Best Alternatives to Alex Telles

Playing Style Analysis

Telles is a specialist masquerading as a fullback, a dead-ball artist whose left foot operates more like a playmaker’s wand than a defender's tool. In a Serie A tier-C side, he is an offensive outlier; his 0.41 goals per 90 put him in the top 5% of all defenders, while his shot volume and key pass metrics consistently haunt the league’s elite percentiles. The counterintuitive reality of his 89.2% pass accuracy—top 20% in the league—is that it stems from technical precision rather than high involvement, as his low total pass volume suggests he is often bypassed in build-up until the final third. The three closest DNA matches to Alex Telles:

• Leonardo Spinazzola(86% match) — A Active Full-Back. Statistically, he stands out as an elite creator (1.6 key passes/90).
• Luca Pellegrini(86% match) — A Active Full-Back. Statistically, he stands out as naturally left-footed, central to possession (74 touches/90) and active off the ball (2.0 press score/90), contributing to defensive transitions.
• Andrea Cambiaso(80% match) — Cambiaso has quietly become one of Serie A's most complete midfield operators — a player who wins the ball back and immediately does something intelligent with it. His tackles won rate sits in the top 20% of league midfielders, yet he's not a destroyer; pair that with top-20% key passes per 90, and you have a rare two-phase threat.

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