Scouting The U17 European Championship – Mathys Tel, Afonso Moreira, Jardell Kanga Scout Report

While most of Europes domestic football campaign is ending, the footballing calendar is not letting up.

While Sweden, Norway, and Iceland, amongst others, continue to play through their league campaigns, we also see the start of the youth international tournaments that will continue throughout the summer.

We are a couple of weeks away from the U19 European Championships in Slovakia this year.

However, at the time of this writing, we have just reached the end of the group stages of the U17 European Championships in Israel.

The quarter-finals have not been decided, with Germany facing France, the Netherlands facing Italy, Spain playing Portugal, and Denmark facing Serbia.

Each quarter-final tie is intriguing in its own right, with a lot of talent throughout each squad that has made it through the group stages.

This article will examine the players who stood out to us in the group stages.

This is the first in a series of articles examining the standout players in this tournament and the U19 tournament later in June.

This time, we will concentrate mainly on attacking players.

#1 Mathys Tel, 17-years-old, Winger/Forward, Rennes and France

For the most part, in this tournament, we are seeing players who have yet to make any sort of impact at the first-team level.

However, this is not the case with Mathys Tel, who has ended the French domestic season with 77 minutes in Ligue 1.

Tel is very much seen as an attacking player.

He is versatile and can play in wide areas or through the middle as a central striker. His dynamism and positional awareness stand out.

When Tel was signed by Rennes, though, it was as a central defender, as this was the position he was in when he was scouted for his club in Paris.

The decision to convert Tel to an attacking player is now looking to be an inspired one.

Coming into this tournament, the French youngster was widely tipped to be one of the standout players.

So far those predictions are being proved correct.

Tel has a great frame to go along with his athletic profile.

He stands just over 62 tall, and given his age, there is still potential for him to grow a little more.

He is a very physical attacking player, which makes sense given that he used to play as a central defender. He likes to make contact with opposition defenders to force them off balance.

He also, however, has a very strong technical base.

He can comfortably receive the ball with his back to goal or in space as he drifts into the half-spaces to find pockets of space, and he typically moves very fluidly in possession of the ball.

For such a young player Mathys Tel displays very good decision-making and composure when in possession of the ball in the final third of the pitch.

Despite his young age, he has already shown that he can score various goals, which suggests that his attacking output will continue as he develops into a regular first-team player at Rennes.

We see a