Theo Hernandez seems to have found a new lease of life after moving from full-back to centre-back – albeit out of necessity due to the injury emergency – but he is not the first to do so.
This morning’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport (as seen below) talks about the ‘air of déjà vu’ related to Theo’s move from left-back to left sided centre-back. It starts with Lucas, the Frenchman’s brother, who plays both in the middle and on the left.
Paolo Maldini, his idol, followed the same path. Like Theo he was one of the best full-backs in the world, if not the best, and like Theo he moved into the middle. The difference is that the mutation occurred in 1998-99, with Maldini at 30 years old in Alberto Zaccheroni’s three-man defence.
Hernandez is still 26 years old, he is in the prime of his career, and the change was neither expected nor imaginable. With Pierre Kalulu, Malick Thiaw and Fikayo Tomori all out for some time, it was necessary rather than a tactical intuition.
Sometimes though, it happens. We saw it with David Alaba who was a full-back at Bayern Munich who moved into the middle, again initially to be part of a back three. We saw it with Sergio Ramos, who at Sevilla and at the beginning of his life at Real was mainly a right-back.
We saw it with Giorgio Chiellini, who played in an Arco Tournament with Milan as a left-back. It was his role (and Milan were his favourite team). When he moved to the middle, he understood that he could become strong, much stronger than as a winger.
What does Theo think? He made it clear: “When the players we miss return I will return to full-back, I hope!”. The TGV cannot be expected to remain in the station for too long.
Those other players were natural CBs who at the beginning of their careers were used wide in the defensive line as its usually done with younger CBs. They were defenders first and foremost.
Just look at Calafiori. He started as a LB but he is a natural CB.
Same path that Bartesaghi will have. Bartesaghi is at least 6’3, too tall to be a full back. He will be twist and turned into a pretzel by today’s wingers on the wing.
Theo is an attacking minded player who had to learn to defend. He is naturally a wide player, especially because he is extremely one footed and his absolute inability to use his weak foot. He needs to learn how to use his right foot if he wants to make that transition.
When everyone gets healthy, Theo needs to go back to where he is best at at LB.
He has done a very good job in an emergency situation, which deserves nothing but praise, but at the same time outside of the Newcastle game Milan played vs bums with Theo as a CB.
Speaking of deja vu, I swore I saw this article before lol 😂