For the past three years, each and every writer at Total Football Analysis has banded together to compile a list of names, from players to coaches, that we predict will have massive futures across both the men’s and women’s game.
The first rendition of the series began in January 2020. Some of the prodigious names on the list at the beginning of the decade included Julian Nagelsmann, Erling Haaland, Erik ten Hag, Sam Kerr, Martin Ødegaard, and Eduardo Camavinga.
Some of these players and coaches boast a wealth of titles and accolades already while the jury is still out on others. But hey, we can’t always be right!
Then, 2021 rolled around and once more, the TFA crew drew up an illustrious list to predict the future pioneers of the sport on and off the pitch.
Casey Stoney, Joško Gvardiol, Pernille Harder, Roberto De Zerbi, Jude Bellingham and Rúben Amorim were some more names chosen by our knowledgeable contributors.
Of course, in 2022, we went with the same approach, looking at eleven more coaches and players to keep an eye out for over the span of the year in the TFA 22 for 22 magazine.
With TFA 23 for 23 set to hit your virtual shelves next week, let’s take a look at our predictions for 2022, analysing each of the 22 names on the list and seeing whether our choices have done as well as we projected this time last year through an analysis of the data available to us.
This piece will be a data analysis, looking at the relevant statistics of each addition to offer context regarding whether or not our predictions have been successful or not.
1. Vincenzo Italiano
First up on the list is Vincenzo Italiano. The 45-year-old had a rapid rise to stardom in the coaching world. Despite being in charge of Serie C side Trapani in 2019, Italiano was going to battle with some of the greatest coaches in Italian football just a year later with Spezia in Serie A.
Having successfully avoided the drop with the Ligurian club at the end of the 2020/21 campaign, Italiano was snapped up by fallen giants Fiorentina.
The Florence-based side had been on a downward trajectory for many seasons, flying through manager after manager in the hopes of finding the man who could steer the ship in the right direction.
Italiano has managed to do so thus far. In his debut campaign at the Stadio Artemio Franchi, Fiorentina finished in seventh place, just one point behind Jose Mourinho’s Europa Conference League-winning AS Roma.
In doing so, Fiorentina qualified for the UECL, ending the season 22 points better off than the year prior.
While we’re only halfway through the current campaign, I Viola are sitting in tenth but have progressed to the knockout phase in Europe, providing extra income for the club and scoring goals aplenty despite actually underperforming their xG this year by quite an amount.
Fiorentina’s football is like champagne at times within a possession-oriented 4-3-3/4-2-3-1, and with players such as Luka Jovic up top, FIFA World Cup hero Sofyan Amrabat in midfield, and Serbian rock Nikola Milenkovic at the back, Italiano has well and truly stabilised the ship.
It’s only fair that we claim this one as a correct prediction!
