Opening Dário Essugo's box of tricks

The Portuguese midfielder was an under the radar signing in August, but has had an impact to rival those of a much higher profile.

By the time Dário Essugo made his first appearance in LaLiga, his team were already in the relegation zone. By his fourth appearance, the coach he had arrived to play for had already been sacked.

If you were Sporting CP, Essugo’s parent club, you’d be starting to get a little nervous at the context then surrounding the 19-year-old. With Las Palmas in freefall and being the first club to change their manager, the ingredients were there for things to start falling in on themselves, making the conditions for a productive loan spell much less favourable.

Los Amarillos had recruited Luis Carrión in the summer for his proactive attacking style, hoping it would add a new layer on top of the possession foundation García Pimienta had left. Yet after just nine games, they had already deemed the situation serious enough to abandon the Carrión project and pull the lever on something more defensive, hoping Diego Martínez’s more pragmatic approach would at least steady the ship.

Out of pure emergency, the expressive style that so often defines Las Palmas would have to be put on ice.

Against the building pressure to secure results at any cost, younger players become especially vulnerable as far as playing time goes. In Essugo’s case, there was no guarantee a 19-year-old loanee would find his way within that, and less following an unplanned coaching change for a manager whose remit could be nothing other than to keep Las Palmas afloat.

The project was parked, and the script already torn up.

At its very core, the idea of Sporting CP loaning out a young midfielder, presumably owing to competition and not being totally ready, suggested that Las Palmas would find a player who’d have to work through some issues on the job. When that hits the reality of a relegation battle in a season heading south from the jump, there’s not much time for development. We’ve seen it a thousand times in football, where a team in trouble goes into their shell and focuses on little more than limiting errors, often prioritising more experienced XIs in the process.

And yet, not only is Dário Essugo finding plenty of protagonism in Las Palmas – he’s already having a major impact in LaLiga on both sides of the ball, helping a struggling team to start reversing some ugly trends.

Essugo has played at the base of midfield for Las Palmas so far, in a team who almost always use some form of a 4-2-3-1. Some days he looks like a clear lone pivote, others he gets help from another midfielder playing closer to him. Las Palmas generally use at least three central midfielders on any given day, where roles can differ, but Essugo has mostly been more active in his own half than the opposition’s (to keep it simple).

With that said, precisely what the youngster is at this point is difficult to say. Not that we need to determine it any time soon, but the variety of attributes Essugo has shown in his short time in Spain fuels the question in a positive way. It’s hard to project his future position because the things he does are applicable to many different roles, with and without the ball.

When a player who is nominally a defensive midfielder does this — 18 minutes into his LaLiga debut — you can start to understand the momentary confusion.

Other than when he’s ripping off 40-yard runs to tee up one-v-ones, the book on Essugo tends to be about effective breaking up of the game and neat use of the ball, with a pass completion rate just under 90%. Sound play in and out of possession is what has brought him to the party, and alleviated any doubts about how a teenage player would handle his context.

On the defensive side especially, Essugo has added bite and better coverage of the midfield areas for Las Palmas. And as anyone who had watched them will know, boy did they need some help there.

At 19 years of age and out on loan for a second consecutive season, it’s logical that Essugo isn’t a savant of being in the right position 99% of the time. However, his impact has still been a big net positive. Where any inexperience figures, the Sporting man has the instincts and the physicality to interrupt and arrive on time where danger figures.

Here against Real Betis, look how he turns an opposition transition into one for his own side – even if his starting position perhaps wasn’t ideal:

Essugo has made a habit of eye-catching defensive actions so far — sometimes by reading the development of an opposition attack to perfection, or merely just by having the power across the ground to get there and steal the ball. Indeed, though he’s light on experience, the teenager can throw his weight around and compete against senior players without problem. Las Palmas already depend on him to do the heavy lifting in that respect.

Against Girona last time out, the 19-year-old racked up eight combined tackles and interceptions — all without conceding a single foul in the process. The only other midfielder to have replicated that in LaLiga this season is Betis’ Johnny Cardoso, who did so in that monstrous display against Atlético Madrid.

In fact, among midfielders with 500+ minutes played in LaLiga this season, there are only three players who have averaged 2+ interceptions per 90 and have a duel success rate of at least 60%.

Fede Valverde, Aurélien Tchouaméni and, you guessed it… Dário Essugo.

On that note, there are already murmurs in the news cycle that the Portuguese’s performances are being noticed. Real Madrid themselves are reported to be one of the sides keeping an eye on Essugo which, even if it means he’s just a name on a whiteboard somewhere, at least demonstrates he’s showing attributes worthy of an elite side taking note.

Like those of us watching, Real Madrid would be probably in the same boat of trying to asses what he actually is — and what he might look like in the future — given the spectrum of attributes he’s putting out there.

Anyway, back to the present. While Essugo’s pedigree as a ball-winner already seems pretty well established, he’s also shown a good knack for turning defence into attack after recovering possession. The earlier example from the Osasuna game showed how devastating he can be taking off in transition on his own, and it wasn’t just a one-off event. If there’s space to be had when he regains the ball, Essugo will happily eat it up.

Of the 49 central and defensive midfielders to play 500+ minutes in LaLiga this season, only four players have a higher average carry progress than Essugo (6.1 metres), while his is the highest of any player specifically in the defensive midfield category.

Here he is on the front foot against Celta Vigo, stealing in on Ilaix Moriba before — again — forcing a raft of opposition players to have to scramble back towards their own goal:

Though his day job has consisted mainly of protecting the back four, along with helping Las Palmas circulate the ball to a dependable degree, Essugo’s start to life in LaLiga has been littered with moments that are outside of his remit.

The Portuguese has lifted the general base of their midfield performance, yet consistently throws in these surprise add-ons out of the blue, diversifying Las Palmas’ breadth of tools even though there’s no precise need for such.

In their win over Girona last time out — where they took the lead in the first half and then had just 32% of the ball in the second — Las Palmas spent plenty of time on the back foot, looking to keep themselves compact. Within the heart of that effort, Essugo still found his moments to help his side get back up the pitch and cut Girona’s building pressure.

Here he is helping Las Palmas to navigate Girona’s press, at a time when the opposition were squeezing on and the home side were in need of some respite with the ball.

Having taken up a more dynamic position given Javi Muñoz was acting as the momentary pivote, Essugo drags Donny van de Beek into the channel, protects the ball with a strong arm, refuses to give up the ball within a net of Girona pressure, before spinning out and landing his opponent a booking in the process.

Shortly before, we had seen Essugo pushing way up towards the Girona penalty area after he’d recovered the ball and set Las Palmas off in transition, with space to attack.

By the time Fábio Silva had recycled the ball back around, the Portuguese found himself on the edge of the box looking for a shooting opportunity. When that closed off, there he was to slide in a perfect through ball for Sandro Ramírez (who duly made a mess of a great opening).

Without watching him play, Essugo’s heat map for Las Palmas would have you think he was sitting in front of the defence, without much mobility in possession. And although he’s clearly a player who begins from deeper and excels on the defensive side as a stopper, his forays into the opposition half have become a custom sight — whether it’s by speeding forward on long carries or sneaking his way up towards the box out of a ‘one goes, one stays’ midfield duo.

In fact, the only central/defensive midfielder to have played more successful through balls than Essugo (3) in LaLiga this term is Pedri (5).

It may be early days in the season, but you can file that — along with plenty others — under things Las Palmas probably didn’t think they were getting when they identified Essugo and projected his role in the team.

It won’t be up to the Canarian side to make the definitive call on what the Portuguese midfielder is, or where his optimal use will come. All we know for now is that the process of finding out — which is already benefitting Las Palmas in a major way — looks sure to be a compelling one.

By Jamie Kemp (@jamiemkemp)