Andy Diouf is the SCOUTED Squad selection as he is the only 2001+ player that ranks in the top 5% for all three key metrics. Expect Crystal Palace to reignite their interest in Lens’ 2003er this summer. Expect other clubs to join the queue.
After picking up Diouf, I then explored a way to find a literal box-to-box midfielder by calculating the percentage of each player’s touches by Third and by Defensive and Attacking Penalty Area.
Looking at players with at least 4% of their touches in each area and at least 20% in each third produced this list of 2001+ players, again eliminating wide players:
The player I want to focus on is 2004-born Kévin Danois. He ranks in the top 10% for Touches per Progressive Action and Non-PPA Progressive Passes and the the top 1% for Percentage of Passes as Non-PPA Progressive Passes. The reason he was not selected as the Quarter-Back pick is due to the fact his Progressive Distance per Pass and Passes into the Final Third rank only just above average.
Both his data profile and his heat map scream box-to-box midfielder, which is different to Ground-Eater as it does not require the coverage of large distances in even larger chunks - Danois’ Progressive Distance per Carry ranks in the 55th percentile. Thinking about it, his 96th percentile rank for Tackles + Interceptions suggests he would be the perfect player for that Wolves midfield duo I touched on earlier.
Attacking Midfielder
For attacking midfielders, the only exclusions were players that had featured exclusively as Defenders. This produced a list of 1,036 players, including 330 born in 2001 or later. This is the most difficult position to identify with FBref filters.
Building our new Archetype ft. Florian Wirtz
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First up, I ran a percentile version of the Wirtz-inspired search from the Omni-10 newsletter:
The only players that matched this search were Lazar Samardžić and Ousmane Dembélé. The only players that averaged 6+ Shot-Creating Actions excluding Dead Balls were Kingsley Coman and Samardžić. I simply have to include the Serbian because of those stats.
However, the fascination extends to whether this output is sustainable outside of the Atalanta environment and as a consistent starter. The other area of intrigue is that for all of this volume, he ranks in the 68th percentile for Non-Penalty xG + Expected Assisted Goals per 90. I am a big believer in ‘get volume first, ask questions later’ but the more I follow Samardžić, the more questions I have.
While the above search rewards volume by any means, I have started to apply the thought behind Touches per Shot for Strikers to passing metrics for attacking midfielders. To find a No.10 that is constantly searching for and actively targeting players in dangerous areas, I looked at Passes Attempted per Passes into the Penalty Area, Passes Attempted per Key Passes and Passes Attempted per Shot-Creating Action from Live Passes.
However, the majority of players that ranked in the top 5% for all three metrics were centre-forwards: Liam Delap, Erling Haaland, Alexander Isak and Hugo Ekitiké all appeared. When adding a top 10% filter for Touches in the Final Third, only Mohamed Salah and Dejan Kulusevski remained.
In order to filter out centre-forwards and wide-forwards, I locked in the top 20% for Passes Attempted and the top 20% for Touches in the Final Third and then looked through the key three metrics to try to find an old-school Playmaker. It turns out everyone is a winger now…
Wingers
This next dataset includes every player tagged as a Forward. It produced a list of 579 players with 187 born in 2001 or later.
I have wanted to build a Button Masher profile inspired by Mohamed Salah for a long time. The best way to do this with FBRef data is to combine Shots and Key Passes into Shot Involvements and then combine Passes into the Penalty Area and Carries into the Penalty Area in the Penalty Area Entries (Pen Entries); the latter will have a different definition on other sites - sometimes it only includes passes - but that is the definition for the following section.
To prove this metric works, Mohamed Salah has at least 53 more Pen Entries than any other player across the entirety of Europe’s Big Five Leagues this season, not just this dataset. He also ranks first for Touches per Pen Entry, getting the ball into the area every 6.8 Touches. Getting the ball into the area is very good. Doing it that often is very, very good.
Two lesser-mentioned 2001+ wingers that rank well for this metric are Bryan Zaragoza, on loan at Osasuna from FC Bayern and Malick Fofana, Lyon’s pocket rocket Belgian winger. The most fascinating aspect of Zaragoza’s output is the fact he receives the fewest Progressive Passes per 90 minutes of the 43 players that ranks in the top 10% for Pen Entries and Touches per Pen Entry. That already suggest a One-Man Army approach, his top 1% ranking for Progressive Yards per Carry confirms it.
A prolific dribbler you may not have heard of is Benjamín Domínguez. The 2003-born Argentine joined Bologna at the start of the season and is attempting 6.3 Take-Ons per 90 as well as winning 2.7 fouls.
Meanwhile, the Antoine Semenyo formula threw up some interesting names. Only 10 players ranked in the top 25% for Aerial Duels Won and Successful Take-Ons within this dataset, one of which was Semenyo. I have previously mentioned my intrigue in Nick Woltemade’s profile so I have included another player to add to this profile: Matteo Cancellieri.
As teams look to induce chaos by sending long balls to a specific, wingers that can consistently compete will become much more valuable. 2001-born Cancellieri fits that mould.
Centre-Forwards
The striker percentile rankings are based on a pool of 207 players that have featured exclusively as forwards, 51 of those were born in 2001 or later.
The Victor Osimhen Test
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My first instinct was to repeat the Victor Osimhen Test. The top 10% for Touches per Shot and top 10% for Penalty Area Proximity produced 10 players, including Mateo Retegui, Ollie Watkins and Erling Haaland. The 2001+ representatives were Gonçalo Ramos, Folarin Balogun and Nicolas Jackson.
After expanding to the top 20% for each metric, three more 2001+ players popped up: George Ilenikhena, Elye Wahi and Thierno Barry. The fact that Barry has the fewest Touches per Shot alongside the most minutes played means that he gets a spot. The fact that Balogun and Ilenikhena show up while Monaco have just signed Mika Biereth means that someone has the opportunity to sign a very good centre-forward in the summer.
The new Power Forwards, Gvardiol’s secret weapon and Barça’s superhuman duo
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My next pick is a Power Forward. I have mentioned Emanuel Emegha in previous newsletters but I have been looking for an opportunity to do so again.
He ranks in the top 1% for Non-Penalty xG per shot and is 12.6 yards out on average for each effort. He is slightly lacking in terms of elite shot volume (52nd percentile) but he is making up for it, for now, by registering 1.75 Shots On Target per 90 (95th percentile). He is also averaging 4 final third touches per shot which suggests that an increase in service could help lift the shot output.
The final pick is a player that caught my eye when researching my next SkillCorner piece, which profiles the anatomy of a Power Forward using tracking data from 2023/24.
In this dataset, Roberto Piccoli ranks in the top 5% for Final Third Touches per Shot - the same as Emegha - and in the 88th percentile for Penalty Box Proximity in the Final Third. The Italian’s jump up in rank when compared to Penalty Box Proximity for all Touches (75th percentile) is usually the sign of a Target Forward.
His 85th percentile ranking for Aerial Duels won and a quick check of his shot distribution - 31.8% of his Serie A shots this season have been headed efforts - confirms that he is more Target Forward leaning. Cagliari have an option to buy this 2001er from Atalanta in the summer, I am fascinated to find out whether he can jump another level.
If you made it to the end, congratulations!
I appreciate this was a bit of a monster newsletter. The decision to rank players based on all ages combined with so many new metrics to calculate meant that putting the Squad together took twice as long as the previous edition. I thought exporting the data early would help me avoid publishing this late. I was wrong.
The next Monday Night SCOUTED Squad, whenever that may be, will include fewer players.
Have a great week,
Jake.
You need your own thread haha, my thumbs are 2 years older than they should be from scrolling 😂
