The first-ever winter world cup is almost here. It’s time to look at which teams are the strongest and which players are the ones to watch out for specifically. In order to list down the players to look out for, we have specifically looked at the U23 category and players who play quite often for their respective clubs this season. It is to be noted that, these players might not start all the matches for their teams in the World Cup and could potentially miss out on getting called up altogether, but if and when they do represent their country in Qatar, they definitely have the potential to be game changers.
Group H consists of 2016 European Champions Portugal, Ghana, Uruguay and South Korea. The below visualization shows the U23 players to watch out for from this group. All data is from this season.
Vitinha | PSG| Portugal | 22 years old
Portugal’s squad is pretty much one of the oldest in the entire tournament and their manager, Fernando Santos, prefers to rely on experienced players usually but this doesn’t mean that Portugal are short of fresh young talent. Vitinha, who secured his move to PSG recently and has pretty much started almost every game for the French Champions, will most likely play a key part in deciding how far Portugal progress in this World Cup. The 22-year-old midfielder’s strengths are on the defensive side of the game as indicated by his percentile of tackles and interceptions in the visual above. Vitinha made his senior international debut only very recently (March 2022) but his domestic performances earned him a call-up to the national team in the recently concluded Nations League games. He is not expected to start all the games at Qatar, but if Portugal are looking for a game-changer from the bench, Vitinha should surely be one of their first options to come on and create an impact.
Kamaldeen Sulemana | FC Rennes | Ghana | 20 years old
Kamaldeen Sulemana announced himself to Europe after his excellent 2020/21 season with FC Nordsjælland. The versatile forward then secured his move to Rennes of Ligue 1 in the summer of 2021. Having settled into life in France slowly, Sulemana, after a frustrating end to last season because of injury, is once again back as a regular at Rennes. He has started only two games so far but has made nine appearances for the Ligue 1 side so far. Sulemana’s radar above shows his biggest strength to be his dribbling – ranking 98th percentile for Dribbles per 90 minutes. The attacking forward is capable of playing anywhere in the front three as well as an attacking midfielder but he has been most often used as a left-sided forward. He likes to take on opponents with his dribbling and creates chances as well for his teammates as seen in his percentile ranks for Expected Assists per 90 minutes and Key Passes per 90 minutes. Kamaldeen Sulemana came with big expectations on his shoulders when he secured his move to Rennes. Now he has the platform to showcase his talent on the world stage, it will be interesting to see how well he does that.
Lee Kang-in | RCD Mallorca | South Korea | 21 years old
21-year-old Mallorca attacker Lee Kang-in has already represented South Korea at the World Cup —– in the 2019 U20 World cup, where he also won the Golden Ball award (Best player of the tournament). So, representation at the biggest stage should be familiar to Lee. However, Lee Kang-in has had a steady start to his senior international career with the attacker involved regularly in the squad but still not a regular in the starting 11. Lee has played the most minutes among attackers for Mallorca this season. His goalscoring output however isn’t very good right now. He, however, has shown a lot of creative potential in the past during his youth career and his time at Valencia. Lee Kang-in has the ability to become one of the future stars for South Korea and he will definitely be expecting his chance at the 2022 World Cup.
Brian Ocampo | Cádiz | Uruguay | 23 years old
Brian Ocampo moved to Cádiz in the recently concluded summer transfer window. He is yet to get up to speed at his new club making only 6 appearances in the league so far. 23-year-old Ocampo can play on either side of the front three but has played most of his minutes on the left side this season. He made his senior Uruguay debut in the summer of 2021. Ocampo was part of the recently concluded friendlies but did not play. He will, however, be waiting for his chance to have his say in this World Cup.
