Guus Til: The attacking midfield anomaly who is making waves at Feyenoord this season – tactical analysis

Against all odds, Feyenoord are in a title race this season in the Eredivisie. The Dutch giants have gone through rather lacklustre spells in recent memory ever since winning the league in 2017.

When the former AZ Alkmaar head coach Arne Slot was appointed in Feyenoords dugout, the 43-year-old knew he had a job on his hands to turn a team that finished fifth last season into title contenders. However, within half a season, The Club on the Meuse are already locked in a three-way title tussle with Ajax and PSV Eindhoven.

While Feyenoord have been displaying some utterly scintillating football under their new manager, an underlying factor behind the club’s rise back to the top has been the awe-inspiring form of Guus Til.

Til, on loan from Spartak Moscow in the Russian Premier League, has been one of Europe’s signings of the season. The 24-year-old attacking midfielder has scored 16 goals in merely 31 appearances for Feyenoord with half the campaign still to play.

His breath-taking form even earned him a first call-up debut for the national team in three years, back in November. Til scored on his return in a 6-1 trouncing of Turkey.

This tactical analysis article will be a scout report of Til. It will be an analysis of the player’s strengths and weaknesses as well as a look at how he fits into Feyenoord’s tactics.

Player profile

The archetypal attacking midfielder in most people’s eyes is quite a slight, petite and intricate figure with nippy feet, like Milan’s Brahim Diaz or Manchester City’s Bernardo Silva.

However, Til is anything but this. The Zambian-born attacker currently stands at 6 foot 1 or 186cm. At 24 though, he will certainly not grow any taller given that the average male stops growing between the ages of 18 to 20.

Til also weighs in at 79kg, or 174lbs which roughly equates to 12 stone 6 pounds. He is actually a rather domineering presence on the pitch due to his physical stature. Til’s figure is very resemblant of Athletic Club’s young midfielder Oihan Sancet or even that of the ex-Ballon d’Or winning Kaka.

The right-footer’s role for Feyenoord is one overflowing with freedom. The Dutch giants play a very expansive style of football under Slot, one which revolves around lots of positional rotations and interchanges.

No player symbolises this better than Til. Operating mainly as the team’s number ‘10’ in their flexible 4-2-3-1 – although the 24-year-old is capable of playing off the right too – Til’s heat map displays a beautiful picture of Feyenoord’s fluid system like an abstract painting from an elegant artist.