The top assist provider in Europe isn’t a superstar forward like Bukayo Saka or Vinícius Júnior or Lamine Yamal – instead, it’s a fullback who played just 12 times last season for Nottingham Forest: Nuno Tavares.
By Zach Lowy
Born in Lisbon to Cape Verdean parents, Tavares made his Benfica debut on August 10, 2019, opening the scoring with a missile from 30 yards out before adding two more assists vs. Paços de Ferreira. However, after being exposed in a 2-0 loss to Porto, Tavares was dropped for the next 10 months, returning only after Álex Grimaldo suffered a ligament injury. Tavares made 41 appearances for Benfica and looked set to continue his development in Lisbon until June 4, 2021, when a video surfaced featuring Nuno and his barber, who exclaimed: “This kid is the future, that ******* Spaniard [Grimaldo] will never leave so the kid can flourish.” Nuno responded, “If not in Benfica, it will be in another place.”
Nuno was sold to Arsenal for £8 million a month later, where he was fast-tracked into the first team and showcased his attacking capabilities under Mikel Arteta, but he proved a liability in defence with costly lapses in concentration and positional mistakes often seeing him subbed off at halftime. Arsenal loaned him out to Marseille for 2022/23, and, much to his chagrin, Arteta refused to sanction a purchase option. Once again, Tavares impressed in the final third, scoring in three of their first four matches as well as Marseille’s final game of 2022 and first game of 2023 vs. Montpellier. However, after opening the scoring vs. Montpellier, Tavares went from hero to zero after needlessly kicking out at Arnaud Souquet, sparking a mass brawl and earning himself a three-game suspension. After a hot and cold year in France, Tavares made the move to Nottingham Forest, where he fared drastically worse.
When I wrote about Tavares in 2021, I noted, “Nuno is capable of going from making careless errors in possession and conceding goal-scoring chances for the opposition, to single-handedly winning the game for his team in the space of minutes. A player who thrives at receiving the ball high up the pitch, charging towards the byline and whipping in a cross, Nuno Tavares’ potential is clear to see, but his fundamental errors of dribbling into traffic, coughing up possession in dangerous areas and stepping out too early to make a tackle can leave his team exposed.”
Three years later, it seemed those defensive deficiencies would prevent him from reaching his world-class potential. That is, until he joined Lazio on loan with an obligation to buy for €5 million.
Tavares has made a seamless adaptation to Serie A, showing a newfound composure on the left side of defense in Lazio’s 4-2-3-1, and taking his game from high-risk, high-reward to low-risk, high-reward. He’s assisted three goals in his last three league matches, and he’s managed to cut down on his cataclysmic errors – apart from a moment of madness vs. Como. Tavares coughed up possession with a loose touch, and, despite being 90 meters away from his own goal, lunged in with a tackle rather than track back. He received his marching orders for the ill-advised challenge, but Lazio would nevertheless prevail 5-1 in Como.
He returned to the starting XI a week later against Porto and thrived on both sides of the ball, recovering possession on eight occasions, winning all three tackles as well as 8 out of 14 ground duels, whilst he also completed 36 out of 43 passes – including three out of four long balls and eight passes into the final third – created one chance, and was named the FotMob Player of the Match with an 8.0 rating, before following that up with an assured performance in their 1-0 win at Monza.
“Nuno has been the biggest surprise of Serie A and a lot of that is down to the trust that Marco Baroni has given him and the confidence that’s been building,” said The Laziali founder Steven K. Moore. “His pace, physicality, dribbling and ability to get forward and back, his ability to take on his man, beat them, and then put in a perfect cross into the box…it’s been something we’ve been lacking at left back since Senad Lulić’s retirement in 2021. Baroni’s style allows him to get forward as much as possible and not have to worry as much about being on the defensive side of things…he’s been an incredible signing so far.”
Tavares (7.89) is the second-highest-rated FotMob player in Serie A after Ademola Lookman (7.92) and has racked up the most assists in Europe’s top five leagues. With eight assists in his first nine matches, Tavares is on pace to not only break Dani Alves’ record (15 in 2010/11) of the most assists in a single season by a fullback, but also Papu Gómez’s record (16 in 2019/20) of the most assists in a single Serie A campaign. It’s no wonder that Lazio president Claudio Lotito has already vowed that he wouldn’t even sell Tavares for €70 million, or that Lazio fans have already nicknamed him ‘Freccia Nuno’ after the ‘Freccia Rossa’ high-speed train, or that Roberto Martinez has given him a first-ever call-up to the Portuguese senior team.
After bouncing around from the Emirates to the Velodrome to the City Ground, Nuno Tavares seems to have finally found a permanent home at the Stadio Olimpico. Lazio enter the November international break in fifth place – one point behind league leaders Napoli – and they’ll be counting on their Portuguese dynamo as they look to continue their stellar run of form which has seen them win 10 of their last 11 in all competitions.
(Cover image from IMAGO)
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