Support your local: SCOUT NOTES, March 20th
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We’re in the home stretch of the season. That’s signalled by the rolling around of the final international break of the season, which has a lot riding on it.
There’s places at EURO 2024 to decided, with play-off semi-finals and finals to be played out over the next week. Furthermore, there’s an entire slate of U-19 and U-17 Elite Round qualifiers on the cards, as well as U-21 qualifiers thrown in for good measure. Football stops for even more football.
While the top-level domestic football comes to a halt for almost two weeks, the lower leagues rumble on. We implore you to get out and support your local clubs over the weekend, if you can. Why? Because you’ll love it.
There’s so much history and culture and community and enjoyment to be found in watching your local side. It could be in the National League — which is very much a professional league nowadays — or it could be a local division team that play in front of 15 fans on a bog of a pitch.
We like to champion local football because it’s the true essence of the sport that counteracts the increasingly commercialised top tiers. Its close to home, it costs a couple of quid, you can have a pint while you watch it. Your local clubs deserves your support. You never know, you could be watcing a future Premier League player in the park around the corner. That’s why it’s brilliant.
Here’s a good little tool (if you live in England, at least) that finds the nearest non-league match to you. But most of you will probably know of the clubs in and around your area. Support them.
Pau Cubarsí is on the fast track
Anyway, back up the long ladder, Pau Cubarsí has gone from U-17 starter to the senior squad at international level within four months. Spain have fast-tracked him into the senior set-up, leapfrogging about three steps, much like they did with Lamine Yamal at the start of this season.
It comes after a string of starts for the Barcelona first team in LaLiga and the Champions League. His performances against Napoli and Atlético Madrid recently have catapulted him into the limelight. He’s really good, as we’ve told you before, but he’s only just turned 17 years old.
As we questioned when Yamal was bumped up, is it really necessary for Cubarsí to be thrown into an ultra-comptitive senior squad at this point of his development? He’s been called up by Luis de la Fuente having played just over 1,000 first-team minutes in the past two months, competing at a physical and mental level he’s never experienced before.
He’s good enough, definitely — but a little more restraint in these situations wouldn’t go a miss, we think. Allowing him to recharge at Barcelona for a week would’ve made plenty of sense. This is probably the area where the ‘too much football’ argument really rings true. We don’t want another Pedri.
Just quickly… it’s absolutely ridiculous that La Masia have produced Lamine Yamal and Pau Cubarsí in the same age group. Both of them will save an ailing club an obscene amount of money.
Sticking with Spain, Álex Baena is back in the mix after he featured in last week’s SCOUT NOTES. This is his second call-up to the senior squad after debuting (and scoring) against Cyprus back in September. He deserves it.
Franco Mastantuono, the new Echeverri
Keep an eye on the succession plan in place at River Plate this season. Claudio Echeverri’s big move to Manchester City has already been confirmed for next season, but in the meantime he is an important part of the senior squad, and a replacement for him needs to be groomed.
Arise, Franco Mastantuono. The 16-year-old has been coming off the bench regularly for River Plate this season, with two starts and seven sub appearances in 11 Copa de la Liga matches so far, playing bits and pieces off the right and through the middle.
It’s a massive achievement to be competing at this level at this age. His 17th birthday isn’t until August, so he’s a proper young’un.
Echeverri’s loan concludes at the end of the Argentinian season in December, so it should be a great season-long apprenticeship for Mastantuono, before looking to develop into more consistent starts as a 17-year-old — exactly what Echeverri has started to do this season (albeit as a freshly-minted 18-year-old).
We saw bits and pieces of Mastantuono coming off the bench at the Under-17 World Cup, but not quite enough to make a proper assessment of his game. But we will definitely be tracking him closely in 2024, with an eye on next season’s SCOUTED50.
Another Danish goalscorer in Graz
When Sturm Graz sign a striker, you should sit up and take notice – that’s the line we’ve been peddling over and over for some time now.
Kelvin Yeboah, Rasmus Højlund and Emmanuel Emegha have all signed, scored and been sold at significant profits in succession over the past couple of years. Sturm Graz know their strikers, so when they took Mika Biereth on loan from Arsenal in January we expected more of the same.
He hasn’t disappointed. Biereth has scored eight in eleven so far across all competitions, hitting the ground running. He moved to Graz off the back of a six-month loan spell at Motherwell in the Scottish Premiership, where he put up some good numbers as well.
He fits the bill of a Sturm Graz striker – athletic size, quick over ground, direct in his movements, a pest of a presence on the last line – and the profile of prospect that the talent-developing clubs of European football will be keen to invest in, as Atalanta did to tremendous success with Rasmus Højlund.
It will be interesting to see what Arsenal have planned for him once he returns in the summer. They might keep him around for their US tours, another loan makes most sense, but he’ll have plenty of suitors.
Flamengo win the U-20 Copa Libertadores
While the UEFA Youth League has been raging on, the short-and-sweet Under-20 Copa Libertadores finished this weekend, with Flamengo being crowned champions 2-1 over Boca Juniors.
Another U-17 World Cup player, this time Flamengo’s Lucas Lorran, scored the winning goal that will send Flamengo to a intercontinental championship game against the winner of the UEFA Youth League: either Nantes, Olympiakos, Porto or Milan.
This follows on from Boca’s victory last season over AZ Alkmaar on penalties in front of 37,000 spectators at La Bombonera.
We’re still awaiting details on when this year’s fixture will be played… but we can’t wait. Flamengo vs Porto at the Maracanã? Yes, please.
The SCOUTED Podcast is pumping
We’re blowing our own trumpet here, but please do listen to the SCOUTED Podcast on your favourite podcast provider. We’ve placed renewed emphasis on it in recent months and there’s something there for everyone.
Joe Donnohue’s deep dives into the world of scouting, recruitment and youth development are now being supplemented by SCOUTED Weekly, a weekly (duh!) roundtable-style podder on the things that have been populating our brains over the past week. It’s like a newsletter, but audio (duh!). Tune in.
Football Manager Corner
We’ve got a proper bargain for you this week. You’ll have to load up an extended database to bag him, but he’s worth it. His name is Ali Jassim.
The teenager has been a rising star in Asian youth football for some time now, and he’s had stints in the western with KAA Gent then Antalyaspor, before rebounding back to his native Iraq. It shouldn’t take much more than €100k to pinch him for Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya. That’s a stonecold bargain.
His wage demands will be prohibitive to sum, but he’s worth the punt for most as an electrifying wide attacker that has all the basics of a very dribbly boi. Expand your Football Manager horizons and sign Ali Jassim.
SCOUTED’s Reading List
This is great from Sam Diss for GQ on the style formation of Brennan Johnson, a skate kid from Notts who had to make a decision. If you like your fashion and culture and stuff like that, give that a read.
We’re blowing our own trumpet again… FIFA have announced that the men’s U-17 World Cups will be yearly now, with 48 teams and held in Qatar for the foreseeable. People are angry. Stevie isn’t. Why? Read this.
