The 2025 U21 European Championships have ended, with Lee Carsley’s England ultimately emerging victorious.
The Young Lions defeated Antonio Di Salvo-led Germany in the EURO U21 Final, thanks to goals from Liverpool’s Harvey Elliott, Ipswich Town’s Omari Hutchinson and Olympique de Marseille’s Jonathan Rowe.
On the German side, 1. FSV Mainz 05 duo Nelson Weiper and Paul Nebel got on the scoresheet, but it was the young English team’s day in the end.
Plenty of German players made their mark in this tournament.
In addition to Nebel (two) and Weiper (four), there was Bayern Munich target Nick Woltemade from a goalscoring standpoint.
Woltemade netted on six occasions during this tournament, finishing as the EURO U21 top scorer.
Rocco Reitz (176cm/5’9”, 72kg/159 lbs) of Borussia Mönchengladbach also produced some fine performances.
The 23-year-old midfielder has recently been heavily linked to Premier League side Fulham, with West Ham United said to be in the picture, too.
As a football fan, analyst and writer who’s always naturally gravitated towards deep-lying midfielders—be they conductors who dictate play comfortably and with a near-effortless feel or quarterbacks—6s disguised as 10s working from the shadows of their own half— Reitz was the main standout of the U21 Euros, for me—a pleasure to watch throughout the competition.
That’s why this article will be a Rocco Reitz scout report, outlining his crucial role in Germany’s journey to the EURO U21 Final 2025.
This Rocco Reitz player analysis piece details the midfielder’s progressive nature and threat in possession, along with his reading of the game and technical quality when not in possession.
Rocco Reitz At The 2025 U21 European Championships – Data Analysis
Rocco Reitz was a formidable midfield asset for Germany in the U21 Euros, both in and out of possession.
He played 541 minutes in the competition—more than all but six other players.
The xT metric helps us to evaluate Rocco Reitz’s impact on the German U21s in possession.
Meanwhile, adjusting xT to consider the respective average possession of each individual’s team helps remove some bias from that particular defensive metric, allowing us to assess each holding midfielder’s defensive impact more accurately through data.
Reitz falls in the upper-right quadrant of the scatter plot—generally a good place to be, and certainly the case in this graph.
Only three midfielders in our dataset created more xT per game than Reitz, and all of those were less impactful defensively.
At the same time, only three players prevented more PAdj xT per game than Reitz.
This data essentially tells us that the Borussia Mönchengladbach man produced perhaps the most well-rounded U21 Euros performance of all the midfielders being evaluated in our graph, balancing the offensive and defensive aspects of the game—a pretty accurate assessment of his tournament, in our view.
Rocco Reitz At Borussia Mönchengladbach 2024/2025
Don’t just look at his U21 Euros performances, however, as we have a whole 2024/2025 season in the Bundesliga for further information.
With a percentile rank of 50 representing the average, the Föhlen midfielder performed above-average in all ‘attacking’ metrics on our pizza chart, with xG contribution per 90 (78.4 percentile) and dribbles per 90 (93.6 percentile) the standout strengths.
Reitz is light on his feet and comfortable carrying the ball upfield into positions where his passing quality can be most useful.
This brings us to his ‘possession’ metrics, where accuracy is sacrificed for threat.
Rocco Reitz is constantly looking to break lines with passes or dribbles, getting his team closer to the goal.
Defensively, we see that he has a relatively high defensive duel participation rate, along with a high percentile rank (70.35) in the ‘positioning’ metric, which combines tackles and interceptions.
Reitz is good at breaking up the game, although his defensive duel success rate can be improved.
He reads the game well and does, indeed, generally position himself well to steal the ball back, whether that’s via a clean interception where he swoops in to regain possession or whether he has to engage in a more physical challenge; he’s fairly strong in either scenario, primarily thanks to his mental and technical qualities, though can become more disciplined with experience.
Rocco Reitz Out Of Possession Analysis
As was the case for Die Föhlen in the Bundesliga last season, Reitz stood out defensively, thanks to his interception success and the volume of tackles he made in the U21 Euros and U21 Euro Qualifiers.
Let’s start by analysing Reitz’s tackling game—a clear strength in his skill set.
Here, while Veton Tusha carries the ball forward from the left wing for Kosovo, Reitz watches and readies himself to engage in a challenge from the middle of the park.
Reitz meets Tusha in the middle of the park, having closed the distance to the ball carrier while intelligently blocking the passing lane to the right forward, who could’ve provided a solid passing option for Tusha to pull off a dangerous combination.
Reitz times his tackle perfectly, dispossessing Tusha on the outskirts of the final third and setting Germany up for a counterattacking opportunity.
This passage of play highlights several staples of Reitz’s defensive game, which have helped him perform solidly for both Germany U21s and Borussia Mönchengladbach over the past year.
Firstly, we see his sense of danger and defensive work rate as he immediately reacts to Tusha beating his man out on the wing and progressing in a threatening manner towards the German goal.
Then, we see Reitz’s intelligent positioning come into play.
He cuts the passing lane between Tusha and his right-sided teammate, preventing the two from linking up and ensuring Tusha has to keep going alone.
Lastly, after closing the distance in that passing lane, we see Reitz’s technical tackling ability, timing his move and unceremoniously ending Tusha’s carry by not just sticking in a wayward foot but performing a strong standing tackle with much of his body behind it.
All in all, this passage of play shows some of the best of Reitz from an out-of-possession perspective.
Here, Reitz spots the danger quite quickly and jumps into action to try and stop FC Nantes’ Johann Lepenant from receiving this pass from AS Monaco’s Soungoutou Magassa.
Reitz gets in between the receiver and the ball, snatching it back for Germany before Lepenant can get a touch.
Lastly, Reitz takes a few steps forward with the ball and then splits the French backline with a dangerous through pass for VfB Stuttgart’s Nick Woltemade to chase.
While Figures 3-5 show Reitz defending deep, Figures 6-8 show another side of the 23-year-old’s defensive game.
Here, we see his capacity to press and win the ball back high, forcing a dangerous turnover inside the French half.
This helped him immediately set one of the team’s most threatening forwards up to run at goal.
Reitz thrives in high-pressure scenarios thanks to his anticipation, reactions, acceleration and, as we looked at previously, his intelligent defensive positioning.
This helps him to perform a relatively high number of interceptions—obviously a big positive for his team’s defensive capabilities in any phase of play, which is clearly reflected in the data, too.
Lastly, we see a great example of the player’s creativity at the end, spotting the through pass to Woltemade fast and executing the pass very well despite mounting French pressure.
Rocco Reitz In Possession Analysis
Rocco Reitz has a great eye for line-splitting progressive passes and defence-splitting balls.
Here, we see the midfielder has dropped in between Germany’s centre-backs in the progression phase—something Reitz is often tasked with and a job which the midfielder performs to an extremely high level.
He’s got excellent vision and a broad passing range.
Hence, as we see above, it makes sense to try to drop him deep to get him away from pressure so that he can utilise his vision and passing range effectively.
Here, he spots an opportunity that few players could take and pings a pinpoint progressive pass towards centre-forward Nelson Weiper.
As stated earlier, Reitz isn’t the player you want to be playing safer, possession-based football, where his role primarily focuses on ball retention.
He’s a progressive midfielder who will take opportunities to move the ball forward that other players won’t—and those chances will often work out thanks to his excellent technical passing.
Indeed, it won’t be a 100% success rate, so some turnovers may appear to be sloppy passes from Reitz.
However, that’s the tradeoff for a player with the upside he offers in terms of ball progression.
With that said, Reitz can still find a better balance in this area of his game.
Reitz is not a safe holding midfielder; he’s a playmaker from deep, a quarterback type who exists on the pitch to create when there seems to be little on.
Here, we see Reitz has found enough space to make him a major threat in midfield.
Aware of the player’s passing range, Nelson Weiper begins making a threatening run in behind, knowing a goalscoring opportunity could be on.
Reitz spots Weiper’s run and plays a beautiful through ball in over the top for the Mainz attacker.
Ultimately, Toulouse centre-back Charlie Cresswell gets back and deals with Weiper’s threat calmly.
However, the pass from Reitz was played extremely well, highlighting how the deep-lying playmaker can be extremely dangerous if given as much space in midfield as he was on this occasion.
Rocco Reitz Weaknesses & Areas Of Improvement
Rocco Reitz is not yet the finished article—it’d be a disservice to the player and his potential if we were to ignore where he can still make progress.
Firstly, Reitz can develop a bit more physically, though, as we indicated earlier, he’s comfortable engaging in strong, physical midfield duels.
At 176cm, he’s not the tallest midfielder, and this impacts his aerial game—a weakness for his team when defending against goal kicks into midfield, in particular.
Furthermore, Rocco Reitz can become more refined in terms of selecting his passes and tackles.
He currently performs a high volume of progressive passes—many of which are completed thanks to his technical quality—and a high volume of tackles.
However, when they don’t come off, it can leave his team open defensively.
Becoming a little more patient and selective in his passing and tackling game will help Reitz reach the next level.
He needs to learn to choose his moments more wisely if he wants to maximise his ability and earn the complete trust of his managers.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Reitz is a dynamic, two-way midfielder with the potential to become one of the best of his type in Europe, should he continue to work hard and refine specific areas of his game.
I’d say Borussia Dortmund captain Emre Can would be an ideal player for Reitz to watch closely and learn from as someone to model his game after in this next phase of his career, if he’s to go on and jump to the next level.
Like Reitz, Can is an all-action deep-lying midfielder with verticality and strong defensive engagement.
However, Reitz could learn a lot from Can in terms of discipline both in and out of possession.
If there is fire behind the transfer rumour mill smoke, and Reitz’s future does indeed lie in the Premier League, the fast-paced style of the league will suit him.
Still, he’ll especially need to work on his physical build while gaining the necessary experience and discipline to make him a more reliable holding midfielder.
