At 25, Duje Caleta-Car comes with fewer surprises than most of Southampton’s summer business.
In an alternate reality, the centre-back would already be a Premier League player.
A model of consistency during his four years in France’s Ligue 1, Caleta-Car has featured prominently on several recruitment shortlists in recent seasons. The Athletic understands Wolverhampton Wanderers tracked him intently and Liverpool made a bid to sign the Croatia international in January 2021.
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A year ago, Marseille valued Caleta-Car at €20million (£17.4m, $20m) — the same fee they paid Austria’s Red Bull Salzburg for him before the 2018-19 season. However, as he entered the final year of his contract this summer without an intention to renew, a cut-price departure appeared inevitable.
Reports of a late play by West Ham United were unfounded, leaving Southampton with a clear run on deadline day.
In what was a fraught Thursday ostensibly, with four signings and six first-team players leaving, Caleta-Car was the only doubt heading into those final 24 hours. Other incomings — Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Samuel Edozie and Juan Larios — were practically wrapped up the night before.
Caleta-Car flew to England that morning to finalise a four-year agreement for a move to the south coast.
Southampton wanted a more experienced centre-back to offset the raw potential of Armel Bella-Kotchap, 20, and 23-year-old Mohammed Salisu.
Part of the Croatia squad that reached the 2018 World Cup final, Caleta-Car blends defensive ruggedness with deft ball-playing abilities. Crucially, he has a penchant for long, raking passes over opposition defences, akin to Southampton predecessor Jannik Vestergaard.
He is particularly effective when facing a mid-to-low block, where there is no pressure on the ball and ample space to play into.
There are distinctive scenarios where Caleta-Car thrives.
Away against Rennes last season, for example, Caleta-Car receives the ball left of centre, just as a team-mate makes a diagonal run from right to left between the two home centre-backs.
Caleta-Car’s straight pass is in synch with the attacker’s movement and perfectly weighted into his path.
A virtually identical scenario arose at home against Lyon:
Although right-footed, Caleta-Car is equally adept playing on either side of central defence, which can influence his passing lanes and trajectories. When on the left, he is more inclined to take his second touch to his right. This closes off the passing option to his left-back but can help him be more incisive playing through the lines — again, similar to Vestergaard.
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Last season, Caleta-Car mostly played as the left centre-back in a back four, alongside Arsenal loanee William Saliba. The pair dovetailed neatly in defence as Marseille operated in a 4-3-3 shape — a system that has patterns of play parallel to what his new manager Ralph Hasenhuttl wants to implement.
On the international stage, however, he has been used on the right, most recently during Croatia’s Nations League fixtures in June.
In theory, Caleta-Car’s passing range should appeal to Southampton’s increased directness of late, with Hasenhuttl making concerted efforts to go long over the past month.
The Austrian has recognised improvement in the hold-up play of striker Che Adams and the supporting movements of the two No 10s/wingers.
Invariably, the straight passes of Caleta-Car should be matched by diagonal runs.
For instance, rather than a sideways pass to his left-back, his propensity to cut inside funnels possession either centrally or to the right, with a long diagonal pass out to the right-back a favoured option.
By using smarterscout, which gives players a series of ratings from zero to 99 relative to either how often a player performs a given stylistic action or how effective they are at one compared with others playing in their position, we can gain a snapshot of Caleta-Car’s defensive profile.
His low carry and dribble volume (16 out of 99) illustrates Caleta-Car is more of a passer from deep than a centre-back who dribbles the ball out. He ranks highly for progressive passing (70 out of 99) and is generally solid, without being spectacular.
FBref data shows how frequently the ball was recycled back to him at Marseille, where he essentially became their possessional orbit.
Across the past 12 months, the 25-year-old ranks in the 96th percentile for most passes across Europe’s “big five” domestic leagues, averaging 79.3 per 90 minutes — in other words, only four per cent of the centre-backs in the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, the Bundesliga and Ligue 1 were more active in possession.
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Additionally, Caleta-Car’s impressive pass completion rate of 92.1 per cent puts him in the 94th percentile.
His passing is often crisp and well weighted, which demonstrates he can perform under pressure.
Weighted duel ratings help us assess a player’s ability to tackle, head and dribble. These scores are calculated by considering the quality of the opponent faced in those duels — beating Virgil van Dijk in their air, for example, would earn more points than, say, doing the same to Raheem Sterling.
Caleta-Car is rated as extremely strong in the air, both from open play (88 out of 99) and at set plays (89 out of 99).
Incidentally, in the 2020-21 season, the Croatian was only behind Southampton predecessor Jose Fonte — also playing in Ligue 1, for title-bound Lille — for successful aerial duels. This may be a pertinent aspect for Hasenhuttl and assistant coach Ruben Selles, who leads set-piece preparations, with both aiming for an upturn in success from James Ward-Prowse’s dead-ball delivery.
Despite cutting his teeth within the Red Bull stable of clubs, where every team — including Hasenhuttl’s RB Leipzig — have a comparable pressing ideology and an emphasis on defending one-v-one, Caleta-Car does not carry the distinct profile the Southampton manager ordinarily desires.
He ranks poorly for certain defensive metrics, most of which are underpinned by a front-footed nature.
Data suggests he is not the most aggressive player and is one of the worst tacklers (six out of 99). This is markedly lower than Southampton’s current pool of centre-backs, who all possess similar assertive characteristics.
Caleta-Car made an average of 4.55 pressures per 90 minutes last season, putting him in the bottom two per cent of centre-backs across Europe’s “big five” leagues. He only fared slightly better when it came to interceptions, with an average of 1.58 per 90 in the 20th percentile.
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He has found a way of counter-balancing such deficiencies, though, and is adept at covering space and reading danger early.
The metrics highlight he is not the most combative in duels but he does get tight to attackers and force them backwards, rather than dropping off and managing the space behind.
This should chime with Hasenhuttl’s principles, as he explained to The Athletic last week.
“He has very good positioning on the pitch and knows how we want to play with ball-orientated defending — this is helpful,” Hasenhuttl said. “He’s played in more than two different countries and comes to the best league in the world, which is a super big step. But I think he is looking forward to helping this club.”
Here in April’s home game against Nantes, Marseille are being countered, leaving Saliba and Caleta-Car two-v-two at the back. Instead of retreating, the latter pushes forward and closes down the space of the player receiving the ball.
In doing so, he leaves oceans of space behind him — he is the deepest Marseille outfield player but well inside the Nantes half.
Even if somewhat precarious, his quick decision-making enables Marseille to get pressure on the ball and counter-press successfully.
A similar scenario transpires in the second half, when Caleta-Car has the choice of closing down the player on the ball or tracking the runner moving behind him.
He chooses the first option.
Standing 6ft 3in (192cm), Caleta-Car is more comfortable than most imposing defenders when getting into races with opposition forwards. A large proportion of his one-v-one duels last season happened in wide areas, where he showed a willingness to defend in exposed positions on the pitch.
Caleta-Car is relatively quick when competing in duels over several yards, allowing him to get into his stride.
A case in point comes in July’s pre-season friendly against Middlesbrough of the Championship, where the speed of his recovery run leads to an interception.
As is the problem for most tall defenders, Caleta-Car can struggle in tight areas if the attacker he’s facing has a change of pace over the first few yards. He can have difficulty accelerating from a standing start.
Caleta-Car’s arrival at St Mary’s is another indication of new faces enhancing Hasenhuttl’s blueprint and the squad being better equipped to perform the tasks he sets for them, both in and out of possession. The 23-cap Croatian comes with a degree of risk but also offers far greater rewards.
“I wanted to sign him one time for Leipzig when I was manager there,” Hasenhuttl added. “We decided to go for (Dayot) Upamecano. Sometimes in football, your paths cross and you meet each other again.
“I’m very happy to have him here. He’s a super character, a fantastic player and can give us a lot of stability.”
(Photo: Matt Watson/Southampton FC via Getty Images)
