As much as Europe’s top five leagues – English Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A, and Ligue 1, as defined by UEFA – provide plenty of entertainment and room for a relative unknown to have a breakout season, there are some many hidden gems to be found outside of those leagues.
While some, such as Erling Haaland when he represented the red and white of RB Salzburg, have still been able to make waves in European competitions, not every player gets that luxury or opportunity.
For some, it takes a considerable amount of time longer to receive the widespread recognition they deserve.
It should come as no surprise that some of the best players currently plying their trade in Europe’s top five leagues come from outside of it.
The aforementioned Haaland came from Salzburg to Dortmund, Virgil van Dijk – widely recognised as the best centre-back on the planet – was playing for Celtic as recently as 2015, Luis Suárez was at Ajax before his move to Liverpool in 2011, and of course, Cristiano Ronaldo came through the Sporting CP academy (now aptly named Academia Cristiano).
This scout report will examine three players aged 23 or under who could make the same step to the highest level of European club football.
In this tactical analysis, we will produce scout reports on three players: Odilon Kossonou, Olimpiu Moruțan, and Viktor Tsyhankov.
Defender, midfielder, attacker – let’s go.
Odilon Kossonou, Club Brugge, 20-years-old, 6’2”, market value: £11.7m
*Disclaimer* this piece was written before Kossonou’s move to Bayer Leverkusen was confirmed.
For this piece, I wanted to choose three players: one defender, one midfielder, and one attacker. However, it’s worth noting that the defender was the most challenging choice to make.
There are a plethora of young, progressive, and ball-playing centre-backs playing for some top clubs outside of Europe’s top five leagues, especially within Liga NOS, as David Carmo and Gonçalo Inácio were the two men closest to making the list here.
It was challenging to distinguish the three in terms of quality, and if anything, Carmo would likely come out on top in this regard; however, his recent injury record makes it difficult to recommend him for a move.
Instead, Odilon Kossounou, who accumulated nearly 3000 minutes of game time last term, is up to the bat.
Standing at 6’3” / 191cm, Kossounou is a slight but towering presence in Club Brugge’s rock-solid, title-winning defence.
Complementing his stronger foot, he plays as the right centre-back next to Brandon Mechele, the backline leader, a Brugge academy graduate with 280 appearances for the Belgian giants.
In their 4-1-4-1 formation, with Mats Rits sitting at the base of midfield, screening the back four and allowing the forward unit to play with the necessary freedom to open up defences, Kossounou has mainly been used as a centre-back but also occasionally as a defensive midfielder and as right-back cover for Clinton Mata.
His pace, athleticism, and ball-playing abilities enable him to operate in various positions without adversely impacting the team.
First and foremost, Kossounou is an excellent defender.
He combines his physical and technical attributes wisely to cut off opponent attacks before they even begin.
He has played a huge role in Brugge’s success, with the team conceding only 26 goals in standard league play last season—he is not just a small piece in a large puzzle.
He reads attacking scenarios really well and seems to have a general defensive awareness of all players around him.
As such, he knows where he is best placed to position himself when the defence is trotting backwards.
His pace also helps in these scenarios—opposition through balls are Kossounou’s bread and butter, and he has the near-perfect positioning and speed to get to the ball ahead of his opponent almost every time.
He wins an excellent 71.3% of his 7.01 defensive duels per 90, a testament to his defensive acumen.
Although he is not the most active defender compared to the rest of the division, that is largely because Rits sits ahead of him and does a fantastic job of preventing many attacking opportunities.
When the ball does breach Rits, Kossounou is most often the defender who comes out and presses his opponent, especially if they are facing away from goal.
In these scenarios, he can, in a sense, push his opponents away from the goal, force them to pass backwards, and restart their attack.
One of his only defensive issues is that he can be too rash in these moments and cause a foul, but essentially, that is part and parcel of defending aggressively.
In the air, he is not as strong at this career stage as you would perhaps want him to be.
He has been outmuscled by more physical forwards in the Belgian League, and he struggles equally with his positioning and timing of his jumps in these moments.
If a forward can jump ahead of him, Kossounou can be tossed off balance, losing the aerial duel.
A 57.43% aerial duel success rate for someone of his height and defensive solidity represents an area where Kossounou can improve upon.
If he achieves a 70% success rate in this aspect of his game, we will be looking at a very complete defender.
With the ball at his feet, Kossounou is a competent passer with a solid understanding of when to be incisive in different game states.
He receives the ball well, opening his body up to the different passing lanes when the ball is around him.
When he does have the ball at his feet, he remains upright. He uses his vision to spot players roaming into space in midfield and finds them with accurate short- to medium-range passing.
For a possession-heavy side, his 7.6 progressive passes per 90 is fairly low, but his passes are forwards or at least somewhat progressive most of the time.
His long-range passes consist of diagonal lofted balls out to Brugge’s wide players.
He lacks the incision of fellow African Edmond Tapsoba at Bayer Leverkusen or Teun Koopmeiners at AZ Alkmaar, but Kossounou is a capable ball-playing centre-back, at least.
The primary issue with his passing is that he tends to avoid using his weaker foot whenever possible.
It simply does not provide the requisite power to find targets longer than a short distance away from him, and as a result, Kossounou tends to dial on the spot and vocally asks for a teammate to give him a passing option off of his strong right boot.
This could be a serious problem in a league like the Premier League or Bundesliga, where intense pressing units are prevalent across the divisions.
One would suggest that Serie A, where the game is played a little bit slower, would hide his deficiencies a bit better.
Olimpiu Moruțan, FCSB, 22-years-old, 5’8”, market value: £2.52m
Olimpiu Moruțan is the lowest-valued player of the three selected, but he arguably has the most natural talent.
At 22 years old, it remains a surprise he has not left FCSB yet.
Still, if rumours are to be believed, he might be following in the footsteps of former teammate Dennis Man by moving to a team within Serie A—with links to Inter Milan and a couple of other Italian clubs prevalent.
Galatasaray, Porto, Bayer Leverkusen, and Hoffenheim can also be added to the list of suitors interested in his services.
That, despite playing in a league that ranks 25th in the UEFA coefficient rankings.
He was FCSB’s best player in the 2020/21 season and by quite some distance.
A big move is calling.
Moruțan is a 5’7” attacking midfielder/winger who plays either as one of the dual 8s in FCSB’s 4-3-3 system or off the right wing.
Thankfully for Anton Petrea and his team, the 22-year-old is equally effective in both roles for different reasons.
As an #8, Moruțan is the link man between defence and attack. His capable pressing and ball progression help FCSB build out from the back and win the ball high up the pitch.
As a right-winger, but left-footed, he can get involved exclusively in attacking play, roaming inside and running at defences with his nimble and mobile frame.
In either role, he mainly combines lethal centre-forward and FCSB’s centrepiece, Florin Tănase, who drops to collect the ball and interplay with the young midfielder.
Primarily, Moruțan is an active and supremely effective dribbler of the ball; it is his first port of call in attacking situations, creating danger for opposition defences.
He ranks in the near 99th percentile for both attempted and successful dribbles per 90 with 9.08 and 5.03, respectively.
This skill is useful in several phases of play, but most notably, he aids ball progression a significant amount from midfield.
His dribbling attempt rate does not slow down as he moves further up the field—if anything, it increases.
When approaching the opposition left-back, he leaves them backpedalling. Unsure of which space he might dive into next, he has a preference for neither.
He is equally capable of running towards the byline to provide a clipped ball into the six-yard box as he drifts inside and pulls off a disguised through ball behind.
This leads us nicely to his creative abilities, which are just as rife and efficient.
His 0.35 assists per 90 is above the expected rate of 0.27 per 90, but both are again a hair-clipping away from being in the 99th percentile within the division.
He is this side’s creative pivot, and based on current evidence, there is little to suggest he would not thrive in either a possession-heavy or counterattack-focused side.
He dictates the tempo of the game, recycling possession laterally to open space before usually being the first player to pass it forwards once he notices an attacker in space or a teammate making a run in behind.
He lures in opponents with his ball-carrying abilities and then exploits the space they have vacated by dribbling or finding a teammate with an accurate pass.
He has no significant limits as a creative passer.
When it comes to goalscoring, Moruțan can produce the goods in this aspect as well.
He scores at exactly the expected rate of 0.26 per 90, which is very high for a midfielder, where he largely plays for FCSB, and still a good rate for a winger too.
When his goals and assists are combined, he contributes a goal nearly once a game, at 0.71 (although he’s still some way off, that’s a good start).
A fair portion of his goals come from set-piece situations – he is a backup penalty taker to Tănase, converting both of the penalties he’s been awarded – but he is the first-choice free-kick taker for a reason.
From wide he can whip in sailing deliveries into dangerous areas, but on the edge of the area, Moruțan regularly threatens the net.
In regular play, he is also a threat from the same areas, with plenty of his goals for FCSB coming from this range, curling in an effort into the upper left from his left foot.
On the defensive end of his game, Moruțan is a fairly active defender, considering the amount of possession his side tends to keep, with 7.33 defensive duels per 90 minutes.
He has the energy and aggressiveness to fit in at a more intensive pressing unit, but he has not been forced to display this side of his game regularly thus far.
At 5’7” and 71kg, his physique is not the strongest and will never be, so this will limit his defensive effectiveness.
Outside of that, he does have good tactical awareness, which helps him curb these deficiencies.
Another weakness worth noting is his weak right foot, which he tries to avoid using whenever possible. This might make him easier to mark in a tougher league.
At the moment, out of all the places he is linked to, Bayer Leverkusen would be the best fit, rotating with the inevitably outgoing Florian Wirtz (at some point shortly).
However, if he were to receive an offer from a Ligue 1 club, this would perhaps be a more comfortable transition.
Viktor Tsyhankov, Dynamo Kyiv, 23-years-old, 5’9”, market value: £22.5m
Moving onto the most recognisable name on the list, Viktor Tsyhankov.
188 matches, 74 goals, and 54 assists for Dynamo Kyiv – all by age 23.
Those are awe-inspiring numbers for a young forward, regardless of the quality of the league—and for those wondering, the Ukrainian league is not that far off the likes of the Eredivisie or Liga NOS, evidenced by the likes of Douglas Costa, Willian, and Henrikh Mkhitaryan moving from Ukraine to a successful career in one of Europe’s top five leagues.
Again, it’s surprising that he hasn’t left his home country yet to challenge himself at a higher level, but according to reports, that time is near.
Kyiv has been pretty poor at times in recent years (although not this one), not good to watch, but Tsyhankov has been there to produce a bit of magic whenever they needed it.
From a very young age, he has displayed leadership-type qualities and has been Kyiv captain on numerous occasions.
He is vocal and abrasive, and he is just the leader Kyiv needs from the frontline.
He scored in big games for Ukraine, notching goals against France and Spain in 2021.
He steps up when needed the most.
In the 2020/21 season, he played largely as a right-winger in Kyiv’s dominant 4-2-3-1 system, cutting inside and creating utter havoc.
Tsyhankov can easily be described as a no-frills inside forward who is currently performing well at the Premier League level.
However, it’s hard to talk about Tsyhankov’s style of play without first mentioning his super set-piece delivery.
He makes free-kicks on the edge of the area seem like penalties – such is his efficiency in converting those chances.
Outside of that, he can also place them and loft dangerous deliveries into the path of a bursting teammate into the area from wide areas.
Plus, in what seems to be a dying tactic in mainland Europe, Tsyhankov’s typical corner routine includes him whipping a fizzed delivery towards the near post, heading towards the dreaded corridor of uncertainty where anything can happen.
However, if defenders attempt to counterattack by throwing bodies towards the near post, Tsyhankov can just as easily lob balls over to the edge of the area.
They both help generate his 0.79 xG+xA per 90 (0.59 & 0.20 respectively).
In regular play though, Tsyhankov is just as effective.
He is predominantly a goal-scoring winger, and these can come in all shapes and sizes.
As a left-footed right-winger, yes, a lot of his goals indeed come from cutting inside and letting loose with his stronger boot, but he also possesses very clever movement going forward, which allows him to get on the end of a lot of attacks.
He loves to make late runs in the penalty area, darting from the by-line and into the box.
He has good acceleration but lacks straight-line top speed, so he relies more on his keen positioning than anything.
His goals in the Champions League and Europa League are shining examples of that.
Creatively in open play, Tsyhankov is still an effective winger in this sense.
He definitely possesses a solid cross on him, crossing 2.86 per 90, but that is not his only creative tool.
He is a remarkably skilled attacker, and his teammates ahead of him this season have improved significantly from the previous year, allowing us to see how creatively talented Tsyhankov can be in open play.
If a runner requires it, Tsyhankov can play disguised through passes behind an opposing defence to let his teammate run through on goal or simply stretch the play.
He often receives the second or third assist in these scenarios but remains heavily involved in the attack.
In fact, he is often the nucleus of all of Kyiv’s attacks, and they will miss him sorely when he’s gone.
As a dribbler, he is not as active or effective as the aforementioned Moruțan, but he still has very good close control and technique, which means he is no slouch in this department.
3.96 dribbles per 90 at a 60% success rate (2.38 successful dribbles per 90) is above average, but it indicates that he does not rely solely on dribbles to generate shots on goal or create chances.
Regardless, when he does engage 1v1, he does not rely on flair skill moves to get past his opponents, but rather a clever body feint into space or the occasional stepover.
He is likelier to engage in a dribble when Kyiv are a goal down or when the game is locked at a draw late on.
Overall, he is a decent presser of the ball too, as he demonstrated for Ukraine at EURO 2020.
He could easily fit in at a club that presses depending on the context of the match and the team they’re up against.
He’s been linked to a whole host of clubs, but of all of them, a club at a similar level to Everton would suit him nicely.
They need a new right-winger with a bit of pace about them, and Tsyhankov fits the bill.
It would also be a good step up for him. He would not join a club with immense pressure to immediately succeed like Bayern Munich or Manchester United.
However, he would still be putting himself in a position to perform against the bigger clubs in the division.
He certainly has the ability to perform immediately for a club competing in European competition, whether it be the Champions League or Europa League.
