Best Alternatives to Alex Santana

Playing Style Analysis

Santana functions as a cerebral, high-efficiency metronome stuck in the engine room of a Tier C struggler, providing elite ball retention and defensive anticipation that belies his team’s stature. While his 88.9% pass accuracy puts him in the league’s top 20%, he is no mere sideways recycler; his 1.42 shots per 90 indicate a player with the license and confidence to arrive late in the final third. The counterintuitive hook lies in his physicality: despite an unremarkable 42.9% aerial win rate, his 0.85 wins per 90 sit above the league average, suggesting a player who compensates for raw power with elite positioning and timing. The three closest DNA matches to Alex Santana:

• Nicolò Barella(80% match) — Barella is the engine that makes Inter's midfield breathe—a box-to-box dynamo whose footballing intelligence operates at a frequency most teammates can only follow, not match. His key pass rate sits in Serie A's top 5%, and his assist numbers land in the top 10%, meaning the creativity isn't accidental—it's systematic.
• Manu Koné(80% match) — A Box-to-Box. Statistically, he stands out as active in the tackle (1.8 tackles/90), meticulous in distribution (90% pass accuracy), heavily involved in play (65 touches/90) and active off the ball (2.4 press score/90), contributing to defensive transitions.
• Éderson(80% match) — Éderson has quietly become one of Serie A's most complete midfield engines — a player who does the unglamorous work at an elite level while never demanding the spotlight. His 90.3% pass accuracy places him in the top 10% of league midfielders, but the more telling figure is his press intensity, also top 20% — meaning he wins the ball back as efficiently as he distributes it.

Similarity uses per-90 performance across playing-style dimensions. How Player DNA matching works →