"70% of the earth is water, and the other 30% is covered by Kanter."
This phrase has been repeatedly mentioned by countless fans in European football in recent years, for the simple reason that Kante has long been the leader of the active defensive midfielders in world football, and his interception of the midfield area and the accurate judgment of the trajectory of the ball have caused countless opponents headaches.
Many fans who don't know much about this player have been very confused: this 68-kilogram French man with a height of only 1.68 meters seems to have nothing to do with defensive interception, why can he become the top defensive midfielder in world football today? In this article, the editor will start from the technical characteristics of Kante in all aspects, and analyze the French midfielder's interception skills in detail for fans.
< h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > career brief</h1> description
Before analyzing the technical characteristics of Kante, let's first give you a general introduction to the career trajectory of the French star.
Kante was born on March 29, 1991, to an ordinary family in Paris, France. Due to the lack of outstanding family conditions, Kante did not come into contact with the sport of football for the first time until elementary school. However, After learning about football, Kante quickly fell in love with this "world number one sport" that tests both physical confrontation and teamwork. The only thing he does every day after school is play football on the street and on campus with his brothers and school buddies.
His love of football fanaticism became the best teacher to help Kante improve. In 1999, at the age of 8, Kante entered the amateur football club Surenes in the western suburbs of Paris. However, the thinner stature of Kante hindered his development early in his career, and Pierre Ville, the assistant manager of the club Surenes, believed that Kante was too short and selfless to establish himself on the big football clubs in France.
Boulogne Football Club logo
Kante's diligent and personal character helped him in the early part of his career, and the president of the club Surène saw that the player was seriously trained and had a positive attitude, so he recommended him to the Ligue 2 side Boulogne. Kante joined Boulogne F.C. in 2010 and was promoted to the first team in 2011–2012 for his good performances in the academy. However, because Kante did not have too many league appearances at the time, the team manager did not give the French midfielder much time to play, and he only got one substitute appearance in the Ligue 2 of the season.
By the 2012-2013 season, boulogne had been relegated to the Third Division of France, the team had experienced a huge loss of personnel. Against this backdrop, the young and hard-working Kante began to be the focus of the club's development, making 37 appearances in the Ligue 2 in the 2012-2013 season (only missing one game for the team), scoring three goals and becoming the absolute core of Boulogne's midfield area that season.
Kante played for Caen
In 2013, Ligue 2 side Caen took a fancy to Kante, who had performed well in The Ligue 1, and eventually they poached Kante from Buñero Football Club without signing. Kante became an absolute mainstay in the team's midfield area during his first season with Caen, helping him play a total of 38 games that season, helping Caen to reach the top flight with a 3rd place finish in Ligue 2.
2014-2015 Ligue 1 Standings
Although the team's record is not outstanding, Kante, who played in the top flight for the first time, has already made a name for himself with his good interception ability in the midfield area in the 2014-2015 season (he was the player with the most steals in the top five leagues in Europe that season).
In the summer window of the 2015-2016 season, Kante's outstanding performance in Caen attracted the attention of many overseas clubs, and Steve Walsh, a famous scout at Leicester City Football Club in the Premier League, repeatedly recommended kante to the Fox City executives. Steve Walsh proved to be a seasoned approach to signings, with his vision of Vardy, Mahrez and Kante all playing a crucial role in Leicester City's magical championship season.
Kante played for Leicester City
In the end, Kanter also came to Leicester City in the Premier League with a strong recommendation from Steve Walsh for a transfer fee of 9 million euros. For the public opinion at the time, although Kante performed quite well in his first season of promotion to Ligue 1, the Caen club he played for was only a relegation team in Ligue 1 after all, and there were not many fans who really paid attention to Kante's details on the pitch. It is also based on this background environment that many Leicester City fans have questioned the skinny midfielder: can he adapt to the High-intensity offensive and defensive conversion in the Premier League? Can it prevail against tall Premier League strikers?
It turns out that gold always shines. Just five days after coming to the team, Kante made his debut in Leicester City's 4-2 win over Sunderland the Black Cat in place of No. 9 Vardy. On 7 November, he scored his first premier league goal in a 2–1 win over Hornet Watford. Of course, we must not measure the ability of an intercepting midfielder like Kante in terms of the number of goals scored, who contributed a phenomenal interception in the 2015-2016 Premier League, and the continuous accurate cutting of the midfield and the accurate judgment of the ball landing point have become the nightmare of countless attackers in the Premier League. In the end, the French small midfielder helped Leicester City to a record of 81 points in 38 rounds of the Premier League with 23 wins, 12 draws and 3 losses, winning the Premier League title with a magnificent record of up to 10 points ahead of Second Place Arsenal, creating one of the biggest miracles in The History of the Premier League.
Kante played for Chelsea
In terms of statistics, Kante completed as many as 175 tackles and 157 interceptions that season, which are unique in the entire English football world. It is also with such outstanding performances that Kante has successfully attracted the attention of Premier League giants Blues Chelsea. On 16 July 2016, Chelsea recruited N'Golo Kante for a transfer fee of 35.8 million euros, which has become a crucial part of the midfield of Conte's 343 formation in the new season.
2016-2017 Premier League standings
Some people seem to be born with an indissoluble relationship with champions, and Kante is undoubtedly one of them. After coming to Chelsea, the French youngster continued to maintain a perfect interception performance in the midfield area, playing 35 league games for Chelsea in the 2016-2017 season, helping the Blues to win the league championship with 30 wins, 3 draws and 5 losses and 93 points. Kante thus became the first player since Cantona in 1993 to win the league title for two different English clubs for two consecutive seasons.
Although Kante has long since become one of the most famous midfielders in world football, he still chose to stay in the Chelsea squad and help coach Lampard complete the blues' old and new turnover.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > Kante's position on the field and the ability to execute high-quality techniques and tactics</h1>
Makelele
If you have a deep understanding of the French national team fans must know, there is another French international in history who has played for the Blues Chelsea with a very similar technical characteristics to Kante, and this French international is Claude Makelele. No manager would have overlooked Makelele's strong intercepting role in the midfield area because he was only 1.70 meters tall, and the French and Congolese midfielder with excellent physical fitness, accurate ball landing point judgment and open big picture view was one of the representatives of the intercepting midfield of that era.
With such a prestigious predecessor, people now naturally compare Kanter with him. As we all know, Makelele's most commendable advantages are his excellent choice of position on the field and his highly qualified technical and tactical execution ability. Can Kanter's form of performance in these two areas be compared to that of his predecessor Makelele?
When we talk about the defense of the midfield area, we always link the so-called strike success rate to it at the first time. But for most of the world's best intercepting midfielders, the choice of position is the most critical link in the success of defense. Compared to the average intercepting midfielder, Kante's biggest advantage is the huge defensive coverage area in the whole field. He can either appear behind the striker line when the team is attacking to protect the two penalties, or he can return to the back line in a defensive state to become the strongest defender teammates. It can be said that it is precisely because of the presence of Kante that both Chelsea and the French national team can organize their attacks more freely in the front.
As shown in the chart above, when the team is in an attacking state, Kante will first fix his position in the front area of the midfield with more flexible movement. When the opposing defender breaks the ball at the back and tries to launch a counterattack along the left side, Kante will use his speed advantage to complete the pull-edge defense in a short period of time. In the process of one-on-one defense on the wing, Kante will not blindly stretch his feet in an attempt to steal the ball to launch a second attack, he will use the lightness of his chassis to block the forward pass route of the opponent's ball carrier, forcing the opponent to only try to return the pass. At the same time, Kante's teammates can also use the time delayed by the former defense to close the siege, and a second offensive opportunity is born.
Let's look at the way Kante selected the position in a defensive position. As shown in this GIF above, With confidence in his ability to judge his own landing point, Kante does not blindly retreat like most players in the defensive process of the backcourt in order to block the passable route, but hopes to rush to the possible passing route one step ahead of the opponent through the flexible movement of the position. This way of defending is very risky, but if it can effectively guarantee the success rate, it can help the team get a lot of counter-attack opportunities.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > Kanter's recovery speed</h1>
。 As shown in the GIF above, when the opposing ball carrier holds the ball and faces the defender line, Kanter will use the defender line to attract the attention of the opponent's ball holding. It is worth mentioning that in the process of grabbing the ball, Kante's footing rate is quite fast, and it is rare to be fouled by the opponent's use of fake actions.
Of course, we all know that Kante is only 1.68 meters tall, no matter how good his bouncing ability is, but after all, there is a clear height difference with those traditional English high school forwards. As a result, many teams often choose to abandon the overly complex ground passing combination when facing Kante, and instead use long passes directly across the midfield to find Chelsea's defender line vacuum. In such a background environment, Kante needs a defender who can have a strong ability to compete for high balls, as long as this defender can form a greater interference with the opponent's control of a penalty, Kanter can fully exert his advantages of excellent defensive awareness to control the two penalties.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > Kanter's stealth idea</h1>
It can be found that although Kante is an out-and-out intercepting midfielder, it does not mean that his job during the game is to simply unblock the ball. As one of the best defensive midfielders in the world today, a distinctive feature of Kante's game is that he will frequently steal the ball to help his side launch a counterattack. But we need to emphasize here that although Kante's interception success rate is very high, the number of times he has tackled the ground in a single game is very small. This data reflects a core idea of Kante in the process of grabbing the ball: avoiding too risky to put the shovel on the ground, which can effectively reduce the number of fouls and ensure that his side continues to maintain control of the ball after the steal.
Some fans may have a little doubt when they see this: although the shovel may seem a little too risky at some moments, it is indeed the defensive method that can touch the ball the fastest in an emergency. Since Kante rarely uses this technique during the game, how can he ensure a large coverage area while still defending at all times?
Let's look at the picture above, when the opponent received the empty ball in the half-court area to accelerate the turn, Kante did not choose to use the opponent's slightly larger gap in the stop to destroy the shovel like most defensive midfielders. The best result of such a defensive approach is simply to destroy the ball off the sideline, and it may even cause the opponent to lose its center of gravity due to the mistake of unblocking, giving the opponent a great opportunity to counterattack. In order to ensure a higher steal success rate, Kante chose to use his excellent instantaneous explosive ability to preemptively get stuck between the opposing player and the ball, successfully limiting the opponent's second foot touch attempt. Such a card position move is a very important link in the modern football defensive thinking, which can both curb the opponent's rapid counterattack that emphasizes speed, and it is also likely to fight for a set-piece opportunity in the front court.
Of course, the card slots in the defensive process are definitely not something that a random midfielder would dare to use. If there is no way to maintain the attention of the opposing defensive player in the process of card slots, it is likely that the opposing co-defense players will form a siege situation with more defense and less defense.
In addition to the steals formed by accurate card slots, Kanter's other major stealing skills are knowing how to hide themselves at the right time. As shown in the image above, when the opposing midfielder was ready to receive the ball, Kanter did not approach him at the first time in order to make a direct attempt to compete for the top. The French midfielder chose to ambush at a distance first, and when the opposing receiver mistakenly thought that there was no one around and chose a more risky stop, Kante suddenly accelerated from the back, and finally used the more accurate ball landing ability to judge the ball and launch a counterattack.
< h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > Kante's help to the team in attack</h1>
Before Sarri came to the team, Kante's positioning in the Blues Chelsea was more completely biased towards the defensive end, and he would not be as heavily involved in the team's attack as he is now. As a result, Kante has already developed a very good long passing footwork, he can accurately deliver the ball to the gap behind the opponent's back line in the moment of defending and attacking.
Let's look at the above GIF, when Kante controlled the ball in the backcourt, although there was no defensive player around him at this time to interfere with the first time, the France international still chose not to dribble too much but directly used a long pass to deliver the ball to the vacuum area of the opponent's right defense. Eden Hazard, who was cruising near the gap behind his opponent, flashed all the way after getting the ball, and finally passed the opponent goalkeeper easily hit the empty goal, and Chelsea formed a counter-attack through Kante's accurate long pass guidance at the back.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > summary</h1>
Due to the manager's change of position on the field for Kante, the Frenchman is no longer a pure defensive midfielder, and his delicate dribbling ability and selfless passing spirit within the opposing defensive hinterland have also been more reflected. But from another point of view, the sharp forward movement of Kante's position also caused him to be unable to do the second defensive position as before, which is also one of the important reasons for the significant increase in the number of goals conceded by Chelsea in the past two seasons.
In any case, Kante is now one of the few world-class superstars in Chelsea's squad at the moment, and this "youth army" that fans have high hopes for also needs the diligent French midfielder to contribute more brilliant performances on both ends of the attack and defense. We also sincerely wish That Kante can get rid of the frequent injuries and illnesses of the past period and help the Blues regain the style they once had to gallop across the British land.