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          Barcelona's Frenkie de Jong has Man United interested, but what's the big deal?

          • Ryan O'HanlonJun 21, 2022, 06:00 AM ET
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              Ryan O'Hanlon is a staff writer for ESPN.com. He's also the author of "Net Gains: Inside the Beautiful Game's Analytics Revolution."
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          Frenkie de Jong was supposed to start a revolution. At least I thought he might.

          Some four years ago, De Jong was answering a question that many of us didn't realize we needed answered: Could Bayern Munich and Germany legend Franz Beckenbauer compete with the best if he was playing in 2018? Der Kaiser won the Ballon d'Or twice as a defender (1972, 1976), but he didn't really win it for his defending. He started off as an attacking midfielder for Germany before eventually being pushed as far back as possible, sitting as a "libero" behind the back line. But that's just where he started; once he got the ball, Beckenbauer would drive it forward all on his own and play the decisive pass.

          In 1974, Beckenbauer captained his country to a World Cup final victory over Netherlands. The game was easily classified as a clash of styles: the programmatic Germany vs. the free-flowing Total Football of Johan Cruyff's Dutch side. But Beckenbauer's do-everything approach reflected the style of his opponents right back at them. And in 2018, one of those opponents, Netherlands midfielder Arie Haan, said the following: "[Frenkie] de Jong is a better version of Franz Beckenbauer, because he has speed and passes the ball easily."

          In the Eredivisie, Ajax were employing this lithe blond kid as a center-back, and he was dribbling up, down and across the field for fun. It was video-game soccer, but less FIFA and more Super Mario Brothers. Any space he saw seemed to be an invitation to drive it forward. He'd turned the standard risk/reward of the soccer field on its head. De Jong's fearlessness opened up all kinds of new possibilities for the way the game could be played; if you could play like that as a center-back, then, well, what couldn't you do?

          - Marcotti: Barcelona's massive financial gamble

          While De Jong didn't play at the back during Ajax's famous run to within seconds of the Champions League final, he still stretched the field and the bounds of positional possibility from a deep midfield role. In the summer of 2019, he moved to Barcelona for €75 million ($94.6m). Three years later, he's been the one thing it didn't seem like he could ever be: unspectacular.

          So, what happened? And what could still happen now that he is being linked with a move away from Barcelona to rejoin former Ajax coach Erik ten Hag at Manchester United?

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          Why Frenkie de Jong is a good fit for Manchester United

          Julien Laurens and Gemma Soler explain why Frenkie de Jong moving to Manchester United makes a lot of sense.

          What type of player is De Jong?

          In a sentence: De Jong is a midfielder who moves the ball forward, gets great shots inside the penalty area and doesn't do any defending.

          As Manchester United look to bring him in this summer to replace Paul Pogba, De Jong's development has actually been similar to the Frenchman's. At Juventus and Ajax respectively, both were genre-bending players who could do everything without sacrificing anything. Pogba was a midfielder who could score and create goals like an attacker while still doing all of the things required from a top-level midfielder. In other words, you didn't have to play a more defensive midfielder to compensate for Pogba; having him in your team was like getting some kind of bonus dispensation from the domestic governing body that allowed you to play with a 12th attacker.

          At United, Pogba still provided all of his incredible offensive impact, but his defense fell off a cliff. His presence in the team required alterations elsewhere, the club weren't equipped to make those alterations, and here we are, with Pogba leaving the club on a free transfer for a return to Juventus.

          Meanwhile, De Jong was a hypersonic ball-mover who could still recover for himself. While playing for Ajax in the Champions League in 2018-19, De Jong led all midfielders in the competition in progressive carries and was third among all players in combined tackles and interceptions.

          That season, per FBref, he registered 43 tackles and interceptions in 11 games. This season for Barcelona in LaLiga, he made 66 tackles and interceptions ... in 32 games.

          De Jong is still brilliant with the ball at his feet. Per FBref, he ranks in the 81st percentile among midfielders for progressive passes and the 94th percentile for progressive carries. But here's where he ranks for the major defensive categories:

          - Pressures: 3rd percentile
          - Tackles: 8th
          - Interceptions: 10th

          It's a very similar profile to Real Madrid's Luka Modric -- the 36-year-old version, not the 25-year-old one. Instead, today's truly elite midfielders do all the ball progression that De Jong does and pair it with plenty of pressure and ball-winning.

          For PSG, Marco Verratti ranks in the 98th percentile or above for both progressive passes and carries, he's in the 90th percentile for pressures and the 85th percentile for tackles. Chelsea's N'Golo Kante has become an elite ball-mover as he's aged -- 90th percentile in passes; 94th percentile in carries -- but has still maintained an albeit diminished defensive workload: 61st percentile for pressures, 73rd for tackles, and 77th for interceptions. And Liverpool's Thiago Alcantara does it all at an elite level: 99th percentile for passes, 98th for carries, 59th for pressures, 90th for tackles, 88th for interceptions.

          These stats only measure on-ball actions, but it's not like De Jong is known for his sound positioning either; he's not similar to former NBA star Shane Battier, who affected the game of basketball in unquantifiable ways. (If he were, Barcelona would win a lot more often.) And that's evidenced by the one area that has flourished since he left Ajax. While he got pipped atop the leaderboard by Monaco's Myron Boadu by the end of this past season, this same idea remains true:

          De Jong has become a pretty effective off-ball mover at Barcelona. In this goal against Valencia, he makes a forward run, opens some space for left-back Jordi Alba, keeps floating forward, recognizes the potential for a cross, and beats the defender to the spot:

          And against Alaves, he makes a run into to the space to the left of the back line, doesn't get the ball, still hangs out in the penalty area, and eventually is rewarded with a tap-in:

          De Jong ranks in the 95th percentile among midfielders in progressive passes received, and he's averaging more touches in the penalty area with Barcelona (2.3) than he did with Ajax (1.9). However, the increase in around-the-goal involvement has still only led to eight goals and nine assists in three LaLiga seasons.

          Right now, De Jong looks like a player who can progress the ball forward really nicely and make an impact with his runs into the penalty area. But in order to get both of those things from him, a team has to account for his lack of an impact at the other end. He hasn't changed the geometry of the game, and he's not a player you can just plug into a team and expect an immediate impact from, no matter who's around him.

          But what could he be?

          It feels unfair to compare De Jong to the likes of Thiago, Kante and Verratti, but he at least did suggest the potential for a similar impact while he was at Ajax. Plus, his transfer fee -- the second highest at the time for a midfielder after Pogba (€105m), and now third after Real Madrid's move for Monaco's Aurelien Tchouameni (€80m) -- shows that the market thought the same thing, too.

          But very few players can be completely extricated from their environment. Everyone is affected by teammates, manager, coaches, and the environment of the clubs they exist within. And well, along with Manchester United, Barcelona might be the worst-run big club in the world. Meanwhile, Ajax are probably one of the best: a clear identity, but one that's flexible enough to react to the personnel moves forced on them by their place lower down the food chain. It's not a coincidence that De Jong looked more comfortable at the latter, rather than the former.

          At Barcelona, De Jong has now had four coaches -- all with notably different tactical approaches -- in three seasons. There have been two club presidents since he got there. The police raided the club headquarters at one point as part of a financial investigation. The club's best-ever player, Lionel Messi, was forced to leave through tears last summer even though, by all accounts, he wanted to stay. And now the club seems to be operating on two planes of reality at the same time: one where they have no money to spend within LaLiga's financial regulations, and another where they openly court every expensive and ageing superstar on the planet.

          Under Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique, Barcelona was a place you went to succeed: you were handpicked because of a number of attributes that meant you'd fit with the rest of a squad that already was assuming it was going to win the Champions League even before you got there. Now, it's become a place you go to fail.

          The three most expensive players in club history -- Philippe Coutinho (€160m), Antoine Griezmann (€120m) and Ousmane Dembele (€105m) -- are all either free agents or currently employed by clubs not named Barcelona. Outside of those three, the club has spent around €400m on 10 other players over the past five seasons: De Jong, Miralem Pjanic, Malcom, Paulinho, Clement Lenglet, Nelson Semedo, Arthur, Francisco Trincao, Neto, Sergino Dest, and Junior Firpo. Only four of them even played at all for Barcelona last season, and De Jong is the only one who played at least 2,000 minutes.

          It's possible that Barcelona really are just that bad at identifying the right players, but as the names continue to stack on top of each other, it seems more likely that the club simply don't put the players it signs in a position to succeed. And were De Jong put into a position to succeed, it certainly would look a lot different to what we've seen at Barcelona.

          I don't think the revolutionary potential exists anymore, which is not to say that someone shouldn't try him out as a center-back just so we can all see what happens. And I don't necessarily picture him ever really being in the conversation for the best midfielder in the world. But would Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp figure out a way to make him flourish? There's no reason why he couldn't do a version of what Ilkay Gundogan has done at City for the past few years, moving the ball forward and breaking into the box while the likes of Rodri and Kyle Walker cover in behind.

          Instead, though, De Jong finds himself in that strange spot that so many potential stars do: expensive enough that only a couple clubs can afford to sign him but not attractive enough at his price and with his flaws that the best clubs, the ones with a plan and a structure and an environment built for success, would be seriously interested.

          While De Jong flourished at a smaller club with a sense of purpose, he's now really only an option for the dysfunctional big clubs, the ones who occasionally succeed only because they make so much money. If he goes to Man United, I worry I might be able to write this same exact piece again in a couple years -- just by changing a couple of words.