Olympiacos make history: UEFA Youth League, finals weekend
Free to read: Rounding up the ultimate weekend of this season's UEFA Youth League.
The UEFA Youth League as we know it is over. This was the last iteration of its typical structure before it switches to a truncated version of the new UEFA Champions League format.
Of course, we’ll still have the excitement of Finals Weekend – note: it’s not actually branded as ‘finals weekend’, but it is by us and that’s what matters – in its new format. The action-packed four days in mid/late April at UEFA HQ, on the outskirts of Nyon, nestled on the picturesque shore of Lake Geneva, will still be a showpiece event on the youth football calendar for years to come.
But still, this season’s UEFA Youth League went out with a bang. It promised to be an interesting one purely because of the selection of teams that made it this far: Nantes faced Olympiacos in the semi-final of they-couldn’t-could-they competitors, while Porto took on AC Milan in a semi-final of the overwhelming favourites.
Here’s our round-up of the weekend that was in Nyon, where giants were slayed and history was made.
If you want to catch up on the whole tournament that came before this, we’ve got extensive coverage of it and its standout stars here, or tap the button below.
Semi-final: Olympiacos 0-0 FC Nantes (3-1 pens)
If you told us at the start of the season that Olympiacos would be taking on Nantes for a place in the UEFA Youth League final, we’d never have believed you. That said, if you told us at the start of last season that AZ Alkmaar would win the UEFA Youth League, we’d never have believed you. That’s the beauty of tournament football.
That’s no disrespect to either club too: Olympiacos are obviously the biggest hitter in Greece, while Nantes have established a productive youth system drawing from the endless talent pipeline in French football. Both beat legitimately good teams to get here, even if they relied on penalties to do so. And it’s no surprise that this one was decided by penalties.
There wasn’t much between the two sides in this game either. There was a lot of huffing and puffing, plenty of effort and energy yet little in the way of cutting-edge quality. Olympiacos started fast out the blocks before the game settled into a pattern of toothless Nantes possession.
The French side had a good chance to break the deadlock some ten minutes before half time but centre-back Taigy Dugard couldn’t keep his back-post header down. The Greeks had a couple of half openings but no clear-cut, gilt-edged chance to deserve to win themselves. It all eventually petered out into penalties with both teams tiring as the game went on.
Olympiacos won it on penalties, becoming only the second-ever Greek team to reach a UEFA final, the last being Panathinaikos in the old European Cup some fifty-odd years ago. It was the fourth time in the campaign that they advanced via a shootout. They know what they are.
🇫🇷 Louka Gautier (2006, LB, FC Nantes)
In terms of standouts, Nantes’ Louka Gautier was probably the best on the pitch for me. He gassed out by the 70th minute but understandably so given the energy and impetus he provided to the game from left-back.
He’s a pretty typical build for a full-back but with scope to grow and fill out further at 18 years old. It’s not hard to see how he could become that little bit sturdier in his physique as he scales up to senior football; indeed, he’s already playing it for Nantes’ B team this season in France’s lower leagues.
What I particularly liked about Gautier was his flighty change of tempo which enabled him to move past defenders with and without the ball – that was the outstanding feature of his performance.
His burst of pace over five-ish yards saw him drive the ball past a couple of defenders on direct, positive runs from deep and latch onto passes into space with well-timed over/underlapping runs later in attacking sequences. There was one instance 55 minutes in where Gautier pinched the ball on his own byline then immediately set off on a run that took two players out the game, got Nantes moving forward and had Olympiacos scrambling back to stop him.
Once those first bits were done, he had the vision and ball-striking ability to punch a positive pass into a team-mate or whip a dangerous ball into the box. He was Nantes’ most effective outlet up until his substitution.
Defensively, that same mobility meant he was a tenacious presence when hassling around the ball but he didn’t have much to do. He showed tight and technical footwork in the odd one-v-one bits he did do.
His style reminded me of Maxmillian Hennig, the Bayern München left-back who I was particularly impressed with at last year’s FIFA U-17 World Cup. Unlike Hennig, Gautier has never played at junior level for his country but I can see that changing before long. He’s better than a couple of the regular left-backs from France’s 2006 age group based solely off this performance.
🇬🇷 Christos Mouzakitis (2006, CM, Olympiacos)
The other outstanding performer – and talent in general – on the pitch for me was Olympiacos’ little left-footed number eight, Christos Mouzakitis. Born in the final week of 2006, he was the second-youngest starter in the game after team-mate Charalampos Kostoulas.
Mouzakitis played as left-sided central midfielder in Olympiacos’ rigid 3-4-3 shape – or 5-2-3, or 3-4-2-1, whatever, who cares, it was all of them at different points – and has been an important player in their run to this stage throughout the tournament.
“Tenacious” is one of the first words on my Notion notes. His activity on both sides of the ball immediately caught the eye in a game that was bumpy and bitty. Duels can be a misleading data point but only one player competed in more than he did and none won more. He won the ball back a lot, covering pretty big distances in a two-man midfield and engaging in plenty of tackles to do so.
That tenacity offsets his compact physical profile which was less developed than some of his midfield opponents in this game. Mouzakitis is by no means drastically undersized – if anything, there is clear potential for him to become a very sturdy shape for a central midfielder – but he’s certainly not the biggest or strongest on the pitch.
His smaller stature lends itself to a pretty tight and technical in possession skillset also. He was comfortable taking the ball from any angle, often looking to do so on the little quarter-turn to open up for the next action. His passing was crisp, moving the ball with tempo over those middle distances, often doing it with one touch to really inject a direct speed into sequences. His technical quality as a passer manifested in the different types of passes he can execute, as well as the responsibility of being Olympiacos’ primary set-piece taker.
Furthermore, there was a smart edge to his play. He read the game quickly to shut down angles and cut off passes, he adjusted his speed of play in possession to suit the situation, there was a bit of needle in challenges that gave him that extra percentage points to make his mark.
Mouzakitis looks like a good one; Greece know it because he’s already playing two age groups up at international level. Breaking into the first team as an academy graduate is difficult in Greek football but it will be interesting to see how high he goes.
Who else stood out?
Louis Laroux did. It was hard for him not to given his lanky frame. My first impression was ‘this guy will be a Nemanja Matić lite, a passy, screeny midfielder’ but my first impression was wrong. He was more Arteta-coded-win-all-the-duels-Havertz in this particular game.
His passing was sloppy but his driving carries through midfield and beyond were incisive and decisive. He swung into wider areas to break up play then drive it forward, and his change of speed in doing so was really impressive.
I quite liked the look of Mathieu Acapandié at right-back for Nantes. He was one of the oldest on the pitch and had the profile of those wide-back-three defenders that are increasingly popular in the game nowadays; his athleticism was of a high-ish level, he defended competently and showed nice bits on the ball.
And finally, there was Charalampos Kostoulas. I wasn’t that taken by him until I realised he was the youngest player on the pitch, a 16-year-old that is playing three age groups up for Greece’s U-19 team. His physicality stood out: quite tall, sturdy in contact, pretty quick over the ground, and he used it well to bump around and be a reference point for his side. He scored a go-ahead goal which was very unluckily ruled out.
Semi-final: FC Porto 2-2 AC Milan (5-6 pens)
This was the battle of the favourites. Portuguese giants and one-time winners Porto against Italian juggernaut and first-time finalists AC Milan. This was surely the tie that decided where this season’s UEFA Youth League trophy would end up.
Milan came out the blocks quickly: fast, direct passing sequences saw them cut through Porto a couple of times in the first ten minutes, then the energetic pressing of Filippo Scotti saw captain Gabriel Brás lose the ball on the edge of his own box for Scotti to nip in and blast home. 1-0.
The rest of the first half was cagey after that as the game slumped into the lull of Porto possessing the ball and the Italians sagging off, bunkering in, looking to pounce on the break. Basically nothing of note happened until Davide Bartesaghi conceded a penalty for a hand ball just before the break, which Jorge Meireles converted. 1-1.
In stark contrast, the second half was uncut UEFA Youth League drama. It ebbed and flowed in the ways knockout youth football often does, both teams swapping . Gabriel Brás made up for his earlier error with a typical bullet header off a corner to make it 2-1, then Porto will rue the opportunities they missed to kill the game off. Gonçalo Sousa fluffed an half-open goal and a one-v-one, Rodrigo Mora hit the post off a counter-attack, there were a couple more close calls too. That was the game, there was the final.
The game stretched out further, meaning even more action, but it was another Brás error that let Milan back into the game at the death. His pumped pass was blocked by captain Kevin Zeroli, who managed to get the wrong side of him, bundle through bodies into the box, then the ball fell for Alexander Simmelhack to nudge in.
Penalties decided it, and it was Zeroli who scored the clincher. He made a b-line for the minority of Milan fans on the side and glorious celebrations ensued. It was pure UEFA Youth League.
🇵🇹 João Teixeira (2006, CM, FC Porto)
Straight away, João Teixeira caught my eye. He was the number eight in Porto’s typical 4-3-3-type shape tasked with progressing play into higher areas, supporting André Oliveira at the base and mercurial Rodrigo Mora between the lines.
He caught my eye because of his dynamic, athletic frame initially. Teixeira is quite tall and lean with longer legs that saw him cover ground quite effortlessly. His frame has the potential to fill out into one that fits in at the highest levels over time.
Then it was the technical fundamentals of his game once he started getting touches of the ball that grabbed my attention. He showed quality and composure under pressure; his passing was crisp, breaking lines into higher areas; he played with a nice sense of timing and control. He was the second-phaser, the player that moved the needle.
He was also quite combative in the duels too, using his bigger frame to battle for the ball. He definitely wasn’t a ball-winning machine but he was active enough to make an impact against the ball. It all combined to create a profile that suits the modern game, and that’s what you’re looking for in these youth tournaments.
Teixeira hasn’t broken into senior football (for Porto’s B team) yet, but he is a regular for Portugal’s 2006 age group. I will be keeping an eye out for him over the next year or two.
🇮🇹 Mattia Malaspina (2005, DM, AC Milan)
Another midfielder that performed well on the day, I thought, was Mattia Malaspina. There’s not much to remark about him other than he’s busy and solid, solid and busy.
He grew into the game, particularly as it stretched out in the second half despite not being a massive, leggy, space-gobbling athlete. Instead, Malaspina is quite small and compact. He was the smallest in Milan’s midfield, shorter than Dariusz Stalmach and much less athletic than the dynamic Kevin Zeroli.
That said, Malaspina’s brain was sharp. I can’t remember him ever taking more than three touches to receive and distribute the ball at the base of midfield, be it in a settled build-up sequence or after a messy recovery. He was always in good positions to secure a second ball like a little Hungry Hippo. He was often cutting angles and breaking up play.
Don’t be surprised to see him land in Serie B on loan next season; that’s the type of move these solid and secure young midfielders tend to make going into their age 19-20 seasons.
Final: Olympiacos 3-0 AC Milan
Olympiacos. Bloody Olympiacos! Who’d have thunk it? Not us, that’s for sure. For the second season in succession, the UEFA Youth League has a surprise first-time winner that has come all the way through the Domestic Champions path.
Everybody expected AC Milan to win it for the first time, but the Greek side have done their own little EURO 2004.
Just as they did in the semi-final, Olympiacos started hard and fast. They got early joy in turning over the ball, often in good areas, and playing forward quickly with direct passes and aggressive runs. They got in behind Milan a number of times and created a few half-openings that could easily have given them the lead.
For whatever reason, Milan looked flustered. It could’ve been the occasion, maybe it was the sheer speed of Olympiacos’ start, perhaps the intensity of their semi-final had drained them of energy, or probably a mixture of each. They didn’t settle at all, let alone get going. There was the odd flash of quick interplay to squeeze past the high press but little more.
Their only real threats at goal came early in the second half: Diego Sia couldn’t get a toe on a dangerous cross straight from kick-off, then the ever-direct Filippo Scotti cracked a shot off from distance that Anxhelo Sina did really well to tip over the bar.
Then came the six-minute salvo that made a little bit of UEFA Youth League history…
60th minute: Christos Mouzekitis whips a penalty, harshly awarded following a VAR referral for a Dariusz Stalmach point-blank handball, into the side netting.
61st minute: Olympiacos pinch the ball again, set Antonis Papakanellos into space, who shifts past a flat-footed Stalmach in the box and slams a finish across goa from a tight angle.
66th minute: Theofanis Bakoulas, maybe the smallest player on the pitch, pulls off an incredible overhead kick out of nowhere. It was mental.
And that was the game, basically, but the aforementioned Sina did have to pull off some excellent saves to prevent Milan from pulling one back and flipping the momentum. He even did a lesser-spotted triple-save, dropping down with his right hand then reacting twice with his left foot to deny Mattia Liberali.
And that was that – three goals in six minutes decided the ultimate game of youth football’s ultimate club competition, a culmination of a tremendous story which saw Olympiacos go nine games unbeaten, win three penalty shootouts, and stun some giants along the way.
Their collective trumps the individual. There’s two, maybe three, good talents in the side but the way they play together in their steadfast 5-2-3 system suits them to a tee. They were drilled, energetic, demanding, direct. They are European champions.
🇬🇷 Isidoros Koutsidis (2004, CB, Olympiacos)
Isidoros Koutsidis just looks like a good centre-back – tall with long legs, quite well-built, pretty physical – and he played like a good centre-back in this final. Without him doing his defensive bits, Olympiacos probably concede a goal before they blew Milan away.
He was an aggressive presence at the heart of their back three. In higher areas, he smothered Francesco Camarda’s touches by stepping onto the ball with good timing and intensity without tipping over the edge. In his own box, he cleared a number of crosses with his head and was quick to get out and block a couple of shots. There were a couple of examples where he showcased good recovery speed too, chasing back into space to shut down attacks.
On the ball, Koutsidis is simple. He plays sideways to his centre-back partners, who were the primary progressors of the ball, at a steady tempo and with decent precision.
His career path is quite interesting: yet to feature for Greece at any underage level, Olympiacos picked him up from Panserraikos, where he played seven senior games as a 16-year-old. He’s been a regular for their U-19 and B teams since then, starting in all but the Bayern game of this season’s UEFA Youth League.
🇬🇷 Charalampos Kostoulas (2007, ST, Olympiacos)
I touched on Charalampos Kostoulas in the semi-final write up, and he did even better in this game. His ability to be the reference point of Olympiacos attacks had the Milan defence on edge: he’d drop to take the ball off a direct pass, hide it, turn on it, then drive directly in a way that put the Italians on the back foot and dragged his team-mates up the pitch.
Again, his athletic profile is advanced for his age. Kostoulas is quite big and burly with an all-roundedness that allows him to spin into channels, pin defenders back to goal, bump through challenges and cause a problem in the box.
Kostoulas isn’t of the same level as SCOUTED favourite Stefanos Tzimas, but he is a prospect worth keeping tabs on.
Olympiacos are history-makers
Believe it or not, this is the first European title a Greek club has won in the history of UEFA competitions. Obviously it doesn’t register on the same scale as a European Cup, Champions League or UEFA Cup, but the achievement deserves plenty of recognition. They’ve upset the odds to do this.
Olympiacos are the eighth different club to win the title too, the second in consecutive years to come from the Domestic Champions path and the third to win it coming through that route, after AZ Alkmaar and Red Bull Salzburg.
It sums up why youth football, particularly at club level, is fun to follow.
We will be back next season to cover the UEFA Youth League in more detail and depth than every other publication out there. Stick with SCOUTED.
