Missy Bo Kearns: Liverpool’s home-grown midfield star
Most women’s football fans would agree that it has not been a happy few years for Liverpool Women and their supporters. The former WSL champions were relegated from the top flight when the 2019/2020 season was abruptly ended and then missed out on promotion from the Women’s Championship last season, as Leicester City Women stormed [...]
Brescia: Why are Serie B’s top scorers conceding so many goals? – tactical analysis
After an abhorrent 2019/20 season, Brescia were relegated back down to Serie B from the top-flight. The Italian minnows finished second-bottom and were 14 points from safety in the end. Brescia went through three different managers, including Eugenio Corini twice, and ended up beginning the 2020/21 campaign with Uruguayan head coach, Diego López. Unfortunately, despite [...]
Tactical Theory
What Is Playing Out From The Back? – Football Tactical Theory
What Is Playing Out From The Back? In modern times, football has increasingly become a possession game. Even though different teams use different tactics, the general trend has been towards a more ball-dominant approach, which has been popularised by clubs like Barcelona, Manchester City, or Bayern Munich. The backbone of a possession-based style still lies in playing out from [...]
Jahkeele Marshall-Rutty: Is Toronto FC’s teenage sensation the future of Canada Soccer?
Jahkeele Marshall-Rutty, the 17-year-old Canadian, is on his way to becoming one of the best in the world. He was named in The Guardian’s list of the world's best young talents, which is a list of 60 players who they deem to be the top upcoming talents of the next generation. In this scout report, [...]
Valentín Castellanos: Analysing his successful season at New York City FC
South America has been the go-to place for scouts to look for attacking players, especially strikers. One such South American talent who is shining at New York City FC is Valentín Castellanos. The 23-year-old striker has so far been involved in 20 goals this season in his 26 appearances and almost contributed to 45% of [...]
Umar Sadiq: Why are Europe’s top clubs monitoring the Nigerian?
Goals have always been the most sought-after and expensive commodities in football. Finding players capable of scoring in different ways, tactics and competitions is rare and when they appear, they attract interest from the best clubs. Umar Sadiq (1997, Nigeria) of Almería is one of these special players who can dominate and score, and with [...]
Benfica: Are they ready to reclaim the Primeira Liga?
The Primeira Liga has been very intriguing this season, with three teams being in a constant battle for first place and waiting to take advantage of each other’s mistakes. Benfica, Porto and Sporting CP have all performed impressively since the start of the campaign, showing little to no weaknesses in their games. All three teams [...]
Luka Sučić: How RB Salzburg’s midfield star earned his Croatia callup
Luka Sučić is a Croatian midfielder who plays for Red Bull Salzburg. This scout report will contain a tactical analysis of Sučić’s attributes and his playing style. RB Salzburg mostly plays with the 4-4-2 diamond formation and Sučić occupies either the #8 or #10 position. It didn’t take long for Sučić to earn a call-up [...]
Arianna Caruso: Juventus and Italy’s rising midfield star
Arianna Caruso is one of Juventus and Italy’s best midfield talents who is getting closer to her peak in this period after starting her career at Roma and remaining there from 2014 to 2017 before taking a big step and moving to Juventus Women in 2017. Caruso missed the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup and [...]
Harry Souttar
Harry Souttar Scouting Report: Stoke City’s Socceroo Giant
Who Is Harry Souttar? At 198cm (6’6”), 79kg (174lbs), Harry Souttar makes for a very distinct presence on the football pitch. Throughout any given game, the 23-year-old Australia international (who was born in Aberdeen), generally stands out in more ways than just that, however, which I’ll discuss in this scout report. Souttar plies his trade [...]
Téji Savanier: Why his Ligue 1 legacy shouldn’t be understated
The French first division, Ligue 1, is a top league within world football, mostly featuring stars of the future in the early stages of their development, ready to take the world by storm. While these diamonds in the rough continue to grow and draw attention from the eyes of viewers, older and more experienced players [...]
Christian Streich: Is he ready to take SC Freiburg to the UCL?
There isn’t a great deal left to be said about the genius of Christian Streich within the German media. The Freiburg Head Coach has been in charge of the club since 2011; even before then, he was the assistant from 2007 and worked with the U19’s for 16 years previous. There are few people, if [...]
Analysis
Florian Wirtz Scout Report At Bayer Leverkusen 2021/2022: Is He The Best Teenage Talent In Europe?
Florian Wirtz is an 18-year-old attacking midfielder who generally plays as a number 10. He currently plays for Bayer Leverkusen in the Bundesliga but is wanted by Liverpool. Last season, Wirtz came to the mainstream's attention, but this season, he has already shown signs of being one of the league’s elite attacking midfielders. In all [...]
Premier League 2021/22: The three most promising U23 attackers this season
The Premier League 2021/22 season is well and truly up and running. There have already been some exciting individual performances this season, especially by young players. This analysis will be focusing on players aged 23 or under and the following visualisation shows the best attackers so far within this category. Brentford, unsurprisingly, have had an [...]
Serie A 2021/22: The league’s most attacking full-backs & wing-backs
A modern full-back or wing-back is required to be more and more involved in the attacking side of the game. Wing-backs are naturally more attacking because of the formation and the role they play in the team. However, the game is changing in a way that at least one of the full-backs is regularly involved [...]
Bundesliga 2021/22: Analysing goalkeeper performances
Seven weeks into the 2021/22 Bundesliga season, Bayern Munich are first in the table with 16 points. This should not be surprising for most fans, but what will be surprising is the table below Bayern. SC Freiburg are fourth, FC Köln are sixth and FSV Mainz 05 are ninth in the table. The common thing [...]
La Liga 2021/22: The ten most overperforming and underperforming goalscorers
We are eight match weeks into the 2021/22 La Liga season. Now might be a good time to look at the goalscorers charts to find out which players deserve to be in that list and which players are lucky to be there. The following visualisation shows the ten most over-performing and under-performing goalscorers based on [...]
Ligue 1 2021/22: Analysing the dribbling efficiency of the most frequent dribblers in the league
The 2021/22 Ligue 1 season so far has seen some exciting new players like Kamaldeen Sulemana, Nuno Mendes, Angel Gomes, Loïc Badé and more. There have also been some returning players, like Aurélien Tchouaméni, to make the step up. It isn’t wrong to say that Ligue 1 is the place for some of the most [...]
Tactical analysis: The intelligent movements of elite midfielders
Last month, I wrote a piece entitled, "Tactical analysis: The intelligent movements of elite attackers." This month's piece is a follow-up, moving deeper down the field to study the game's top midfielders. These players have an exceptional understanding of the game which is manifest in their movements off the ball. Through video research and tactical [...]
Scout Report: The best stars to look out for in South America
This year has seen the change in regulations for work permits in Britain, the latest consequence of a poorly thought out Brexit policy by the central government, changing the face of player recruitment in Europe. Previously, British clubs with their financial strength would be able to shop across Europe as they looked to sign the [...]
Edward Chilufya: A ‘Tiger’ tearing it up in the the Allsvenskan
When we think of leagues that specialise in identifying and recruiting young talent from Africa, there are a couple of nations that stand out. The French and Belgian leagues, for example, historically were landing spots for young talented players coming out of Africa, although these players tended to come through some of the well-established academies [...]