Over the past six months, Ajax's right-back Mazrawi has been rumored to have been rumored between a number of European giants, and this excellent "knife guard" has been able to score 5 goals in the first 20 rounds of the Eredivisie this season, in addition to the hanging Alai, in the team's top scorer list, second only to Anthony, Tadic, Boguis, Danilo and other frontcourt attackers. Now, Barca, who have been in good shape recently, have expressed a clear interest in him.
Halfway out of the house
The Netherlands has many North African immigrants, and Mazrawi's family is one of them. He was born in the Netherlands and grew up in the Netherlands, but eventually chose to be loyal to Morocco. However, this is all an afterthought. Mazlavi's football career began in the academy of the small team AVV Alphen. In 2006, at the age of 9, he officially joined Ajax as a member of the century-old giant. For the next 12 years, Mazlawi was a midfielder. In 2016, he represented Ajax's U21 team in the Dutch Second Division, which was also his professional league debut.
Mazlavi has a performance in the moment, thanks to Ajax coach Tenhag. In 2018, the players were promoted to the first team. However, Ajax did not lack excellent midfielders in the squad, and Tenghag believed that Mazlavi had a good speed advantage, so he was completely transformed into a full-back. In the 33rd round of the 2017-2018 Eredivisie season, Ajax played Alkmaar at home, and Tenghag had the ingenuity to make Mazlawi a right-back, but the effect was surprisingly good. So from the 2018-2019 season, with the team's captain Feltman absent for a long time due to serious injuries, fading out of the main team lineup, Mazlavi unexpectedly became the team's main right-back candidate. What surprised Mazlawi even more was the history of Ajax's creativity in his first season as the team's starting defender.
To this day, people still remember Ajax's wonderful performances in the 2018-2019 Champions League with Bayern, eliminating Real Madrid and Juventus. Although Mazlavi was not the most shining name in the squad at that time, every promotion of the team was indispensable to his participation. Except for the first game of the quarter-finals against the old woman, which was missed due to a yellow card suspension, he played in the rest of the games. The most crucial performance was undoubtedly the 1-1 draw with Bayern in the second round of the group stage, when he calmly scored against the gate guarded by Neuer, equalized the game for the team and got the key points for the team to qualify from the group.
In fact, Mazlavi's career was tortuous. His surprise came from Feltman's injury, who was also squeezed out of the starting lineup by his teammates because of the injury. He was replaced by Dest, who is currently playing for Barcelona. Also trained by Ajax, Deste is 3 years younger than Mazlawi. After a spectacular Champions League quarter-final season, Ajax inevitably became the target of many European giants, but Mazlavi stayed in the team because he was not the most eye-catching and the impact of injury. This was not a bad choice for a player who was only in his early 20s at the time.
The 2019-2020 season started off to a rough start, with Mazlavi injuries to his feet and knees, which were not very serious, but it made him unable to guarantee his best form, and the injury stoppage was stopped, so Destin took the opportunity to take the position. After recovering from injury, Mazlawi needed to fight again for the main position, but Dester's rise was strong at that time, and at this time he played to his all-round advantage. In this season that was interrupted early by the epidemic, Mazlavi only played 13 league games and 3 Champions League group matches, but his position on the field changed by as many as 4, in addition to the right-back, he has tried at midfield, back, left-back, and his performance has been recognized by manager Tenhag. However, at the beginning of 2020 he was again plagued by injuries, and the league was later cut off due to the epidemic, and Mazlawe's 2019-2020 season ended in a very sloppy manner.
However, Mazlavi was not discouraged, and after the start of the 2020-2021 season, because of Dester's move to Barcelona, Mazlawi once again became Tenhag's first choice above right-backs, and the Moroccan lad did not live up to the trust of the manager, but he was again plagued by injuries this season, with only 19 appearances in the league, 3 appearances in the Champions League group stage, and simply missing all the knockout matches due to eye injuries. However, this season's Mazlavi can be described as a change of heart, although there are still injuries, but in the first half of the season he only missed 4 league games due to injury, and opened his own knife guard mode, in the 5th to 7th round of the league, three consecutive rounds of scoring.
Time into 2022, Mazlavi still did not stop, the 20th round of the league against the old rival Eindhoven, Mazlavi received an assist from Boguys in the 74th minute to score. This goal also fully reflects the characteristics of Mazlavi, this wave of attacking Ajax players have been holding the ball on the side, when Boguis passed the ball to the middle, Mazlavi, who cruised from the right side to the middle, did not hesitate to blast a heavy cannon in the front of the big box, successfully helping the team reverse the score.
Speed, equalization, advance, shooting
This season, Mazlavi's offensive attributes have been thoroughly stimulated, which in addition to his personal evolution on the field, his technical characteristics are naturally the fundamental factors that can support him to complete this evolution.
As a full-back, Mazlawi has a characteristic that most other players in the same position do not have – a huge range of motion. This is related to his long-term midfield position in the youth team, Mazlavi is very good at running, and is good at dribbling and cruising from the wing to the middle. He is like a catfish, shuttling between many defensive players, but the opponent has no choice but to use speed to change direction, and then use speed to break through. In this way, Mazlavi can often single-handedly stir up the opponent's left defensive chicken dog.
When he can attract enough defensive attention from the opponent, players in other positions at Ajax have a chance on the offensive end. On top of that, his ability to move widely allows almost any point of the team to participate in the attack. However, this also requires the help of teammates, after all, when Mazlavi leaves his defensive zone, he needs teammates to make up for him and avoid being used by opponents.
(Data from Mazlawi in FIFA22)
However, it is precisely because of such technical characteristics that the team has higher requirements for its lineup when setting tactics. First of all, in order to deal with the problem of Mazlawi's "not in position", the team's midfield needs to be hardcore enough, and the players on the forward line must have enough offensive pressing ability to block the opponent's point against Mazlawi to make a fuss. It is okay to cope with a league of this level in the Eredivisie, but when it comes to the Champions League stage, this requires the attention of the players themselves and the manager. On the other hand, Mazlavi has now lost one of the basic attributes of being a winger in addition to his position – the cross. In fact, he has the ability to pass good crosses and long passes, but this season he seems to have focused on how to run without the ball and do small cooperation with his teammates. This makes all of his current passing styles basically short passes. As a result, his offensive style is slightly monotonous, and when encountering strong opponents, it is easy to be focused on defense.
In addition, Mazlavi must pay attention to his own injury problems, as we can see from the above description, the Moroccan's career is not long, but his injury history is not many, although so far he has no serious injuries, but these minor injuries continue to harass him, which will become a big obstacle to his development.
Even so, it does not prevent Mazlawi from becoming the prey of the European giants. Before bringing in Japan international Kenyo Fuan last summer, Mazlawi was also a prey for the gunners. In addition, Leeds United, Roma, and even Real Madrid and Barca are interested in him, and as for how to choose his next home in the future, Mazlavi needs to think carefully.
Text/Supine Braces - Yangyuan Zhang