Best Alternatives to Davide Zappacosta

Playing Style Analysis

Zappacosta remains the quintessential Italian wing-back hybrid, a tactical Swiss Army knife whose statistical profile reveals a high-volume progressor operating with the precision of a deep-lying playmaker. While his raw output of 0.05 goals per 90 appears modest, his underlying metrics paint a picture of a relentless transitional engine; he ranks in the top 20% of Serie A midfielders for both pass accuracy (85.8%) and dribbles (0.94/90), proving he is as comfortable carrying the ball into pressure as he is recycling possession. Counterintuitively, his 50% aerial win rate suggests a physical dominance that the eye test often misses, yet this is undermined by a lackluster 42% duel win rate on the ground, exposing a vulnerability in one-on-one defensive isolation. The three closest DNA matches to Davide Zappacosta:

• Valentino Lazaro(80% match) — A Solid Defender. Statistically, he stands out as a capable chance creator (1.3 key passes/90), active in the tackle (1.9 tackles/90) and active off the ball (2.0 press score/90), contributing to defensive transitions.
• Alexis Saelemaekers(80% match) — A Box-to-Box. Statistically, he stands out as an elite creator (1.7 key passes/90), active in the tackle (2.4 tackles/90), wins the physical battle (58% duel success), heavily involved in play (66 touches/90), draws fouls effectively (2.1/90), active off the ball (2.7 press score/90), contributing to defensive transitions and top 20% creator in the league.
• Luis Henrique(80% match) — A Creator. Statistically, he stands out as a capable chance creator (1.2 key passes/90), meticulous in distribution (87% pass accuracy), wins the physical battle (69% duel success), heavily involved in play (57 touches/90) and active off the ball (2.5 press score/90), contributing to defensive transitions.

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