“I like the group”: Five fine Uruguayan U21s set to boom with Bielsa – scout report

With Marcelo Bielsa taking over the Uruguayan national team — and the young starlets such as Thiago Borbas, Emiliano Martínez, Maximiliano Araújo, Facundo Pellistri and Matías Arezo, who featured in Bielsa’s first game(s) in charge, along with the countrys recent U20 World Cup win, it’s evident that there’s something exciting brewing in Uruguayan football at the moment.

After taking the Uruguay job, Bielsa explained his decision by stating: I did not have to be convinced. I like the group that have represented the country in recent years& One of the things that I considered a lot is that I would not have a group of players like the ones Uruguay has at the moment in any other club that can offer me a job — this endorsement wasnt just kind words from the new boss, as our analysis aims to emphasise.

In our scout report, we will look at five of Uruguay’s most exciting U21 prospects. We believe the players we’ve profiled for this article can excel in the future, especially if Bielsa gets his hands on them for extended periods where he can try to mould them and develop them, similar to how he’s evolved stars such as current midfielder from the reigning UEFA Champions League/EPL champions Manchester City, Kalvin Phillips who worked with Bielsa during his time at Leeds United, current Arsenal star Ben White — who also worked with Bielsa at Leeds, Ander Herrera from Bielsa’s time at Athletic Club and Dimitri Payet from Bielsa’s time at Marseille.

This article isn’t an analysis of Uruguay’s best young players. There are plenty of other young Uruguayan players, such as Darwin Núñez, Ronald Araújo, José Giménez and Rodrigo Bentancur, who we also believe can thrive for La Celeste in the future. However, those names are already very well-known, so we’ve tried to shine a light on some slightly younger, less prominent players who we feel have what it takes to become household names among football fans around the world in the near future and could be good fits for Bielsa’s strategy and tactics with Uruguay.

All stats and data used in this analysis have been sourced from Wyscout.

Facundo González, 20 years old, Valencia Mestalla

First up in our analysis is 20-year-old Valencia Mestalla centre-back Facundo González (193cm/6’3”, 78kg/171lbs). González has featured 21 times for Uruguay’s U20 side and was part of their senior national team squad for their most recent friendly with Cuba but didn’t appear off the bench. Still, it would appear that this is a player Bielsa appreciates, and that’s not a massive surprise, as the young Valencia prospect could be a major star for La Celeste in the future.

On the ball, González is a confident passer from the left centre-back position. Figure 1 shows the left-footed centre-back’s progressive pass map from last season to highlight this point further. The map indicates the types of positions he’s familiar with passing from and to. We can see plenty of long switches from left to right and penetrative passes into the left half-space, the wing or the ‘10’ position where a teammate can receive, turn and attack the opposition’s goal.

Figure 2 shows an example of a González pass along the left side of the pitch, finding a teammate in a more threatening position just ahead. Here, we see him receive, turn, carry a little bit and then release to the teammate positioned ahead in the left half-space between three opposition players. This pass and the teammate’s positioning helps Valencia to draw the defenders in, thus creating space elsewhere for the team to exploit.

This is just an exampl