first division was incredible at Las Palmas but can he keep this up in Italy and replace the several departures that position has faced such as Alessandro Buongiorno moving to Napoli. In this article, we will be investigating Saúl Coco and what he can offer to Torino.

Name: Saúl Coco

Position: Center Back/Defensive Midfielder

Country: Equatorial Guinea

Age: 25

Height: 187cm

Preferred Foot: Right

Last Club: Las Palmas

Saúl Coco passed through several academies when he was younger beginning in Las Palmas, then Orientación Marítima, Espanyol where he spent one season on loan at UA Horta, and finally, he returned to Las Palmas in 2019. He joined the first team in 2021 and has been there for the past 3 seasons.

In this image, we can see that Saúl Coco has an excellent ability to play forward passes and progress the ball into more advanced areas with the second most forward passes per 90 and the third most precision. Nonetheless, he doesn’t quite reach the numbers of Adam Masina, though his numbers are still high.

From this image, we can deduce that Saúl Coco is comfortable on the ball and likes to be involved in the possession of his team. This is a major asset in his game and is one of the best in this aspect among Torino’s current players.

Here we can observe that Coco is not as good defensively as Torino’s players with the least defensive duels, though his success rate is quite high. However, this is because he has played in a possession-based side in Las Palmas so he is more time on the ball rather than defending.

In this image, we can see that Saúl Coco’s aerial ability is quite impressive with a high success rate and almost 4 aerial duels per 90. This highlights his ability to win duels in the air, however, he is far behind that of Buongiorno.

This chart compares Saúl Coco with the rest of the La Liga 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%.

In this chart, we can see that he is a player who wants to get involved in the possession being in the 70th and 71st percentiles for passes attempted and touches respectively. Nonetheless, he is only in the 37th percentile for progressive passes which is very low, this also means that Torino’s center backs are not known for playing out from the back as they have worse values than him in these aspects.

In addition, his defensive aspects are quite poor being only above average in clearances and success rate in winning aerial duels. This tells us that Coco’s defensive capabilities have much to improve including his aerial ability.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Saúl Coco is a player who can be an important player for Torino as he is better than most of Torino’s center backs in the defensive and possession-based aspects. However, Torino must improve significantly in this matter as when Coco has been compared with the other La Liga center backs he does not stand out, and in a more demanding league defensively he may have issues adapting. In addition, he only has one year of experience in the first division of Spain.

By: Juan Fernandez Valencia / @ScoutLaLiga

Featured Image: @GabFoligno / Jonathan Moscrop / Getty Images