Today, the most popular team in the Premier League is the Blue Moon Army Manchester City, after winning eight consecutive league games, they have led Liverpool by 3 points behind them, and they have a full six-point lead with Chelsea in third place. The most popular player in the Manchester City squad is the Portuguese flying wing Cancelo. In the last round of the 4-0 away win over Newcastle, he scored in the first half, especially the long-range world wave that connected several people.
The match against Newcastle was Cancelo's 100th premier league game, and that world wave was his first premier league goal of the season, but before that, he had four assists in the account, and in 24 games, the Portuguese wings have scored 3 goals and 7 assists. Manchester City's veterans Ditzkov and Lecoster lamented that Cancellolo was already the world's number one full-back and the first wing-back on the left and right.
This is not false at all, this season Canceló basically played as a left-back, but after the battle with RB Leipzig, the main right-back Kyle Walker has been hanging the exemption card for personal reasons, in this case, Cancelo appeared at right-back position, in the 3rd round of the Premier League, he started 2 games, still very good. This is also the most important reason why the two manchester City celebrities are full of praise for him.
In fact, before Cancelo joined Manchester City, he played for Inter and Juve, the two major Serie A giants, although he is also the main force of the team, but his performance at the full-back can only be considered decent, with only 1 goal and 4 assists in 28 games and 1 goal and 5 assists in 34 games in two seasons. So in the summer of 2019, when Manchester City used Daniloga's cash totaling 65 million euros to recruit him, it was still questioned. Because Cancelo's performance in Serie A is really a bit of a chicken rib. But more than two seasons later, Cancelo's performance surprised the people who questioned him. So, how did he go from a chicken rib full-back to an all-rounder and even the world's first full-back? Does Guardiola really have a bit of a stone-to-gold ability?
As a full-back, Cancello has excellent foot skills, good speed, the combination of human balls is quite good, breakthrough passes and even shots are very distinctive, but although the height reaches 1 meter 82, Cancello weighs only 74 kg, which also makes his physical confrontation ability very general, in other words, the typical attack and defense weakness. Such physical conditions are okay for playing full-backs, but working as full-backs is a bit inadequate.
In the case of his season at Inter, then-Inter boss Spalletti's favourite formation was 4-2-3-1, while the team's main right-back at the time was D'Ambrosio, and Canselo could only appear at right-back when he was on leave or suspension, while at other times he could only play left-backs he didn't like. Coupled with injuries, Canselo was not happy in Meazza's year, and Inter eventually gave up his buyout. Cancelo then switched to Juventus for 40.4 million euros.
At Juve, Cancelo finally played his favorite right-back position, but Bianconeri boss Allegri did not play in a 3-back formation many times, and even so, Cancello's performance had many highlights, and was even considered the most capable of passing for Cristiano Ronaldo at that time. In the Champions League knockout round, the second leg of the 3-0 victory over Atletico, Cancelo played the whole game and provided assists to Ronaldo, in addition to giving the highest 4 key passes of the game, and scored a high score of 8.6 after the game, which was also his highest moment at Juve.
However, at the end of that season, with The departure of Allegri and the arrival of Sarri, Juve were finally impressed by City's offer and sent Cancelo to the Etihad. Guardiola's original intention in bringing in Canselo was actually to find a successor for right-back Kyle Walker, in addition, there is still a dream in Guardiola's heart to fly with two wings, and Canselo with excellent assist ability is obviously a very suitable candidate.
However, in the first season of Manchester City, Canceló was still a bit unsatisfactory, the High Intensity of physical confrontation in the Premier League made him very uncomfortable, in addition, due to the continuous injuries of Laporte, Stones and other centre-back players, Kyle Walker became the only player in the Manchester City backline with the ability to pursue, in this case, Canceló could only go to the left side to find opportunities and repeat his scene at Inter. But even so, in a few games, the Portuguese wing has shown his outstanding offensive talent. In the 22nd round of the 2019/20 Premier League, Manchester City won 6-1 away to Aston Villa, Guardiola sent a 3-4-1-2 formation, Canselo and Mendy flew on both wings, that game, although he was not directly involved in goals and assists, but dedicated the game's highest 5 successful breakthroughs, 5 steals and 3 interceptions, the pass success rate was as high as 94%, which can be described as a battle to conquer Guardiola.
However, the real triumph of Cancello in the Etihad was last season. At that time, Aguero, Jesus and other forward generals were injured, and midfielders Makoto and De Bruyne were also plagued by injuries. Guardiola was forced to change sides, and the frontless and double backs came into being. The most important link is Cancello.
In the game, although he is nominally a full-back, in attack, he needs to presuppose the midfielder and Rodri to form a de facto double back, thus completely liberating Gundogan, and the German midfielder has ushered in his most pleasant season in Attack at Manchester City. And Cancello, who has been given a high degree of tactical freedom, has also become a Manchester City all-round warrior, with excellent performances on both offensive and defensive ends. In fact, in the 5th round of the 2020/21 Premier League, Canceló even teamed up with his national team-mate Bernardo Silva in midfield to become a double forward in City's 3-1-4-2 formation, and the key is that he is still very good. Three successful breakthroughs, three key passes, and three interceptions were all game-highs, and the 7.7 points after the game were unsurpassed.
But guardiola, who advocates passing, dared to make Cancelo so flexible in the game because he has the capital, that is, the back line led by Portuguese centre-back Rubendiás. The 24-year-old centre-back, who was signed urgently after City's 2-5 defeat to Leicester City, has super personal ability, and with his presence in the backline, even if Canselo inserts a lot, the space left behind him will be well compensated by Ruben Dias, and the Manchester City backline is still solid. This is actually similar to Van Dijk's role in Liverpool. Of course, the difference is that even if Ruben Díaz is on leave, Guardiola still has Laporte and Stones in his hands, while once Van Dijk is injured, Liverpool's entire attacking system may collapse.
Therefore, there is no fairy tale in the world, and The outbreak of Canselo, on the one hand, is that he has super personal ability, on the other hand, he has met a bole manager who knows how to use people and is enough to make him play to his strengths and avoid his weaknesses. There are many such examples in Guardiola's coaching career, and Ram, Kimmich and others are all beneficiaries.