What does “creativity” really means ?

A thread

I’m sure you’ve heard plenty of time :

- We lack creativity we need ***
- *** is so creative

But what does it mean ?

I like to separate creativity in 3 aspects :

- take-ons ability
- buildup ability
- last pass ability

The players who have both 3 are very rare, but they exist. Mostly, a “creative” player will have 1-2 of those assets. Now I’ll detail those aspects :

1) Take-ons

It’s a a creative quality because the goal of take ons are to progress higher up the pitch to score more goals

Adama Traoré is an example of a creative player who uses take ons as his principal threat

2) Build up play

It’s a creative ability because the players who are good in this category have tons of progressive passes or yard progressed, they won’t necessary get many assists

A good example is Mikel Merino

3) Last pass or “pure” creativity

When I say pure creativity I mean the passes that directly leads to shots, we can calculate it with xA, key passes or even SCP.

Muller is an example of a player with a very good last pass ability but not that involved in build up

I talked about players who are good in many categories but I’ll name some examples :

De Bruyne, world class in term of last passes and buildup

Mbappe, great in term of last passes and dribbles

Boga, great in term of buildup and dribbles

Messi & Neymar, world class in all 3

There are also players who’s principal threat isn’t recognized by the popular opinion

The best example is B. Fernandes, he may get the assists but in term of xA he’s not as good as his assists suggest

But in term of buildup play, he’s statistically the 6th best in the world

Conclusion :

The term “creative” is used wrong by many fans, assists aren’t the only way to say if a player is creative or not

If I use the word “creativity” only in a thread it’s because I want to say last pass ability if not, I’ll say it

End of the thread, RT appreciated