Who better than him knows the cadet championship?
Massimo Coda, in the various Italian provinces in which he played, represents a superhero. Indeed, an epic character. As Prometheus stole fire to give it to men, the striker from Campania has given promotions in Serie A to his teams, making them re-emerge from the darkness. Even more precisely, in three of the last four championships. Just as Prometheus was punished by the gods for this act of extreme generosity, the former Genoa number nine also seems condemned to remain relegated to the cadet championship. It shouldn’t be easy to contribute to promotions in the top division and then always stay there, at same place. Yet the truth is one: if a team aims for Serie A, there is a only slowly it holds: “Better call Massimo Coda”.
“Your fame is well deserved, Hispanic” said the Emperor Commodus in a famous scene from Gladiator turning to Massimo Decimo Meridio. It must be the same feeling that the various Serie B managers experience when they find themselves in the presence of “The Hispanic” Massimo Coda – they really gave him this nickname – now on the threshold of 115 goals in the cadet championship.
However, the person concerned does not seem to like thelabel of category bombers. It is clear that the ambition of a professional player is to always play at the highest level, indeed, woe if that weren’t the case. But the limit, in this case, has turned into a virtue. In a kind of specialization. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to imagine Coda with one patch different from the one that depicts a little man in tension and that takes the shape of the letter B. You can remove Massimo Coda from Serie B, but you cannot remove Serie B from Massimo Coda. An indissoluble bond, such as that between chlorine and sodium, so much so that one might wonder what would Serie B be without him?
Here with the Serie B MVP award in the 21/22 season (Photo: Lega B)
Massimiliano Allegri, in his own way, was prophetic. “In football, as in life, there are categories otherwise some players wouldn’t cost more than others”. Beyond the obvious observation, this step is extremely important. In addition to underlining a different (mainly economic) value of the players, Allegri’s sentence highlights – perhaps not intentionally – also a different utility Of these. Because every club has its goal (or goal in the Anglo-Saxon sense) and the players are the means to get there. Some fit well in some contexts, others less so. Some are more inclined to one type of game, some less. So, yes: there are categories within the genus “soccer player”. But this distinction is anything but discriminatory, if viewed from the point of view of utility in relation to the objectives to be achieved. Belonging to a category, in this sense, is not a bad thing. Far from it.
What makes Massimo Coda a top-class player is, in the first place, one ability to adapt beyond the ordinary. A quality that the striker himself is attributed. But there’s little to discuss about this: maintaining constant returns beyond the shirt you wear isn’t everyone’s quality. And this is even more true if you think of the burdens that the bomber from Campania is carrying.
With great power comes great responsibility
One can’t help but see a certain similarity between the number 9 ex Genoa player and the wandering bomber jackets that characterized provincial football between the 90s and early 00s, as was at least in part his former coach Alberto Gilardino. It was the latter who insisted that Coda remain at Genoa given the less than idyllic relationship with Alexander Blessin.
Coda is the perfect hyphen between the old and the new generation of strikers, but not only. Serie B is a championship that changes quickly, more often than its older brother. There is, in principle, a greater alternation of company structures and an almost infinite turnover of players and coaches. Therefore, the winner is whoever is able to adapt better to change, a sort of empirical confirmation of Darwinian theory. Massimo Coda finds his fertile ground in this environment, because he perfectly combines physicality and technique. He manages to adapt quickly to change, to find the lockpick to undermine the opposing defenses. A modern striker before the letter, given his no longer very young age. A perfect personification of the motto of the Prince of Salina: “If we want everything to stay as it is, everything must change”.
Considering Coda exclusively as a classic number 9 – as he is often portrayed – does not do justice to a player able to vary across the offensive front. The mistake is to look at him in his static and not dynamic position, and then focus exclusively on one phase of his game. To realize how precious Coda’s movements are, whether they are with or without the ball, just compare the heat map of other strikers generally considered similar to him in terms of characteristics.
From the heatmaps it is immediately noticeable how Coda is on average much more present than Lapadula and Pohjanpalo outside the penalty area. This happens both by diktat of the coach but also by various technical characteristics. (Data: Sofascore)
In fact, one of the features that Coda really likes is the ability to stitch the game. As he recognized the Journal of Parma – hypothesizing his return to gialloblù – in a item by Paolo Grossi: “The arrival of Coda would also have a tactical meaning: with him you have to play ball on the ground (despite having also scored several header goals in his career thanks to his nose and timing) and if you want to play ball on the ground it means you want to express supremacy technique on the opponent”. Indeed, in an orphaned Parma del Period Franco Vazquez a technical figure like the ex nine from Genoa would certainly have been useful.
Coda’s technical baggage was fundamental in Genoa’s last season, especially after the arrival of Gilardino. We have already mentioned how the former footballer particularly loves the circulation of the ball to widen the shirts of the opposing teams. Precisely for this reason his offensive terminal had to be able to play with his back to goal and to go back up the field to facilitate the development of the manoeuvre. In the goal he scored in April against Reggina, for example, you can clearly see how Coda contributes to building the offensive action. First he spits from the outside for Strootman who launches Gudmundsson, then he rushes headlong towards the penalty area to attack deep. In the next action, however, we see him collect a perfect game change by the Icelandic and take on the role of the assist-man, dispensing a ball with perfect timing for Badelj’s tow.
Another detail that characterizes theHispanicand which certainly affects the ability to achieve, is always perfect posture of his body with respect to the opponent’s goal. Seldom will you see Coda running perpendicular to the goal, except when he is not directly carrying the ball. He often moves diagonally to the opponent’s goal, with his torso oriented halfway between the ball and the goal, so as to have an easier shot towards the far post that he often seeks. An elementary movement, from football school. But few players do it so cleanly and correctly.
Again in the goal he scores against Reggina he also manages to slip away from Gagliolo’s marking by widening, despite having the possibility of cutting the central players between the two, towards the right corner of the penalty area. With this movement, in addition to taking distance from his marker, the whole view to the right of the goalkeeper is freed up, who can do nothing on the surgical right.
Coda’s tactical intelligence can also be seen in the continuous movements off the ball with which he offers passing solutions to his teammates. This once again demonstrates how much the former number nine from Genoa is a more mobile striker than he seems. In the goal that Coda scores against Benevento, despite Gudmundsson’s descent, it is he who dictates the move to the Icelandic. Even before cutting between the two central players, he attacks the depth to prevent the Benevento defense from being able to defend forward in any way. He steals time from the two centre-backs and favors the attacking midfielder’s kiss. The action ends with a perfect right to cross and with his hands raised as a sign of respect for his former team.
Coda’s “fortune”, therefore, lies not only in turning a consistent percentage of chances into goals, but also in actively contributing to the game. And if, for a moment, we wanted to focus only on goals, we’d realize how complete the repertoire of the striker from Campania is. But this is already there for all to see. Due to these characteristics of him – and here we are addressing above all lovers of improbable comparisons – we could consider him a player similar to Edin Džeko. Like the Bosnian, he tooHispanic he enjoys a profound respect for the ball, almost verging on veneration.
An even easier comparison after a goal like this.
We could also say that Coda, a bit like Džeko, gets better with age. This improvement was seen in particular by taking into consideration the chances created per game. In the 2022/23 season, he created 1.78 chances per game, numbers clearly up from the past five years, where he had reached a maximum of 1.63. The chances created are defined as all the passes that lead to a shot (key passes or assists): during the past season Coda played mostly in the service of the team. We discovered, if there was any need, that he too can be considered a player associative. This, however, forced him to make a greater sacrifice in front of goal and end the season solo with 10 goals, which however allowed him to reach the third consecutive season in double figures. Even if we would first count the ones in which non it went into double digits.
The real key to always staying afloat in such a changing world as Serie B is to be “caught”. Try to learn as quickly as possible all the changes that take place from year to year. And this is easy for Coda, who in addition to being a seasoned footballer, can count on solid fundamentals and an ever-constant desire to question himself. In a disgustingly patronizing tone, we could say that young professional footballers should take an example from him in dedication to work.
We said at the beginning that it would be strange not to read Massimo Coda’s name among the Serie B squad. Also because by now the striker from Campania is only 24 goals from Stefan Schwoch, current all-time leading scorer in the cadet league. Is it really worth not chasing this record? Also because age is certainly on his side and would allow him to play at least another couple of seasons at a high level. It’s true, in this way it would end up fueling the stereotype that would see Coda only suitable for the cadet championship. But, honestly, it doesn’t matter much: for us Massimo Coda is truly a top-class player. Of another category.