The most fascinating U23 players in Europe's Next Three Leagues
A squad of 20 young players from the Eredivisie, Pro League and Primeira Liga with incredible or intriguing stats this season.
The first time was so nice…
In the middle of October, I discovered the most fascinating U23 players in Europe’s Big Five Leagues through Stathead metrics. You seemed to enjoy it.
So, to kick off November, I have started my exploration of The Other 12 and put together another SCOUTED Squad.
There is a 2007-born aerial monster in defence, a 6’3” ball-winning phenom in midfield, a Brighton loanee and a future Brighton signing out wide, a two-footed super striker up top and a 16-year-old playmaker knitting it all together.
“From where!?” I hear you ask…
Well, the 12 other domestic leagues with advanced data on Stathead are: MLS, Liga MX, Liga Professional Argentina, Brasileirão, Belgian Pro League, Eredivisie, Primeira Liga, Championship, Ligue 2, Serie B, 2. Bundesliga, Segunda División.
Initially, I was going to cover all 12 divisions in one. But then I realised we would be able to discover more players by creating a few sub-groups. So I split them into three:
The Americas: 🇺🇸 MLS, 🇲🇽 Liga MX, 🇦🇷 Liga Profesional, 🇧🇷 Brasileirão
The Next Three: 🇳🇱 Eredivisie, 🇧🇪 Pro League, 🇵🇹 Primeira Liga
The Big Five 2nd Tiers: 🏴 Championship, 🇮🇹 Serie B, 🇪🇸 Segunda División, 🇩🇪 2. Bundesliga, 🇫🇷 Ligue 2
After using a poll to overcome my inability to make a decision strengthen the SCOUTED community, this newsletter will focus on the Belgian Pro League, the Dutch Eredivisie and Portugal’s Primeira Liga.
Remember, these are not the 20 best young players from the selected leagues. This is the discovery of new names.
There are only two rules:
all players must be born in the year 2001 or later
all players must have played at least 270 minutes
all stats are per 90 unless explicitly stated otherwise
Across the Eredivisie, Pro League and Primeira Liga, that criteria returned 11 goalkeepers and 279 outfield players. I have whittled that down to a SCOUTED Squad of 20.
All data is via Stathead FBref and correct as of 29 October 2024, 18:00 BST
Goalkeepers
As I mentioned in the introduction, 11 goalkeepers across these three leagues match our search criteria: seven from Belgium and two each from the Netherlands and Portugal.
Senne Lammens was the immediate standout. The 2002-born Belgian has played all 12 games for Royal Antwerp and conceded just eight goals. Not only is he making an impressive four saves per 90 minutes - the second-highest from our 11-player pool - he is doing so while maintaining a staggering save percentage of 87.7% - the best in our group. There’s something about Belgian goalkeepers.
Mohamed Koné is the second pick. The reason cross-claiming is my go-to metric for goalkeepers right now because I believe it is the characteristic that separates the best from the rest - in my opinion, it was the main reason for Arsenal’s Ramsdale-to-Raya switch. Within our search, Koné is leading this metric both in terms of quality and quantity. The Charleroi goalkeeper is stopping more (1.3) and maintaining the highest percentage of crosses stopped (12.8%).
Similar to the first SCOUTED Squad newsletter, I will be providing links to the custom Stathead searches I used to investigate players. As a bonus, these will include players from all 12 leagues mentioned in the intro.
To start, here is your link for Goalkeeper Prevention stats
One goalkeeping metric / quality that is making a comeback is long-range passing. Jon Mackenzie noticed how direct elite teams are becoming in his latest thread. It would appear that Koné is well-equipped for this style.
The Charleroi goalkeeper has maintained 100% accuracy for both short and medium passes so far this season, while only the two Primeira Liga representatives in our group - Benfica’s Anatolii Trubin (70.5%) and Gil Vicente’s Andrew (64.9%) - can better Koné’s long pass accuracy (57.3%). When looking at volume, Andrew stands alone as the only goalkeeper completing more long passes than the SCOUTED Squad selection (12.1 vs. 11.1).
Your link for Goalkeeper Distribution stats
Koné also gets bonus points for his most recent exploits. The Ivorian played the second half against Charleroi’s Walloon Derby rivals Standard Liége with a broken hand. Bizarrely, he conceded more goals with two unbroken hands in the first half (2) than he did with one broken hand in the second (0). He even saved a penalty in the 81st minute.
Centre-backs
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