What Maldini meant by that quote was that as a defender, you should be in the right position so that the dangerous pass is never made, or the attacker doesn't have the chance to run past you. Tackling is sort of a last-ditch effort to stop the other player, and comes with risks of conceding fouls/penalties.
Hmm yes, my interest is that this sort of defender may be hard to identify purely from event driven stats, as stats mostly track actions done (tackles succeeded/attempted, interceptions made). A player such as Maldini wouldn't have shown up on lists sorted for tackles made, although he may have shown up on tackle success % or interceptions (not sure because I can't find a good source of data for his playing stats). Despite this, he has the reputation of being one of the best defenders to play the game. I'm just curious about what sort of metrics could identify a player such as Maldini.
