Six days after his 16th birthday, the unthinkable happened for Dário Essugo.
After joining Sporting CP at the age of nine, Essugo raced through the ranks at the club and was now lacing up his boots for the first team.
In doing so, he became the youngest debutante for the famed Lisbon side, surpassing the previous two record-holders, Joelson Fernandes and Manchester Uniteds Cristiano Ronaldo.
Essugos meteoric rise through the club and the bright future ahead of him are the topics of this tactical analysis. Well first look into his positional profile, showing how the club has used his talents on the pitch. Next, a scout report on his breathtaking performances at the U17 Euros, then compare and contrast his performances there with his season at Sporting Clube de Portugal.
Essugo’s profile
With João Palhinha headed to the EPL (scout report), Sporting CP’s midfield has an opening. Rumour has it that Al-Musrati, the Braga holding midfielder, is a transfer target. Should that transfer fail to go through, Essugo is the likeliest player to make the jump from the academy.
Though he is a very different player from Palhinha and Al-Musrati, Essugo has appeared in that defensive midfielder role for Sporting on a couple of occasions in the past 2 years. For the most part, he has taken his reps in Liga 3 with Sporting B. Always the deeper of the two central midfielders, Essugo is now on the brink of a first-team breakthrough.
On a rare occasion with the first team against Arouca, Essugo played the Palhinha role as the club’s number 6. From a positional standpoint, he found the same space that we typically see from Palhinha. In the image below, he has his pocket between the opposition’s forward and midfield lines. Thats precisely where Sporting stations their number 6, giving themselves a bounce player in attack and central coverage against opposition counterattacks.
Though he has played in a flat midfield four with Sporting B and the first team, his experience with the Portugal U17 team has seen him play at the base of a midfield three. During the U17 Euros, he often split the centrebacks during the buildup to give Portugal a 3-4-3 setup.
As Portugal progressed higher up the pitch,
