Just before the opening of the January transfer market, Atlético Madrid shockingly announced Diego Costa was leaving on a free due to personal reasons. The Brazilian/Spanish striker is a legend at the club and even if his recent form wasn0t the best, he still was an important player for Simeone.
Atlético Madrid will surely look to replace him in the squad as the only strikers at the moment are João Félix and Luis Suárez. Some of the rumoured targets are Willian José, Loren Morón and Arkadiusz Milik, but all of them would be quite expensive for Atlético Madrid. In this data analysis, we have used Total Football Analysis’ exclusive tool xGold to find similar players to Diego Costa who are under 23 years old and outside the top 5 leagues. Note all player profiles show how the player compares to the players in the same position and league in terms of percentiles (a score of 70 means the player is better than 70% of the strikers in his league in the respective metric).
João Pedro 19, Watford
João Pedro is a 19-year-old Brazilian forward. He started his career in Fluminense and after just one season in Brazil in which he played 28 games and scored 7 goals, Watford paid 4 million euros for him. Last season he made his Premier League debut and has become an important player for the Hornets in the current season, playing 1,173 minutes and scoring 5 goals so far in the Championship.
He has good physical conditions for a player of his age. Standing at 182 cm, he’s still developing his physicality but knows how to use his body to protect the ball. He’s athletic and a good runner. João Pedro has good hold-up play, usually coming to the left half-space to receive with his back to the goal and help his team establish in the opposition half.
