Beckham Putra: One Size Fits Few

A small wizard embracing the increasingly physical game of football

Beckham Putra has it all to be a local hero. Born in Bandung from a football-loving family — he even had a sibling named Zola (unsurprisingly also a professional footballer), nurtured by the Persib football academy, and had experience playing at the Danone Nations’ Cup, Beckham’s talent has been evident since he was a child.

Following his debut at Persib, Beckham’s career trajectory has been increasing exponentially. He has become a trusted player during Robert Rene Albert and Luis Milla’s tenure. The childlike nature of his game gained many admirers and further strengthen the Bobotoh’s love to him.

Beckham’s skill has been proven time and time, however, strangely enough, he has never been called up to the national team. In total, Beckham only has 10 caps with the national team (in the U-19 and the U-23 level). While some of his absence are caused by injuries, Beckham has, more often than not, been emitted from the national team list.

In this article, I will discuss in depth about Beckham Putra’s profile (from technical to psychological), his role in Luis Milla’s Persib, statistical output, and compatibility with the national team profile. Hopefully, this article will bring another perspective of Beckham’s style of play and solutions to his frequent emission from the national team.

Beckham is a small and slender player; as per Transfermarkt, his height is 173 cm while weighing for about 63 kg. His build allows him to have a low centre of gravity, that benefits him on changing directions — whether on-ball or off-ball, allowing him to evade defenders effortlessly. This makes him a formidable player that can break down compact defence and multiple players at once.

Having a slender build, though, makes him somewhat unreliable during defending; he is unable to cover large spaces and often lost duels. His lack of strength also puts him at disadvantage against stronger opponents, whether during ground or aerial duels.

Beckham is also a fast player, being one of the best Persib players when accelerating. His quickness when running with — or without the ball — gives defenders a hard time catching up with him. However, his short strides has made him unreliable at long distance running, as you can see here when he wasn’t able to exploit the space in time, resulting on Irianto failing to notice him as a passing option.

Beckham has considerable stamina for a player of his build. He actively moves across the pitch, making runs in behind, and exploring the pitch to offer connections. These combination of tenacity and courageousness allows Beckham to be a reliable player during big matches. Being in the spotlight only increases his confidence, as he managed to take Persija players on and initiate creative plays throughout the match.

While he uses this energy well during attacking, defensive-wise, he is pretty inconsistent. He had streaks of pressing and tackling, and on the other side, letting his teammates do the pressing job for him. This will be expanded thoroughly at the technical side.

Beckham’s physical capabilities has its ceiling, as he only completed 8.6 90s from 13 matches — with just two full-time appearances. This highlights that Beckham can only maintain performance up to a certain point, a thing which wise managers often take account into.

Beckham has a quick brain; he is very active on scanning the situations surrounding him, taking account relevant things before deciding on the action he needs to do afterwards. Take a look at this situation: Beckham scans left (seeing space, Madura’s defensive shape, and his teammates), then right (option to pass backward). He then decided to pass to Ciro, a good 1v1 dribbler with lots of space to cut inside and shoot.

It is also safe to say that because of his excellent thinking, Beckham is a natural on finding progressive options. Whether a pass that slice the defensive line, diagonals to the opposite side of the pitch, sideway passes to players that has more space, or a classic one-two pass, Beckham’s creative solutions allows Persib to progress the ball effortlessly.

One annoying habit of Beckham, though, is his tendency to ignore difficult options when cutting inside. When cutting inside, Klok and Ciro offers themselves as diagonal options in behind the PSS defensive line. However, Beckham ignored both of them, and opts to pass outside instead.

Beckham is an excellent dribbler, able to wrong-foot opponents with feints, excellent ball control, and quick feet. He is virtually impossible to stop, even within various defensive approaches. He is able to take on defenders in a 1v1 (as Persikabo utilized a man-oriented approach), and evading compact defense with feinting and good body balance (Madura United’s approach).

Beckham’s touch, dribbling, and passing ability can be attributed to his “feel” for the ball. “Feel” can be defined as the ability to manipulate the ball with various parts of the body. His “feel” allows him to touch the ball in various ways and bring the ball to wherever place he wanted to, even in uncomfortable positions (e.g.facing behind+near the touchline) or situations (e.g. waterlogged pitch).

Excellent dribbling skills and ball control makes Beckham a foul machine. Opponents often fouled him when there’s no option left or due to the Persib midfielder’s quickness with the ball.

Shooting hasn’t been one of Beckham’s best aspect, as he’s too focused on shooting with his inside right foot. Although Beckham is good on creating separations by cutting inside, this has made his shot quite predictable.

Beckham has various off-ball tendencies: primarily, he dropped and offer himself ball-near. His intention is to receive the ball and create things. The second one is exploiting gaps. Beckham is is able to offer runs in behind after doing pass and moves, or exploiting the space when the other forwards are dropping.

Another example of Beckham’s off-ball tendency is using dummies to get himself off the marker. First, he puts his step torward his marker, and then fooling them by stepping away. This move, created separations from Beckham’s marker, allowing him to receive the ball with a lot of space around him.

Defensive-wise, Beckham’s effort has been on and off. There are moments where he is sometimes inactive during counterpress, fail to protect the wing — especially in a large distance, losing 1v1s, or defending in complex situations. This highlights Beckham’s physical limitations during defending.

On the positive side is able to press relentlessly to win the ball, running back to help the defense, and even lunges to knock the ball away. He has the energy, albeit for a brief moment.

Luis Milla, the Persib manager, has utilized Beckham in two positions: primarily the left wing in a 3–4–3, and an 8 in a 3–5–2. The factors considered are Beckham’s agility, tendency to drop and connect, creativity, and defensive shortcomings. Playing at the left wing allows Beckham to drift centrally — even to the opposite wing, offering connection to his teammates. Against Bali United, though, to stretch their compact defense and hitting them with inswinging crosses, Beckham is utilized at the right hand side.

Defensive-wise, Beckham is often separated from the other defensive unit to conserve his energy and maximize his strength during transitions. This is a wise choice by the Spanish manager since Beckham is a net negative player defensively and will only needlessly drain his energy when defending in large spaces.

He often needed a teammate to protect the space in behind him. As you can see here, Henhen, Dedi, and Kuipers are utilized to make the pitch as small as possible to negate Beckham’s lack of pressing presence. On the other side, however, Beckham ocassionally participates on counterpressing, especially when ball-near.

Beckham seemingly mediocre stats reflects more to his unusual role at the wing. High passing stats (especially long+small, smart, and progressive passes) highlights more about Beckham’s playmaking tendencies.

He isn’t really a clinical shooter but has shooting streaks. This is reflected by his high shooting stats, standing on the 83th percentile. His ability to evade defenders and creating separation to shoot will make him a perfect “surprise element” that can score from anywhere — except the box, which stands on the 7th percentile.

Beckham is a hardworking defender constrained with his physical limitations. His energy during defending is highlighted by the possession-adjusted (pAdj) tackles and interceptions. On the other side, his physical and defensive limitations are described accurately at the defensive actions and aerial win percentage stats.

This further confirms the evidence that Beckham is playing as a playmaking wing. Rather than spending the majority of his time penetrating opponents by dribbling and hugging the touchline, Beckham adds another element: offering connections and initiating creative plays from various areas at the pitch.

A very interesting thing to be discussed is Beckham’s compatibility to the national team. In recent years, especially during Shin Tae-yong’s tenure, we have seen less and less representation of small and creative players. It seems like the demand for technically industrious player has been increasing gradually.

However, I’d argue that these kind of players still have their place in the team. While they may appear to be net negative on defending — or dominating the four moments of the game (attacking and defending organization, attacking and defending transition), their ability to change the tide of the game may prove to be influential at championship deciders.

An probable solution is Beckham playing as a wing in a 3–4–3 formation, as we often see in Persib. With a lot of space between the midfield and forward players (and the wing-back and winger), Beckham is able to move freely, facilitating build-up and transitions. I can imagine him creating a temporary three-man midfield.

A more classical choice is being a no.10/winger in a 4–2–3–1. The usual build-up structure of a 4–2–3–1 is a 4–2–4. Beckham can drop and collect the ball from deep, releasing the ball to 3 forwards (+1 fullback), and rotate flawlessly with them. The downside of this idea is the lack of protection in behind due to having only 2 CBs.

Another idea is to play Beckham as a false 9 in a 4–3–3. This formation has proven to be very physically demanding, but Beckham’s role to dictate the game from deep allows diamonds in midfield, making counterpresses easier.

Although all of idea fits Beckham’s style of play, he is unlikely to be a starter, due to his physical limitations. However, his ability to create plays out of nowhere will add “surprise” elements, catching their opponents off-guard.

Beckham Putra is one of Indonesia’s most promising talent. His on-ball ability, combined with intelligence on reading the game, makes him one of Liga 1’s most dangerous players. However, likely due to his physical limitations, he is often ommited from the National Team. There are some solutions for the Persib midfielder to flourish in the Garuda squad, and possibly, changing the tide of the game at the most important moment.