El Chadaille Bitshiabu (196 cm / 6’5”, 82 kg / 180 lbs) is one of the most exciting young talents to have come through PSG’s youth academy in recent years—yes, that’s saying something.
In December, at 16 years, seven months, and three days, the centre-back became PSG’s youngest senior player when he substituted Presnel Kimpembe against SC Feignies in the Coupe de France.
Now 17, the PSG academy product, born in Paris suburb Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, made one Ligue 1 appearance last season, a four-minute cameo versus Angers, and accumulated a handful of bench appearances for Les Parisiens under Mauricio Pochettino.
Described by L’Équipe as PSG’s “future great” defender, Bitshiabu certainly seems to have a bright future ahead of him.
However, potential remains only potential, and ability remains only ability without relentless hard work to make it to the top of this game, as the young centre-back will be well aware.
He is still just a teenager, and we aren’t here to discuss his performances for PSG’s first team, though his accomplishments thus far have obviously been impressive.
Instead, we want to look at how and why the 196cm centre-back stood out massively in both the 2021/22 UEFA Youth League and 2022 U17 European Championships—the latter of which was won by Bitshiabu’s France, in which the PSG man played a key role for his national side.
This tactical analysis and scout report aims to highlight Bitshiabus key strengths and areas for improvement.
It looks at the defender’s roles in the France U17 and PSG U19 setups last season that helped him thrive with those teams respective strategies and tactics.
We hope that this tactical analysis explains why, at just 17, Bitshiabu may already have eyes for integration into first-team football, perhaps even at PSG, with the left-footed centre-back perhaps viewed as a homegrown successor to Chelsea-linked Kimpembe at the left centre-back position.
Unless otherwise stated, all stats and data used in this piece have been sourced from Wyscout.
El Chadaille Bitshiabu Long passing
Bitshiabu loves to be on the ball and has excellent technical ability.
He can play as a deep-lying playmaker from the left centre-back position.
He is a risk-taker with great vision and the technical ability to make the move he’s made in his head a reality.
The centre-back can sometimes still be a bit rough around the edges, technically, with the odd heavy touch or overly hefty pass creeping into his game occasionally.
However, in general, he’s a great option to have on the ball deep, with the whole pitch ahead of him to pick his pass and drive his team forward into a more valuable position.
We’ll start analysing Bitshiabu’s on-the-ball quality by diving into his long passing, which is a trademark of the young centre-back’s game.
Bitshiabu played the second-most long passes per 90 (7.75) of any centre-back at this summer’s U17 Euros.
At the same time, he had the third-highest long pass accuracy (53.66%) of any centre-back at this competition.
In last season’s UEFA Youth League, the 17-year-old also played a relatively high number of long passes (6.71 per 90) with a relatively high accuracy rate (53.13%).
So, it’s clear that long passing is a prominent part of the PSG youth player’s game.
Figure 1 shows an example of Kimpembe playing a cross-field ball for PSG from the left centre-back position.
With this, he can release the right-winger or right-back — with PSG typically utilising attacking full-back Achraf Hakimi for their offensive width on the right-wing.
PSG are
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