Player Focus: Oscar Happy with Supporting Role to Chelsea's Stellar Cast

Everywhere you went in Brazil during the World Cup, you saw Brazil players on advertising posters. There were pictures of Neymar hawking everything from headphones to boots. There was the – frankly disturbing – image of David Luiz dressed as a pilot standing in front of a plane. And there was Oscar advertising Calvin Klein underwear. The striking thing was how thin he is. Not thin as in he trains really hard and hasn’t a scrap of excess fat on him – although that is clearly the case as well – but just thin: his torso is tiny. It’s not even a case that Oscar will bulk out as he gets older: he’s 23 now, but he’s still a waif.

I first saw him at the Under-20 World Cup in Colombia in 2011, when there was a lot of grumbling that he was having to play deeper, on the left side of a diamond rather than at its point, to accommodate Philippe Coutinho. Grumbling from journalists, that is: Oscar himself, caught up in a messy transfer between Sao Paulo and Internacional, just seemed happy to be playing.

And he played superbly. The striker Henrique, now on loan at Bahia from Botafogo, took the player of the tournament award – presumably because of his five goals, but even before the final in which he scored a hat-trick, Oscar had stood out. The obvious comparison was with Kaka, a player with drive and energy who could do remarkable things with the ball.

His winner in the final was a case in point as he gathered the ball wide on the right. The thought was just forming in my head, sitting up in the stand, with a perfect view of the geometry of the situation, that Mika, the Portugal keeper, had advanced too far and that the possibility was there for a chip, when Oscar did it, floating the ball in at the far post. It was an extraordinary goal in any circumstance, requiring great vision and technical ability, and all the more so for happening in extra-time of a final.

It’s rare to see a moment of such improvisation, something you’ve almost never seen before, but two years later, shortly after joining Chelsea, Oscar produced another, nutmegging Andrea Pirlo with a backheel that took him away from goal but into space before spinning and whipping a shot into the top corner to put Chelsea 2-0 up against Juventus. It was breathtaking and yet when Roberto Di Matteo was asked about him at the post-match press-conference, his first words were to say that Oscar had been “tactically perfect”.

What he meant was that Oscar hadn’t just scored two goals, but that he’d hassled and harassed Pirlo, never giving him time to create the play (that Juve came back into that game was because of Chelsea’s inability to cope with the wing-backs; Oscar had done his job). That is his unexpected strength: for all he looks like a weedy kid and has the skill and imagination of a dilettante, he is hugely industrious, and can press and snap and harry with the best of them. That’s why Jose Mourinho is prepared to play him in midfield.

He’s scored one and set one up in the league this season, but he’s also made 2.4 tackles per game, while registering 2.6 shots per game and a pass completion rate of 85%, 1.4 of them key. Those are extraordinary all-round statistics. Last season (when his role was slightly different), he scored eight, set up two, managed 2.2 shots and 2 tackles per game and completed 83.3% of passes, 1.5 of them key.

It’s Diego Costa for his goals, Cesc Fabregas, for his assists, and Nemanja Matic for the cover he offers the defence who have won most of the plaudits at Chelsea this season, but Oscar has been key. He fills the gaps in midfield but because he’s neither the creative one nor the defensive one, perhaps catches the eye rather less. It’s not a glamorous role, but it is essential.

Have Oscar's performances improved for Chelsea this season, despite not stealing the headlines? Let us know in the comments below