MLS 2022: Three U23 homegrown players leading the goal contribution table – scout report

We’re already one month and four games into the 2022 MLS season and with the international break, it’s a good time to recap on some of the best performances so far.

Four games aren’t really enough to delve into the data so we’ll have a look at the most basic and important stats: goals and assists. In this tactical analysis, we’ll provide a scout report on the three homegrown (American or Canadian) U23 players who have registered at least four goal contributions: Brandon Vázquez, Ismaël Koné and Jesús Ferreira.

For each of them, we’ll provide a scout report, an analysis of their roles in their teams’ tactics and examples of their goals and assists.

Brandon Vázquez  23, Cincinnati & USA  4G & 1A

Brandon Vázquez is a 1998-born American striker who also holds a Mexican passport and started his football career in Mexico playing for Tijuanas youth teams. He’s currently the top scorer in the MLS with four goals in four games.

From Tijuana, where he only featured once for the first team, Vázquez signed for Atlanta United and spent three years there (39 games, 9 goals and 4 assists for the first team; 11 games, 5 goals and 1 assist for the B team). In late 2019, Nashville drafted him but immediately sold him to Cincinnati for €180,000. He has played 54 games for his current club, scoring 10 goals and assisting 6.

After representing Mexico at U17 level, he changed his allegiance to the USA and has represented them 19 times (3 goals) across the U17, U19, U20 and U23 levels. In his career, he’s also won two trophies: the MLS Cup in 2018 and the US Open Cup in 2019, both with Atlanta.

Vázquez is a big striker (1.88m / 6’2’’) who plays very well as a target man thanks to his size and physicality but also possesses decent speed and coordination, so he can do other things apart from receiving direct passes.

He drops deep to receive the ball with his back to the goal, using his size and technique to hold it. He has a great first touch and orientation so he can turn in one touch when receiving between the lines or keep the ball close to him until his teammates arrive. Vázquez brings the ball down with his head and chest to link up with the players in the second line and also plays good layoffs with either foot. He’s quite good in the air and can assist his teammates with head flicks but still could become more dominant given his size and physicality. 

While his first touch is great both to control and pass the ball, he has some problems when he has to take extra touches or dribble in tight spaces as he’s not the most mobile or skilled. He can dribble with some quality details and power when he has some space to run and also uses his body well to shield the ball, which allows him to survive when there are no passing options around him.

Depending on what the play demands, Vázquez can drift wide and put passes into the box with intelligence, aiming at good zones that are difficult to defend. He plays with his head up and makes good decisions in general regarding his passes. 

The picture above shows Vázquez’s only assist so far this season and is a good example of what we’ve just said. He receives wide, dribbles and raises his head to play the ball into a free area for a teammate to arrive from the second line and score.

What has stood out in Vázquez’s offensive game so far is his movement in the box. He makes excellent moves to get into scoring positions, attacking the near post to anticipate rivals, finding spaces between the centre-backs or being aggressive to win duels at the far post. In these few MLS games, Vázquez has shown he’s a great finisher with his head and also feels confident to shoot from difficult angles with his feet, troubling the goalkeeper as soon as he has a yard to shoot.