Props to the Twitter’s wonderful Atalanta_Vegas for inspiration on this article and his astute observations that forced me to drive deeper into Ruslan Malinovskyi. For those who aren’t already familiar with Malinovskyi’s current make-up and body of work, mercurial would be the perfect word to sum up his style of play. He can be a world beater on his day, but he can be equally as wasteful with heavy touches, bad passes, and dwelling on the ball too long in serious attacking positions. However, I’m hoping that Malinovskyi may have finally turned a corner a bit in his offensive playstyle, and hopefully he can become the everyday dynamic playmaker Atalanta has been missing ever since Papu’s departure.
Just to make sure everyone is on the same page, a quick word about what a regista is. In essence, he’s the playmaker and metronome for a club. He’s not running around alla Pessina or a box-to-box midfielder, but rather the midfielder who everyone looks to feed the ball through and dictate the offensive flow. Look no further than prime Andrea Pirlo to understand the effect a good regista can have on an offense. At first glance Ruslan Malinovskyi doesn’t seem like the first choice one would want in a regista. He enjoys a good dribble, and is much more lively on the pitch than your classic regista who looks like he’s standing in cement on the pitch sometimes.
Yet, the 2nd half of the Real Madrid match kind of showed what Gasperini may have accidentally unleashed. By slotting Malinovskyi a bit further back in the formation, Gasperini did two things: 1- minimized Malinovskyi’s biggest weakness, receiving and turning on the ball, 2- maximized what Malinovskyi does best, picking apart defenses with his thunderous left foot. Granted he only played 45 minutes or so in the “regista” like role against Madrid. It was quite eye-opening. Asides setting up Zapata for two excellent chances which couldn’t be converted, he barely lost possession, looked comfortable spurring attacks from deeper, and appeared comfortable viewing the whole pitch while leading the offense. Not to mention, he demoted Josip Ilicic to second fiddle in the attack, which is quite rare these days when Josip is on the pitch. Below is a small compilation of what he demonstrated against Madrid, and its hard to even call it cherry-picking, because he barely did anything wrong in this match! Still trying to figure out the best way to capture CBS video, so sorry for the kind of choppy quality.
Excellent through balls, prioritizing maintaining possession when the pass isn’t there, and reading the field to find the open man, I like it all! These 7 or 8 little tid-bits really show a lot about what Malinovskyi can do on the pitch. The one thing that stands out about all of it, he didn’t have to receive the ball and turn to dictate tempo. All of it was done facing goal, and he barely had a misplaced touch. You can call small sample size if you like – and sure it could be valid – but against Verona and then against France with the Ukrainian national squad he STILL did a lot of similar things as he did in the Madrid match. He was less sedentary in the Verona match and took up the helm as the primary playmaker, but the results were still excellent; as he was still restricted from turns allowing his eyes and bullet left foot to be in harmony immediately upon receiving the ball. Huge for a shorter non-targetman player like him!
Going forward, Malinovskyi is making himself more and more of a viable candidate to be in Gasperini’s future plans. With Ilicic not being a true candidate to play 90 minutes each and every match, Malinovskyi has been the most assertive of the attacking midfielders in earning playing time. Whether he ever becomes a true regista is yet to be determined, as the current DM double pivot is an Atalanta staple. But as Gasperini looks to continue tweaking his tactics to stay ahead of his opponents, you never know what his plans may be. Slotting him deeper with de Roon, and perhaps moving Freuler further up to offer more of a difficult press to break could be an incredibly interesting exercise in tactics. If anything, Malinovskyi has demonstrated his versatility. He can do awesome things on the right hand side (if he’s not playing with his back to the goal!), but something inside me really wants to see him slotted further back to just pick defenses apart. Let’s hope we see it one or two more times this year, Forza Dea!!!
