Unleashing Óscar Mingueza
Nobody seems to know what the 25-year-old's best position is, nor does it matter.
Back in April 2021, towards the end of his debut campaign with Barcelona, Óscar Mingueza was the subject of one of the most public ear-lashings in recent LaLiga history.
With his side 3-2 up at home to Getafe and entering the final embers of the game, Mingueza received a pass on the touchline, flicked it round the outside of a player closing him down, picked it up on the other side, and zipped a pass into a free Lionel Messi on the halfway line. Messi turned on a dime, before darting into the teeth of Getafe’s scattered defence.
Not far behind him, Mingueza set off sprinting from his own half in support of the attack. It was Lionel Messi, after all. The chances of it turning into a big scoring opportunity — or at least not losing the ball — were slim. Barcelona could kill the game right there and then, and Mingueza had been the catalyst for the space they had opened up in the first place.
Why not keep going?
Just after sprinting across the halfway line, however, he came to an abrupt halt. Slamming on the brakes that hard would make you think his hamstring had popped mid-sprint, but there was no injury. The sharp jolt on the handbrake had, in fact, been enforced by his manager Ronald Koeman. Screaming into the ether of an empty Camp Nou, the Dutchman’s calls reverberated around the stadium and, evidently, right through the then 21-year-old.
“Óscar! Óscar! Óscar! We’re playing with three [at the back]… [expletive]!”
“With three we’re playing! You’re not going to play on the wing… [expletive]!“
Shortly after, Mingueza’s number came up on the fourth official’s board. The youngster had been publicly hauled off the pitch, with Samuel Umtiti his replacement. On the long walk back to the dugout, as he slowly marched the perimeter of the pitch in a state somewhere between surprise and confusion, teammates offered up their hands and words of support. Whether they thought Koeman had a point or not, it was proof the scene had been an uncomfortable one to witness.
On August 30th 2024, just under three-and-a-half years after that night at the Camp Nou, Óscar Mingueza was called up to the Spanish national team. And the fact he’s there has a lot to do with a mentality that once saw him dragged off the pitch by Ronald Koeman.
We’re only just leaving August, but it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say Mingueza has been one of the most influential footballers in Europe so far this season.
With two goals and three assists in four games, his goal involvement haul is the best by a defender at this stage of a LaLiga season on record (since 2006-07). Within those four outings, he also managed to score and assist in consecutive appearances. Not since Dani Alves in 2007 had a defender managed that.
Defender? We’ll go with it for now.
In reality, the 25-year-old is the latest in a growing line of LaLiga defenders that are hard to define — at least in positional terms.
Much like the example of Miguel Gutierrez at Girona — and Valentín Barco at Sevilla more recently — tags for such players only have meaning for a certain part of the game. They defend when their team don’t have the ball, but shed any categorisation when they do. Each game calls for two distinct personalities that switch on and off repeatedly, depending on where the ball is and who has it.
In Mingueza’s case, it was the arrival of Claudio Giráldez in March that brought him into this conversation. Picking up the pieces of Rafa Benítez’s failed project, the 36-year-old wasted no time in bringing Celta back to a more proactive style of play, and with it came a greater willingness to explore the creativity of his players.
That went for everyone; not just the attackers.
“[Mingueza’s] one of the players with the ability to unbalance the game with the ball, through his understanding of play and the ability to dribble,” Giráldez commented back in March. “He can play in various positions, he can play inside as a central midfielder or interior, and we’re going to use that quality to be less predictable. I don’t rule him out for any position.”
Initially, Mingueza was restored as the right centre back in Celta’s 3-4-3. As the Giráldez era has developed, however, he’s been moved out of the centre back trio and into a more permanent wing-back slot. If the in-possession benefits were apparent last season, then what we’ve seen in 2024-25 is an altogether different conversation.
For a player who has spent most of his life playing as a centre back, Mingueza is currently, and rather bizarrely, starring as one of LaLiga’s most creative attacking players.
The main reason for why he’s been such a goal threat — be it as scorer or creator — is entirely a product of Mingueza’s own ability. The conditions behind it appearing so effectively, however, have much to do with his manager Claudio Giráldez.
Without being a natural and obvious wing-back, the 25-year-old’s new role has, above all, afforded him a new platform of expression. The opportunities to pass and run beyond the ball, to pick up spaces inside as an extra midfielder, to forget about being a wing-back and hunt advantageous attacking positions when they’re on offer, have all been heightened. Through Mingueza’s interpretation — which no longer has any limits — Celta recruit an almost permanent element of surprise in the opposition half.
Where Mingueza brings the craft, Giráldez has built the context for it to arrive. Celta’s 5-4-1 shape out of possession and the fact they use a right-sided centre back who can slide round to become a situational right back, means Mingueza is well covered. If he vacates the flank and goes wandering inside, the team aren’t immediately going to be exposed on the right side. And with at least the back three (almost) always behind the ball, there’s a platform to sustain his movements in the opposition half.
At the same time, the fact he’s not being explicitly used as a winger — ahead of a right back — means Mingueza remains involved at the origin of attacking moves. When to move up and take up a higher position on the pitch is up to him. In that way, Celta retain the benefits of having him as a close ally in the build-up, helping to generate moves in which he often later appears once his side have been able to build the play.
“There are few players that bring the ball out like him, that have the capacity to break lines with passes and by carrying the ball,” Giráldez said earlier this year. And as he and Celta have since been able to clarify, that imagination extends all across the pitch.
The good news is that, along with a helping hand from Mingueza, Celta are now well capable of building those moves and establishing their base of possession, which allows them to move into the opposition half and recruit their new wing-back threat. The only teams who have put together more 10+ pass sequences than Celta (58) this term are last season’s top four, and the longest move leading to a goal this season — coming after 18 uninterrupted passes — was Iago Aspas’ winner against Alavés on MD1.
Though Claudio Giráldez’s side have started 2024-25 with two victories and two losses, the sensations are undeniably positive. Celta are a young team, led by a young coach, and they’re bringing meaning beyond results that their fans can identify with. In this brave new world where the metamorphosis of Óscar Mingueza can happen, imagination is in no short supply.
By Jamie Kemp (@jamiemkemp)