Brazil hopes to get best of Raphinha

The Barcelona star man Raphinha counts 27 goals and 18 assists with Barcelona this term, making it the best season of his career. Now on international duty.

The 28-year-old faces Colombia and Argentina as Brazil hope to see the same version of the player we have seen with the Catalans so far.

Raphinha has become one of Barcelona’s best attacking assets. And that tells a lot about the kind of player he is, given the Catalans have a roster that includes the likes of Robert Lewandowski or Lamine Yamal. The next step for him is to deliver the same lethal attitude in front of the goal with Brazil.

The BeSoccer Pro data shows that the 28-year-old finds himself lacking with his national team compared to his club in terms of output. Only when it comes to dribbling does he outperform the Barcelona version of himself. With the ‘Verde Amarela’ outfit, he maintains an average of attempted dribbles of 3.59, completing 2 of them with success. As for Barca, his average falls slightly to 3.24 and 1.85 respectively.

In terms of goals, Brazil head coach Dorival Junior would hope for Raphinha to translate his numbers at club level onto the international stage. The forward counts 27 goals from 42 appearances this season under Hansi Flick, showing an exponential growth from his previous hauls – 11 from 36 and 10 in 50 in his first two seasons in Span, and 10 in 37 in 2021-22, his last campaign at Leeds. On average, he has 0.65 goals per match with the ‘Azulgrana’ as opposed to 0.42 with Brazil. Shooting-wise, he takes 3.33 shots per 90 minutes under the German manager compared to 2.53 under the Brazilian one.

A similar trend can be noted when examining his assists data. 0.43 with Barcelona and only 0.11 with ‘La Selecao’. Looking at Raphinha’s passing statistics reveal that he completes almost three times more key passes with the La Liga side (1.15) than he does with his national team (0.42). On a more general level, 35.6 is the number of attempted passes he makes for a game with his club, with 27.16 of them being successful. 29.23 and 22.37 are the respective figures he has registered with the ‘Canarinha’.

Barcelona’s Raphinha also comes out on top in other aspects related to attack. For example, his successful crosses with the ‘Blaugrana’ are almost double (1.15) the ones for Brazil (0.63). The same goes for his progression with the ball. The former Leeds man tries to advance up with the pitch with the ball at his feet 6.69 times per fixture at club level – 2.59 times with success – but only 5.38 times with the national team, with a pass rate of only 1.37.

In looking at this data, considering context is also important. While Raphinha has been flourishing with Barcelona, the crisis going on with the Brazil squad has influenced his impact. But even so, the data is a considerable sample to outline Barca’s Raphinha as a more lethal player, thanks to his goals and accuracy. This aspect could come in handy for Brazil in their demanding games against Colombia and Argentina during this March internationals.