The most fascinating young players in Europe's Big Five Leagues (redux)
https://www.scoutednotebook.com/p/squad-most-fascinating-young-players-europes-big-five-leagues
Before this weekend, 1,612 outfield players had played at least 360 minutes across Europe’s Big Five Leagues this season. 467 of them were born in the year 2001 or later. I have selected 20 fascinating profiles to share with you. This is the SCOUTED Squad.
First things first, I have also excluded goalkeepers as there are so few with meaningful minutes in Europe’s Big Five Leagues. Also, none of the players in the below graphic will be in the Squad as they secured their place in the first instalment. That does not make then any less fascinating.
Since that newsletter, we have explored a host of new metrics, refined our processes for discovering talent, redefined what is fascinating in the current football landscape, developed new player profiles and worked out how to provide some data visualisations.
Translation: this is going to be a big one (and it took much longer than I anticipated).
Centre-backs
To refine the discovery centre-backs, I filtered the dataset to players tagged as Defender only on Stathead. This produced 576 players - this will be the context for all percentile rankings in this section - and 137 were born in the year 2001 or later.
For young players, minutes played can be the most impressive metric. That applies to our first pick, Pietro Comuzzo. In our dataset, Levi Colwill, Cristhian Mosquera and Pau Cubarsí are the only 2003+ centre-backs with more minutes; only 28 minutes separate Cubarsí and Comuzzo.
This 2005er will turn 20 this month and ranks well when looking at season totals: . He also has the second-best % Dribblers Tackled rate of any 01+ defender to challenge at least 20 dribblers (78.3%). On the ball, Comuzzo’s long-range passing is the standout. The Italian is one of four 2001+ defenders to attempt 7+ Long Passes per 90 while maintaining a 70% success rate - Pau Cubarsí, Malick Thiaw and Nuno Mundes complete the set.
You could describe Charlie Cresswell as a magnetic lighthouse. Only two teams in Ligue 1 have conceded fewer goals than Toulouse and the Leeds United academy graduate appears to be a major reason why. The 2002er ranks in the 10% for Blocked Shots, the top 5% for Clearances and the top 3% for Aerial Duels Won. He backs up this volume with incredible efficiency, winning 73.% of his Aerial Duels. For context, Virgil van Dijk is winning 74.2%. Cresswell is also a big box threat, ranking the in the top 10% for xG and Shots when compared to the 576 defenders in this dataset.
At the weekend, Cresswell scored his first-ever goal for the Ligue 1 side, finishing the game against Auxerre with more interceptions and more aerial duels won than any other player on the pitch from his position as CCB in a back three.
Giovanni Leoni only just meets the minimum minutes threshold but is exactly what I am looking for when putting together these squads. The 2006-born centre-back ranks in the 100th percentile for Duel Success rate among defenders of all ages and is winning 75% of his Aerial Duels, contesting just under 2 per 90 - that stat is not a surprise when you consider he reportedly stands at 195 cm tall. Remember, this data does not exclude the latest round of fixtures; on Sunday, Leoni scored his first-ever senior goal. Get him on your radar immediately.
Left-footed centre-backs: a curated shortlist
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Once again, I am lacking a left-footer.
That’s not to say they are not any fascinating left-footed centre-back prospects, but I have covered the likes of Dean Huijsen, Nathan Zézé and Konstantinos Koulierakis plenty of times this season. When I put together my shortlist, Llew highlighted Mikayil Faye as a potential pick for Generation 04. With a few more minutes behind him following a permanent move to Rennes this summer, let’s revisit him.
Usually deployed as the LCB in a back-three, he is displaying proficiency in the skills associated with that role. He is yet to be successfully dribbled past by an opponent, although it appears that he is willing to commit a foul rather before letting that happen. His other standout attribute was the combination of Progressive Actions per 90. This metric is a combination of Progressive Passes and Progressive Carries with all Passes and Carries into the Penalty Area removed - which becomes more helpful when looking at midfielders. Faye is averaging 6 per 90, similar to Dean Huijsen (5.9) and Lucas Beraldo (5.8). And although most of these Progressive Actions are Passes, his 1.7 Non-CPA Progressive Carries is only bettered by 20 2001+ defenders, the majority of which are full-backs.
Full-backs
For this position, we dip into the pool of players tagged at least once as a defender. This produces a set of 716 players for our percentile rankings, 181 were born in 2001+ or later.
First, I want to use Myles-Lewis Skelly to introduce one of my ‘custom’ FBref metrics. Stathead does not provide Ground Duel Success Rate, however, due to spending lots of hours looking at how that metric is made up, I have built an alternative for anyone using FBRef data: Non-Aerial Duels. Here are the metrics and calculations you need:
Non-Aerial Duels Contested = Dribblers Challenged + Fouls Conceded + Fouls Won + Attempted Take-Ons
Non-Aerial Duels Won = Dribblers Tackled, Fouls Won, Successful Take-Ons
Non-Aerial Duel Success Rate = Non-Aerials Won / Non Aerials Contested
This metric helps remove Target Forwards and Lighthouse Centre-Backs. But you can also combine Aerials and Non-Aerials to get Total Duel Success rate. From this set of 716 defenders, Ezri Konsa (80.6%) is the only player with a higher Non-Aerial Success Rate than Myles Lewis-Skelly (78.6%). This one stat not only highlights why I used Konsa to help build my centre-back profile with SkillCorner data, but it is also a product of Lewis-Skelly’s superpower that Llew highlighted in SCOUT NOTES.
Now you know his name
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So, rather than including Myles Lewis-Skelly in the Squad, I looked for another young player that ranked well for this metric. Step forward Nathaniel Brown.
Only three 2001+ defenders ranked in the top 10% for Non-Aerials Won and Non-Aerial Success Rate: Myles Lewis-Skelly, Brown and Max Rosenfelder. However, the Eintracht Frankfurt wing-back is the only one that also ranks in the top 10% for Tackles Made; he is not just an efficient ground dueler, but a prolific one as well. Less surprising, given his wing-back role, Brown also ranks in the top 5% for Touches in the Attacking Penalty Area and Shot Involvements - he is a brilliant set-piece taker.
My next left-back is Adam Obert. The Slovakian has played the majority of his career minutes as a centre-back for Cagliari but has operated exclusively as a left-back this season. Have we found the heir to Dávid Hancko? That would be exciting.
At 188 cm, Obert is the same height as Hancko and displays the same attacking thrust that belies his size. The 2002er ranks in the top 10% for Non-Penalty xG and for Shots, with most of them coming from open-play. But the headline stats are Tackles + Interceptions (96th percentile), Touches per Progressive Action (95th percentile) and a 100th percentile figure for his percentage of Completed Passes that are Non-PPA Progressive Passes - 13% of his successful passes tick the Progressive threshold.
These three stats combine to paint a picture of a front-footed and proactive full-back that is keen to win the ball back and get into the most dangerous areas. I’ll use that word again: thrust.
I enjoy refining and customising metrics but sometimes it is best to keep it simple. Luck Zogbé, for example, is averaging 6.7 Tackles + Interceptions per 90, more than any other 01+ defender in our dataset and the third-most overall. Capable of playing at both left and right-back, the Ivorian (69.5) has the second-highest Percentage of Dribblers Tackled of any defender to make 3+ Challenges, only Alejandro Francés, a member of the first SCOUTED Squad, ranks higher. Zogbé also ranks in the 94th percentile for Fouls Drawn.
Yet to feature in the UEFA Champions League, keep an eye out for this 2005er when Brest name their XI to face PSG on Tuesday.
I included Tom Rothe in the previous SCOUTED Squad, a 192cm German left wing-back. To complete the full-back list this time around, I’m adding a 190cm German wing-back on the right. Holstein Kiel’s first-ever Bundesliga season has not been a fairytale campaign, but 2002-born Lasse Rosenboom is intriguing.
Only six 2001+ defenders in our set average more Touches in the Attacking Penalty Area: Tiago Santos, Ian Maatsen, Joško Gvardiol, Destiny Udogie, Riccardo Calafiori and Malo Gusto. I would need to investigate how Rosenboom accumulates these touches, but the fact 5.8% of his total each game (97th percentile) are inside the box has piqued my interest enough to earn a spot.
Centre-midfielders
For the No.6 spots, I restricted the search to all Midfielders that had not played as a Forward. This produced a list of 457 players with 143 born in the year 2001 or later.
The first profile I looked for is a Quarter-Back. I have written about Angelo Stiller, Adam Wharton and Adrián Bernabé as standout examples of this profile, so I avoided repeating their names again. Only one other 2001+ player joined Wharton in the top 10% of our dataset for Progressive Distance per Pass and Non-PPA Progressive Passes: Tommy Doyle.
Doyle is also one of two midfielders, of any age, to average 20% of their Completed Passes as Long Passes, a metric that helps identify those Hail Mary Quarter-Backs. The current iteration of Wolves may not be the ideal environment for Doyle to flaunt these talents more consistently, especially given the quality and the profile of the starting Brazilian duo João Gomes and André, but he is a true outlier for this particular profile so I had to include him.
Who is the most progressive passer of them all?
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The second No.6 profile I like to look for is Press Resistors.
In the previous squad, now-Lazio midfielder Reda Belahyane ticked this box and he has since proved why. But the player that I cannot seem to escape is Amadou Koné.
The 2005er is the only player in this dataset that ranks in the top 10% for Successful Take-Ons, Take-On Success Rate and Fouls Drawn. And he has the best Non-Aerial Success Rate of the entire midfield set (75.9%).
I am very aware of sample size, but the early signs are both remarkable and fascinating.
Is Ryan Gravenberch the second coming of Mousa Dembélé?
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We are using the same midfield pool for No.8s to try to avoid as many wingers and attacking midfielders as possible. But it’s worth mentioning that Jude Bellingham, Florian Wirtz and even Cole Palmer feature in this set.
Anyway, I immediately wanted to find a Ground-Eater. To do so, I looked at players that ranked in the top 10% for Non-CPA Progressive Carries, Percentage of Carries as Non-CPA Progressive Carries and Progressive Distance per Carry. After eliminating wingers and wing-backs from the search, which only returned 14 players across all ages, this was the final shortlist - the presence of Rice and Reijnders was reassuring in terms of identifying a particular style of player.
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.
