Duván Zapata (Born: 1st of April 1991 | Height: 186cm | Nationality: Colombia) is one of the more powerful center forwards in professional soccer. The man from Padilla in Colombia uses his strength to “shove” defenders out of the way – he is no slouch when it comes to pace either. Those two assets combine for a deadly combination. Zapata has played for several clubs in the Italy Serie A ~ Napoli, Udinese, Sampdoria, and Atalanta with the former club being his most successful spell. His 2018-19 season is the highlight of his career so far when he scored 23 league goals in 37 appearances. He claimed 2nd place in the top scorer table, 3 goals behind Fabio Quagliarella and 2 goals ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo.

A deep dive into the stats shows why Zapata’s 18/19 season was a standout one, his attempted shots at target are considerably higher than any other season. In total he attempted 114 shots at goal, that is 25 more attempts than he did in the 19-20 campaign with 89 attempts. He was successful in 39 of 81 attempted dribbles ~ 48.1%, coincidently this is close to the same accuracy rate he had after 14 games with 9 league goals in the 21-22 season, 41 dribbles attempted, and winning 20 of them ~ 48.7%. His goal tally in 18/19 is even more impressive when we take into consideration that Quagliarella scored 9 of his 26 league goals from the penalty spot. Zapata scored only 1 of his 23 goals from the spot.

Duván Zapata – The Numbers:

TABLE EXPLANATION:
SHOTS: Attempted shots at target | ON TARGET: Shots on target | DRB_ATT: Attempted Dribbles | DRB_WIN: Dribbles won | PENALTY: Goals scored from the penalty spot