PROFILE
Name: Pedro Raul
Age: 25
Position: Striker
Club: Goias (On Loan from Kashiwa Reysol)
SEASON 2022 KEY STATISTICS
Games Played: 28
Goals: 17 (3 penalties scored from 3)
Assists: 2
Where to begin with Big Pedro......
Well, he's big, not quite Peter Crouch big but at 6ft 4 I think it's safe to say he's above average height and with his footage I didn't see as much as I would like (1 full game and about 75mins of highlights) but I got to the end of it feeling like I'd seen bits of Peter Crouch in the way he played.
With his height the automatic assumption is he'll be a great aerial target but much like Crouch he is actually better with the ball played into his feet and body. He is capable in the air, but I wouldn't say it's his strong suit. What I felt upon watching him is that he has the sort of talent where he needs to be switched on to be good, there needs to be a point between calm and determined that Pedro needs to sit between to be at his best. When he finds that headspace he can be unplayable, the ball sticks to him when he has his back to goal, passing is crisp and his shooting accuracy is on point.
Pedro carries a lot of responsibility in the Goias attack as he's regularly a lone striker and in their 4141 system he can and regularly does lack support. Based on the footage I've seen they rely a lot on Pedro and Dada to get them up the pitch. Pedro alone has scored just over 50% of the teams goals in the league so his value to Goias during this loan spell has been massive.
There are some elements to Pedros game that need work. First of if he falls out of that "zone" I discussed earlier his play looks erratic, loose and sloppy. His control and passing goes from crisp to soggier than that salad you forgot you had in the fridge from last week. His finishing also suffers and so you see shots that should be hitting the target becoming warnings to ball boys who aren't switched on behind the goal.
When he is in the zone what you get is that Peter Crouch effect. Defenders don't really know what to do because if they get close, he has the ability to shift his body and turn them or to use his natural ability with the ball to find a route away and if they stand to far off then he has it in his locker to touch, turn and drive the game and link with the players who have got forward to join him in attack.
The game full game I watched showed the mix of everything discussed above. His highlights also seemed to tell a similar story with some really good moments and some moments where you'd think he needed a good kick up the arse to get him going again.
Santos vs Goias
This game was a battle between 2 teams sat a few points above the relegation battle and with their main hopes being tied to qualifying for the Copa Sudamerica.
Pedro Raul had an instant impact with a goal within 2 minutes of play. A nicely worked move resulted in a cross from Dada on the right side, Raul was in the box with 2 central defenders and managed to make a forward movement before ghosting his marker to have a yard of space on the back post. The ball was perfect, so much so that Pedro didn't really need to jump. He shaped his body and pushed all his weight through the header to take the ball down into the bottom corner. A great goal from Goias.
The game then became more about Santos taking control and really dominating the ball and the chances until the end. Goias did try to target Pedro to get themselves out and this is where you could see his struggles. When he did get the ball in the options for linking into other players were few, and so Santos used a dovetail setup to mark Pedro and really strangle the game in their favour and that did appear to effect Pedro a bit with a few easy passes going astray.
Santos then got their rewards for the dominance after 55 minutes and it was 1-1. In all honesty they looked like they'd go on to win with ease.
6 minutes later, that prediction was out the window again and we see Pedro showing off his best bits again. Dada again being the source of creation. Dada finally made a little space for himself deep in his own half and Pedro makes his run in behind as Santos had committed men forward. Dada then flights a beautifully weighted ball for Pedro to move onto, Pedro gets the ball in and shows excellent strength to hold off the defender on his right side and lifts his head to see the goalkeeper has begun to move forward..... BIG MISTAKE. Pedro lifts the ball over him with a sweetly hit shot off his left foot from 20 yards, just a lovely dipping effort that left the goalkeeper looking like a statue.
Momentum didn't stay with Goias for long and again Santos took control with the game being played in the same fashion, but Pedro never stopped trying to move to give Goias an out ball in attack. He also defended his own box quite well from set plays that Santos got as the game went on.
In the end I don't see Pedro Raul pulling up any trees at one of the top clubs in Europe, but what I do like and what I think he would offer a team who maybe play with a little bit more ambition than Goias is a target to play from. Part of using him as that target is getting the ball into his body, not his head and if you have runners going off either side of him then those players are going to love the spaces that his presence can allow. He has also shown he can finish this season. It's just a matter of ensuring you can get him in that zone where his head is up, and he plays as the man he is.
So....whether it's a team looking for a man to anchor the attack and give their runners more freedom, or a team looking for that something different to bring off the bench then this guy could be worth a look.
Thanks for reading.
R
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