✨Baller Review… Pablo Maia🇧🇷 Club: São Paulo Nationality: Brazil Position(s): DM Preferred Foot: Right Height: 5’10”/178cm Age: 21 Strengths: duels, strength, passing, ball-carrying, tackling, recoveries, ball-striking Development Areas: aggression, discipline

Pablo Maia is a great all-rounder DM. Tight control, press resistance, aggressive ball winner, leader mentality at young age. Maia will give absolutely everything on the pitch to help the team and steps up in big moments. A mentality that’ll take him further than any ability.

Maia has a compact frame with great upper body strength and he loves to engage in duels. His aggression means he loves the battles with opponents and he’ll look to quickly get close to attackers to pressure and force into errors. Maia is very strong in duels.

The São Paulo defensive midfielder loves to press high and recover any loose balls to retain/regain possession and sustain pressure on the opponent. Maia’s stamina to press so aggressively all game is very impressive. 📊: @pranav_m28

Maia is more than just a destroyer, he’s also technically secure. 90.4% pass accuracy in Brasilerão 2023 season shows the fact he isn’t reckless on the ball. He’s a very vertical player. Maia loves to play clipped passes over the defence & through the lines. 📊: @pranav_m28

With such a compact frame it means when shoulder to shoulder with opponents he holds his own and often comes out on top in a very physical league. This comes in handy when he carries the ball. Pablo has close control. A 2-way dribbler that takes on players with power.

Maia is very good at defending wide areas. Since he usually plays in a double pivot he tends to have to cover either flank to support the FB and break up play. Hence his tackles being more concentrated in the wide areas. 📊: @pranav_m28

One of my favourite aspects of his defending ability is how reluctant he is to go to ground. Staying on his feet instead and stealing the ball from his opponent. He reads the game well enabling him to anticipate where the ball is going to not be forced into making slide tackles.

Just as a nice bonus, Maia has top ball-striking. He hits the ball so cleanly with such ferocity to score some screamers. Said so many times but I love DMs to have a trait of a match winning screamer. Maia has this in his locker. 🎥: @JovemPanEsporte

Pablo Maia’s composure in the final third has that inevitability about him. Much like Casemiro at his best, he steps up to take responsibility of the game and score the goal to win the game in any means necessary. 🎥: @SPFCInformer

One of his main areas of development is his aggression as it can cause him to pick up yellows. Hopefully with experience he’ll learn to channel this better and the discipline issues will reduce. Also his aggression can make him come far out of position at times to win the ball.

Pablo Maia is someone I’ve spoken about before and was planning to write about in more detail soon due to his impressive season this year for São Paulo Interested to see if anyone picks him up as his talent is clear to see. He’s certainly a player who could play in Europe now

But what’s his best role? He’s definitely a defensive minded player, however he LOVES to push up, press his opponent and recover the ball high. For this reason he doesn’t have the positional discipline to be a lone pivot #6 . Instead I’d pair him in a double pivot with a sitter.

As he pushes up the sitter can protect the space left behind by Maia. The sitter could either be defensive minded too or just a deep lying playmaker who can read the game well. Either would give Maia the freedom to press and be aggressive in winning the ball back.

Another prospect Maia is similar to is Porto’s new signing Alan Varela. Varela, like Maia, played in a double pivot at Boca Juniors with both defensive & progression responsibilities. Aggression to win the ball but also a technically secure base of the midfield to build upon.

Pablo Maia has been linked with many teams but of recent it’s been Arsenal who have been Although he wouldn’t be a starter this move would make sense for both him & Arsenal. He’d get to learn from experienced #6 like Partey, Jorginho & Rice as their understudy to refine his game

Arsenal were previously linked to other younger Brazilian #6 in Gabriel Moscardo & André so there could be truth to his rumour. It wouldn’t surprise me due to the previous transfer done with São Paulo for Marquinhos on a special deal to keep good relationships with them.

Keep an eye out for developments on this or Pablo Maia moving to another European team, it’s bound to happen soon. He’s certainly good enough. Thanks for reading! The support is much appreciated🤝🏽

🎥: Brazil Scout -

@Ben_Mattinson_ @SaoPauloFC @SaoPauloFC_eng @SaoPauloMiIGrau @arqtricolor @spfcdaopressao @GiovanniChacon_ How am I just seeing this!!!

@Arsenal_Era @SaoPauloFC @SaoPauloFC_eng @SaoPauloMiIGrau @arqtricolor @spfcdaopressao @GiovanniChacon_ Let me know your thoughts bro