PIERRE KALULU

Player Profile

Club: Olympique Lyonnais B

Age: 20

Nationality: French

Foot: Right

Height: 179 centimetres

Positioning, Attacking and Defensive Qualities

Kalulu has been deployed in both centre back and right back by the Lyon youth coach. Recently Lyon have been using a 3 at the back formation where Kalulu has been positioned at the centre of the defence. Kalulu has the versatility and pace which gives the coach multiple options

Kalulu is more of an attack minded full back who likes to drive forward with the ball. With his explosive pace alongwith his close control Kalulu has the ability to beat opposition players at will. He does not panic out of a situation when pressed by opponents and keeps the ball close to his feet and finds a teammate with a pass who comes to help him

Kalulu always prefer to cut inside the opposite final third and find an opponent or swing a cross inside the box to find a teammate.

Although his distribution and passing isn’t the best he always has the eye to find a teammate a pass using long balls much similar to how bonucci finds players. This helps Lyon to launch quick counter attacks on opponents as well beat any low blocks when Lyon is in posession

Defending wise Kalulu always used intelligent positioning and reads moves off the opponent. Although he is always seen pressing forward with the ball, you can see him track back when the ball is lost on the counter attack. He relieshes 1v1 challenges with opposition wingers or fullbacks. With his pace and a huge frame Kalulu makes it difficult for opponents to bypass him easily.  Being really muscular he does not back from using his physicality in taking opponents away from the ball. In the image below you can see how Kalulu reads his opponents’ play and dashes across using his pace to make an interception.

Areas of Improvement

A player who is yet to get senior football experience under his belt would need some adjustment time to get used to a highly tactical and intense league like serie A.

Now while Kalulu is a pacy and tricky customer he often tries to beat too many opponents instead of going for passing to a nearby teammate and gives up posession.

Kalulu also has very less spatial awareness when darting forward to join attacks and gets beaten on the counter. Against better opponents, Kalulu strugges to get back and teams may exploit this weakness

It is no doubt that coaches relish players who play in multiple positions. Being a right back who can play in the centre gives a coach multiple options when deciding upon the formation and style of play.

Modern footballers have increased in speed and that has forced even defenders to up the ante as they have to match the explosive wingers and strikers for pace. Kalulu would bring much more pace to currently a very slow backline.

If the rumours are true and Rangnick does come to Milan, Kalulu is tailor made to suit his style where he can be moulded into suiting his gegenpress along with ability to play in multiple positions as shown by Klostermaann in the current Leipzig team.

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