Trencin have an excellent history of recruiting young obscure players for such a small amount and proceeding to sell them for a massive profit in the following year. Leon Bailey (Bayer Leverkusen), Wesley Moraes (Aston Villa), Samuel Kalu (Bordeaux), Moses Simon (Nantes on loan from Levante), and Hilary Gong (Vitesse) are some examples of their excellent youth recruitment and development.
Another one that is on the line to follow the footsteps is Osman Bukari.
The ambipedal winger has already registered five goals and nine assists in 20 games in all competitions this season. Bukari has made himself a pivotal player at Trencin and established himself as one of the most talented wingers in Fortuna Liga. He is, however, still quite raw and there are some critical weaknesses in his game that he needs to work on.
We’ll get a closer look at how good Bukari is and how he fits into Trenčín’s tactics in this tactical analysis/scout report.
Physicality and speed
Bukari is 1.70m tall and weighs 68 kg. With a small height and lean body build, Bukari is naturally not a powerhouse. He can be seen quite easily getting outmuscled at times when trying to hold off a defender, especially when he’s against a larger opponent. This is why he tends to avoid pressure by quickly feinting or turning with the ball so that he can quickly beat his man when he receives a pass.
When it comes to aerial balls, Bukari is also understandably not very strong. He recorded an average of 2.2 aerial duels per game, winning only 28% of those duels. Though Bukari lacked the strength and physicality, he does show excellent determination to get his head and win the ball from taller players. He is often trying hard to time his jumps and get into good positions to head the ball which is a very positive sign. His ability to direct the ball with his head, however, is still rather disappointing.
As mentioned earlier in this tactical analysis/scout report, Bukari is not comfortable in receiving the ball with his back to goal as he’s not able to hold off defenders. Bukari takes great advantage of his superb agility to quickly turn and beat defenders as soon as he receives the ball with his feet. His ability to quickly feint one way before going towards the other direction proved to be quite a nuisance for defenders who are playing against him.
Bukari has a low centre of gravity which gives him great balance and can especially be seen when he’s dribbling. He also has excellent hip control and mobility allowing him to seamlessly manoeuvre towards pretty much any direction he wants. His splendid body balance and coordination also mean that he’s quite a difficult man to move off the ball when he’s already into his stride.
Aside from his agility and balance, Bukari also possesses blistering pace. The 1998-born winger is extremely quick over short distances due to his burst of acceleration which, again, linking to what has been mentioned above, helps him a lot to escape pressure and beat his man on the turn.
He’s also very fast over medium and long distances. This can be seen especially when in an attacking transition as his team relies on the speed of their wingers when launching a counter-attack. Once Bukari manages to explode and reach his top speed, it certainly is very hard to catch up with him.
Bukari has this tendency to accelerate, decelerate, and then explode very quickly to beat his man and his ability to control his speed when he’s with the ball is very good.
Endurance doesn’t seem to be a strong attribute of his. Bukari shows clear signs of tiredness and a pretty dramatic drop in his performance in the second half as he attempts fewer sprints, reacts slower to situations, and a bit more reluctant to press his opponent. However, Bukari does have pretty decent work rate as he covers a pretty good amount of ground in every game which shows his willingness to work hard and contribute to the team despite his limited stamina.
Ball receiving and distribution
Bukari’s attacking flair and technique on the ball is a crucial part and definitely one of the strongest attributes in his game. His ability to control the ball is just as good as his ability to control his body.
Bukari is very skilful on the ball. He has excellent touch and control and his ability to use both feet comfortably massively increases his flexibility on the ball, allowing him to move anywhere he wants with it.
Statistically, Bukari registers an average of 18 attacking duels this season with a very impressive success rate of 51%. Although this doesn’t necessarily mean that Bukari is press-resistant, this shows his excellent ability to retain the ball in a 1v1 duel against an opponent. Despite lacking in strength, Bukari uses his agility, balance, explosiveness, and technical proficiency to escape difficult situations while retaining the ball.
One thing that he still needs to improve when receiving the ball is his awareness of the surroundings. Often Bukari can be seen not checking over his shoulder and scanning around prior to receiving the ball thus not knowing a defender coming at him from behind and immediately stealing the ball away from him. He does seem to have good shape when receiving at times as he opens his body and controls using the inside of his back foot.
Dribbling is Bukari’s strongest weapon in the game. His pacey, direct dribbling can be a dangerous threat to the opposing team as it can open up space, help his team get out of pressure, and create chances.
Statistically, Bukari averages around 13 dribbles per game this season with a very impressive success rate of 63%. This shows that he’s quite prolific and also effective with his dribbling. Bukari also averages around 4.78 progressive runs this season.
He has close control when dribbling and tends to alternate the use of both feet when pushing the ball so he doesn’t have the tendency to use only one foot to lead with when dribbling. This dribbling ability can be very useful for the team, again, linking to his team’s tactics which is to rely on the pace of the wingers when in transition.
When it comes to passing, however, Bukari is not very strong.
Statistically, he records an average of 27 passes per game with an accuracy of only 67%. This shows Bukari’s lack of playmaking ability but the player himself is not necessarily selfish.
Mainly poor decision making, concentration, and terrible execution are the reasons why he missed a lot of his passes.
Bukari did create an average of three key passes per game though which he shows his high level of creativity and the tendency to take risks, but without proper execution, most of those key passes attempts will go to waste in the end.
Above is the example of Bukari’s poor concentration and accuracy as well as power control when passing. The winger drove forward with the ball and then tried to release a through pass towards his teammate in front of him but it was too powerful and lacked accuracy.
This picture above shows Bukari’s poor concentration and decision making which led to a poor pass. In this situation, Bukari managed to skip past a challenge of his opponent and spotted his teammate making a run into space. As you can see, clearly the teammate was asking the ball to be given in front of him instead of into feet. However, Bukari decided to give the ball into feet and though he did not miss the pass, the attacking momentum was suddenly lost as the opposing team managed to close down the space that was previously open.
Though Bukari is clearly still struggling in the passing department, he actually proves to be a decent crosser still. Statistically, he averages around 3.36 crosses per game with 34% accuracy.
Bukari has this tendency to deliver low cutback crosses from the byline either inside or outside the box. Same with his passing, sometimes Bukari can be a bit inconsistent with his crossing too. At times, he’ll deliver an accurate ball with good pace but at times his crosses are too weak and easy to anticipate.
Shooting
Bukari is not a particularly strong striker of the ball either. According to his stats, this season he averages 2.8 shots per game with 38% accuracy. That is actually a decent amount of shots for a winger, however, the accuracy is still wanting.
As you can see from the shot map above, Bukari likes to take shots from inside the box, albeit from the right side of the goal rather than centre. This is why despite averaging 2.8 shots per game, he only has an average of 0.28 xG per game which shows that he has been taking shots from low xG areas.
Bukari can shoot comfortably with both feet but his overall shooting technique needs some work. His shots aren’t very powerful and he needs to be able to control the direction better. Decision making inside the box also has an impact, of course, as at times he seems to choose to take a shot despite having better options.
Positioning and movements as well as style of play at Trenčín
Bukari is an explosive winger capable of playing on either side of the wing. At Trenčín, Bukari seems to be given the freedom to explore space out wide or cut inside and drive into the box to create goalscoring chances. The 21-year-old winger is very direct and likes to take on one or multiple players at once.
Trenčín play a possession-based game, using mostly a 4-3-3 system although sometimes they’d also use 4-2-3-1 as well. They’d try to play out patiently from the back with the goalkeeper distributing the ball short and getting involved in the build-up play.
Trenčín’s main aim is to stretch the field and exploit width. Both wingers always look to sit close to the touchline when off the ball and will only look to go inside after receiving the ball to allow the full-back to make an overlapping run.
Bukari is particularly useful in counter-attacks due to his explosiveness and blistering pace. Trenčín are quite reliant on quick breaks and they’re utilising the sheer speed of their two wingers to great advantage by urging long balls into space for the wingers to get onto.
As you can see from the heat map above, Bukari spends most of the game in advanced areas close to the touchline but he likes to go inside the box as well which is why you can see patches of yellow on the right side just inside the box. There he’ll usually try to attempt a cross or a direct shot at goal.
As mentioned before in this tactical analysis/scout report, both wingers are instructed to stay close to the touchline when off the ball hence why Bukari is sitting near the touchline as in the picture above to stretch the defence.
However, instead of hugging the touchline, Bukari tends to cut inside and drive with the ball in the half-space. Usually, after beating his opponents, he’d have several options to play the ball to. He can either play the ball back wide towards the overlapping full-back or he can play the ball inside towards a player in central areas. Or he can also dribble his way into the box and deliver a cutback cross just like he usually does.
Bukari loves to have the ball at his feet and he shows intelligent positioning and movements by actively moving and positioning himself in the right place at the right time. In this example above, Bukari dropped down to drag out the opposing full-back (yellow circle) but quickly turned around using his excellent agility and exploded to exploit the space he created with his movements. This set him free from his marker who’s yet to even turn his body around.
This is also a tendency of his that he constantly and consistently uses to exploit spaces out wide.
Defensive contribution
Bukari is actually quite active when contributing in defence. Despite his small size, he’s not afraid to engage opponents larger than him in a duel although he doesn’t always win it. Statistically, Bukari registers an average of 4.7 defensive challenges per game with 38% success rate which is a decent amount but pretty low winning rate. He also registers an average of 2.5 tackles this season with a fairly decent success rate of 48%.
As you can see from the heatmap earlier in this tactical analysis/scout report, he’s shown to be very active in advanced areas but also tracks back occasionally and shows a decent amount of contribution at the back. But mainly Bukari does his defensive duties from upfront as Trenčín’s first line of pressure.
Conclusion
Bukari is a highly talented pacey winger with bags of tricks up his sleeve but still very raw. The 21-year-old winger surely can be developed to be a special player in the future if nurtured properly.
Bukari could be a cheap pickup for clubs in Europe as his contract expires in June 2020 and he could available for free in the summer. Trencin may be reluctant to let him go this January though as he’s an indispensable player but surely a good offer will convince them otherwise.
