Antonio Marin 2019/20 – scout report

Some teams across Europe like Liverpool or Bayern Munich just have a superior recruitment strategy that gets them the advantage over their rivals. Others, like Barcelona or in our case, Dinamo Zagreb, have an incredible youth system that has developed multiple world-class players over time.

One such young talent currently plying his trade in Croatias capital is Antonio Marin. The youngster has had a taste of first-team football in 2019/20 and a stellar spell in the youth competitions, including the U19s for both club and country.

This tactical analysis will present a detailed scout report on the player, including his tactics within Dinamo Zagrebs system and his strengths and weaknesses.

Positioning and general traits

Well start this analysis with some of Marins general traits and establish his movement and positioning on the pitch. The 19-year-old is a right-footed player who prefers to stick to the left side of the pitch. Usually, Dinamo Zagreb will deploy him either as a left-sided midfielder in a wider role or a left-winger that provides width and height to the team.

Below, you can see his preferred and most-used positions throughout the 2019/20 campaign which includes stints with both the senior and youth squads. The majority of the games, 45% of them to be more precise, he does spend as a left-sided midfielder and then 24% as a left-winger as his two most dominant roles so far in the season.

Naturally, since he is a right-footed player playing on the left side of the pitch, this means that he tends to cut inside and often advance through the half-space to ultimately position himself on his preferred foot when approaching the box and trying to send that final ball.

His movement and general positioning, however, will become much clearer once we inspect his heatmap below. Quite clearly, we can see that he sticks to his side of the pitch, usually hugs the touchline when receiving the ball in deeper areas and then advances it forward. But, once he reaches the final third, he will either cut inside with the ball at his feet or combine with his teammates.