Celta de Vigo are one of the sides struggling in this La Liga season. Their head coach, Eduardo Coudet, paid the price and was sacked in November, as Portuguese head coach Carlos Carvalhal took over the Galician side. However, Celta found a talented boy from their youth system. Gabri Veiga, who was only 20, then emerged as a first-team option. Under both coaches, he was given time to start, even against strong opponents such as Barcelona and Real Sociedad.
After Celta Vigo lost one of their main players in Brais Mendez, Gabri Veiga has stepped up this season as his natural successor and is already having an outstanding campaign. Gabri Veiga is the kind of midfielder that can make a difference in the final third, gifted with loads of quality, vision, personality and an extensive work rate.
Elite clubs have been after him for a while now, and FootTheBall analyses what makes him so special.
How good is Gabri Veiga?
Gabriel ‘Gabri’ Veiga is another academy product to come off the Spanish divide. Yet to completely assert himself in the league, Veiga has a lot to look forward in his career.
Because his position is more inclined to the right side, he has made more around that region. But another noticeable trend is the distribution of successful and unsuccessful dribbles. He is decent in the central third when it comes to taking on the opponents, but there is certainly room for improvement when he tried to dribble in wider space, most failed attempts occurred in outer areas.
Veiga is not a deep-lying progressive passer because his style is more energetic, he always tries to make runs behind and take advantage of his teammates’ probing through balls.
Clearly, this is a breakthrough season for Veiga into elite football, he has been impressive on the pitch, even though not everything has been perfect, but he has been giving good performances. Veiga is still young, he is only 20, and still has his up and downs like receiving a red against Almería. More consistency can be expected from him when he is been given more chances to play week and week out, but with 9 goals and 3 assists to his name already, Veiga has stamped his mark.
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Gabri Veiga stats
In terms of ball progression, Veiga isn’t impressive compares to other ‘number 8s’, he merely had 4.82 progressive passes per 90, while others such as Dani Parejo from Valencia, Luka Modrić from Real Madrid, or Mikel Merino from Sociedad, had more, let alone Toni Kroos!
In fact, he is one of…
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