Best Alternatives to Ivan Ilić

Playing Style Analysis

Ilić is the kind of midfielder who makes the game look slower than it is—not because he's languid, but because he's almost always in the right place before the problem arrives. His interceptions and key passes both sit in the top 20% of Serie A midfielders, a rare pairing that signals genuine two-way intelligence rather than a specialist's one-trick value. Here's the counterintuitive part: his duel win rate sits in the bottom 10%, which looks damning until you realize that a midfielder winning this many interceptions rarely needs to win duels—he's already cut the pass off. The three closest DNA matches to Ivan Ilić:

• Kenneth Taylor(80% match) — A Creator. Statistically, he stands out as naturally left-footed, an elite creator (1.7 key passes/90), a prolific assist provider (0.28 assists/90), meticulous in distribution (86% pass accuracy), heavily involved in play (56 touches/90) and active off the ball (2.1 press score/90), contributing to defensive transitions.
• Davide Frattesi(80% match) — A Balanced Midfielder. Statistically, he stands out as a constant goal threat (2.6 shots/90), an aggressive ball-winner (2.6 tackles/90), wins the physical battle (56% duel success) and top 10% tackler in the league.
• Weston McKennie(80% match) — McKennie is the American who made Serie A believers out of skeptics—a box-to-box engine who wins aerial duels at a rate that puts him in the top 10% of Italian midfielders, a remarkable feat for someone operating in one of Europe's most physically demanding leagues. His 1.44 key passes per 90 and consistent presence in the final third suggest a midfielder who genuinely influences the game's decisive moments, not just its connective tissue.

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