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Before last season’s championship was halted by the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, Alexis Saelemaekers had only played twice, and only for a few minutes coming off the bench against Verona and Fiorentina. He had recently arrived in Milan, about a month earlier, on the last day of the winter transfer window, it was unclear who he was and it was not even clear what role he would play. In an interview at the beginning of December, Paolo Maldini revealed that he had taken it with the idea of making him play as a right back: “Saelemaekers was the result of our scouting, I didn’t know Alexis. We were looking for a right back at the time, or one who could one day play for him. We saw this boy playing on the right, on the left, as a winger, as a number ten, with such intensity that after giving him the ball, he is there ».
And indeed, Saelemaekers made his debut as a right back, but in a particular situation. In the final minutes of the match against Verona, on the result of 1-1 and with Milan in numerical superiority due to the expulsion of Amrabat. In a situation, that is, where you could attack without worrying too much about defending. Apart from that moment, Saelemaekers immediately deployed in a more advanced position, right in the front line at 4-2-3-1, as an alternative to Castillejo until the Spanish was injured against SPAL.
In recent league games, the Belgian started as a right-back, but at the beginning of this season his position was not as strong as it appears today. In the summer transfer window, Milan had tried to strengthen themselves from the trocar, taking Real Madrid on loan from Brahim Díaz. An attacking midfielder very different from Saelemaekers who, however, could take space away from the Belgian. “He can vary in the three positions up front, he is a player capable of making a difference,” Maldini said when introducing Diaz. Given the importance of Calhanoglu in the center and Rebic on the left in the second half of last season, it was on the right where theoretically Diaz could have found more space, playing for the place with Saelemaekers and Castillejo.
Instead, so far Diaz has been used primarily as a central attacking midfielder, as an alternative to Calhanoglu, and the spot on the right side of the front has been permanently taken by Saelemaekers, starting in ten of the thirteen games since the start of the season. .
In the company’s plans, the right wing was perhaps the area of the field that needed the most reinforcements, and instead it was enough to rely on Calabria and Saelemaekers to make it reliable and find an almost perfect fit with what was produced by the left wing. Today Milan has a side with more offensive talent, more prone to creating chances and dangers, on the left with Theo Hernández and those who play in front of him -Leão, Rebic, Hauge and Calhanoglu alternated during the season-, and a more prudent and attentive to balance, on the right precisely with Calabria and Saelemaekers.
Obviously it is not a rigid distinction and, if it is true that the combination on the right is the most solid defensively, it is also because of what they manage to give when Milan attack that Calabria and Saelemaekers have become so important. And it’s not just because both have scored in their last two games. Calabria found a great goal from afar in a delicate moment of the game against Genoa, shortly after Destro’s first goal. Saelemaekers, who returned to the local team after leaving the right wing in Castillejo for two games due to a physical problem, instead made it 2-0 against Sassuolo, after the usual overwhelming action by Hernández.
Your contribution is crucial in other respects as well. Take for example the action that led to the first penalty in the match against Fiorentina. Calabria is in the offensive trocar, in an internal area on the right, and gives a nice diagonal pass in the space released by Pezzella in the center of the purple defense. Saelemaekers has entered that space who, having received the pass from his teammate, controls the ball with some difficulty -he cannot carry it forward cleanly with the first touch from the left but recovers immediately with the right showing great reactivity- and then disturbed at the time of the shot by Pezzella’s sliding intervention from behind. The referee awards the penalty, which will be transformed by Kessié.
In short, Calabria and Saelemaekers are also capable of producing complex plays, and in fact their agreement is essential so that the maneuver is less predictable, to distribute it in all areas of the field and have a safe exit on the right even when Milan is on the opposite side. is checked more carefully. It happened, for example, against Sampdoria, a game that Ranieri had prepared by investing on the side in the center of the field, moving Candreva to the left and Jankto to the right, precisely to better defend the side of Theo Hernández.
It didn’t turn out as Ranieri expected, as it was a cross between the French side and Jankto that led to the penalty that unlocked the match, but overall Milan had not produced much on the left and had found the best combinations on the right wing. . At the head, obviously, were Saelemaekers and Calabria, in a more offensive version than usual. Sampdoria’s prudence, closed in a low block that allowed Milan to arrive with some ease in the middle of the opposite field, in fact allowed Calabria to get up at the same time as Hernández. With the space occupied by the two wings, the wide wings were crowded into the internal corridors, so Saelemaekers could cut continuously between the central defender and Samp’s left back.
Here is an example. Calabria has the ball in an area in front of the right, after receiving Gabbia’s pass from behind Candreva, Saelemaekers enters to receive from the short side of the area and opts to cross first, level to the ground and slightly back, to serve. Rebic. Three passes were enough for Milan to create an opportunity but the Croatian forward’s shot was parried by a large Ferrari intervention.
When Milan don’t face tight teams like Sampdoria, Calabria is usually the most blocked winger at the start of the action, while Hernandez, on the left, has more freedom to push, and Saelemaekers therefore has to stay more open and closer to the band to give space. However, even in those cases, their combinations may take non-obvious forms. The Belgian not only runs non-stop, to propose different passing lanes with his continuous shots. When he moves he is lucid and intelligent, and if he goes in a certain direction he does not always do so to receive the first pass but to find himself free for the next. In short, he is able to read the actions with an anticipated play, as in the case below, of the match against Fiorentina.
Calabria is tasked with clearing the ball out of the defensive zone and opts to pick it up, not to surprise Biraghi and serve Saelemaekers’ cut behind him but to get to Diaz. With his movement, the Belgian has freed space to receive Díaz and a few seconds later he is close to the wing, ready to control the comfortable horizontal step of the Spanish offensive midfielder. At that point Saelemaekers takes a few steps back inside and doses a precise ball with his left that puts Díaz on the short side of the area. The Spaniard will not be able to cross for a teammate, but on the right Milan will find a way to become dangerous several times in the rest of the game.
The agreement between Saelemaekers and Calabria, therefore, not only works in a defensive sense. Of course, the ease with which the Belgian runs through the entire band, his aggressiveness, his punctual and constant returns when Milan loses the ball, are a fundamental part of his game and explain why Pioli came to trust so much. he. When faced with Saelemaekers, Calabria hardly ends up in awkward situations, having to handle more than one opponent in their area. If necessary, Saelemaekers backs up to the defensive line and allows Calabria to stay in a tighter position, close to the central defender.
In this case he followed Augello to form a five-man defensive line.
For the statistics, the right-back of Milan is the one that has accumulated the most numbers from a defensive point of view. According to FBref data, Calabria is the best in the sum of tackles and interceptions, while Saelemaekers is just behind, after Theo Hernández. The two have the highest figures among the Rossoneri for the amount of pressure.
Limiting ourselves to the Belgian, however, it would be superficial to look only at his runs, his defensive retreats, the dozens of shots he takes in every game. While it is true that he is not very creative, that he does not take many initiatives and struggles to influence the game with goals or assists, Saelemaekers has a sober and quite clean technique that allows him to be useful in different areas, both when playing wider and when moving to smaller spaces in the center of the field. He does not hit because of the refined dribbling, the quality with which he crosses or the illuminated vision of the game when moving between lines, but he has a remarkable sensitivity for movements without the ball, he knows how to find himself according to the situations, whether to give support. safe or deep, and when he has the ball it almost always shines. Perhaps it leaves the responsibility of the decisive game to others, and sometimes it is not precise, but in general it manages that the maneuver continues even in uncomfortable situations, even when it is necessary to level up, for example playing with one touch so as not to lose speed at all . action or when surrounded by opponents and have to pass the ball into tight spaces.
In short, he makes others play better, he frees spaces with his continuous movements, he always gives a solution to whoever has the ball and when he participates in dribbling he knows how to create the ideal conditions for the next play, even with non-trivial intuitions in difficult situations. Part of the credit for Calabria’s amazing performance goes to him, not only for how it helps him in the defensive phase, but for the understanding found when Milan has the ball, for the number of solutions he offers outside of defense and cleaning. in the band exchanges.
These days it’s easy to see last season’s winter transfer window as a turning point for Milan’s fate. Obviously, the signings of Simon Kjaer and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, both immediate starters and capable of making a difference, should not be underestimated, but the impact that Saelemaekers has had should not be underestimated. It certainly took him longer to join the team and his contribution is less visible and celebrated, but it is still important to the current balance of the Pioli team.
