Fabio Miretti: the off-ball demon and jewel of Juve's Next Gen

The definitive SCOUTED50 profile.

SCOUTED50 is our collection of the fifty young talents we believe are best positioned to break into the mainstream during 2023/24. Throughout the season, we’ll be detailing all fifty in definitive profiles.

The full list can be read here. We’re kicking off with Juventus’ Fabio Miretti.

This profile was produced as part of a commercial collaboration with SkillCorner, SCOUTED’s official data partner. SkillCorner’s tracking and performance data is used by 140 of the world’s biggest clubs, leagues and confederations. Learn more.

All stats correct as of 28/11/2023 unless otherwise noted.

The SCOUTED50 journey starts with Juventus’ Fabio Miretti.

The Italian’s story would have been unconventional ten years ago; in 2023, he is the model for youth development in Serie A.

Juventus have never been a powerhouse club when it comes to youth development. Ciro Immobile, Claudio Marchisio, Moise Kean and Sebastian Giovinco were the cream of a very small crop of Juventus academy graduates from 2000-2020 who went on to make a meaningful impact at a good senior level.

Fabio Miretti is a symbol of change; he is the crown jewel of the first big wave of Juventus Next Gen academy products.

The Next Gen team was introduced to the Italian Serie C in 2018 as an Under-23 reserve team. It signalled a complete revamp of the team’s approach to their academy, with more importance placed on complimenting local academy players with high-quality foreign imports.

Playing in the UEFA Youth League in 2021/22, it was easy to see the positive impact this strategy was having on Miretti in the Primavera team, flanked on either side by Matias Soulé and Samuel Iling-Junior, recruited from Argentina and England respectively. They were just two of a number of foreign imports in a Juve team that reached the UYL semi-finals for the first time in the club's history and were desperately unlucky not to progress through to the final.

Miretti is a technical player who loves playing with other technically competent players around him, and in that team, you could see his talent exploding as he buzzed in and out of markers and progressed play quickly and with ease. His quality was most evident in Juve’s 2-0 win over Liverpool in the quarter-final, where he was part of some truly mesmeric sequences of attacking play. His performances were clearly elevated by the style and quality of those around him.

It was such performances that saw Miretti eased into Max Allegri’s senior team, notably playing a superb game in his first start against Venezia, before being handed a token senior cap for Italy by Roberto Mancini at the end of that 2021/22 season.

Italy is the land of the trequartista - or at least it was, before the number ten became a remnant of football’s past over the last decade. The sport has since taken a massive step up from both a physical and tactical aspect, likely inspired by the German World Cup-winning team of 2014, which demanded intensity and defensive buy-in from players all over the pitch.

10-15 years ago, Miretti might have become a classic Italian ten. He is a gifted technician and creator, and above that, a great on-field thinker who can see spaces open quickly through scanning and anticipation of a defender’s movements.

But Miretti’s skillset bears no mismatch with modern demands. Quite the contrary; his style has moulded itself beautifully around the modern-day game. In one essential quality in particular, he excels: off-ball running.