Fans of youth football will be excited to tune in for the 2023/24 UEFA Youth League Final this afternoon, as AC Milan face Olympiacos in Nyon. Even if you’re not an ardent follower of youth football, however, perhaps this final will be a reason to get invested in a game as some of Europe’s finest young players take to the field to test themselves against one another for glory in this prestigious competition.
Before kick-off, we want to provide some insight into what can be expected from the game in the form of a scout report highlighting four players who’ve been incredibly impactful for their respective teams throughout the competition and why we believe they’re ones to keep a very close eye on and be familiar with during this evening’s contest.
Therefore, this tactical analysis will provide some analysis of two AC Milan prospects and two of Olympiacos’ budding stars and explain why, via video and data analysis, they are undoubtedly developing players to watch closely in the final and beyond!
Jan-Carlo Simić
First up is AC Milan’s Jan-Carlo Simić. Although he shares a football club and, indeed, has an extremely similar name to Dario Šimić, there’s no relation!
Jan-Carlo Simić is an 18-year-old centre-back standing at 186cm/6’1” and weighing 75kg/165lbs — despite his young age and the fact there’s obviously some potential for further physical development, we’d class this as a strength in his game right now and a significant reason why he’s been able to accrue some minutes of Serie A football this term for Milan’s senior squad — even scoring a header from a set-piece on his Italian top-flight debut back in December versus AC Monza.
Born in Germany, he has currently declared for the Serbian national team, for whom he’s played up to the U19 level.
Above, we see the centre-back’s defensive territory for the 2023/24 UEFA Youth League campaign. Although there are some defensive actions occurring in higher areas, we also see plenty, including all interceptions, occurring deeper, which is typical of Simić’s game — he’s a patient, methodical defender who doesn’t like to rush in and overcommit instead relying on his ability to read the game and conserving his physical energy for the right moments to burst into action.
Simić has won 75% of his defensive duels along with 66.67% of his aerial duels during the 2023/24 Youth League campaign. Although he’s not a volume defender in terms of output, he is a highly reliable one who won’t enter an engagement without confidence in his ability to emerge victorious. On the ball, too, he tends to play things quite safe and not perform many eye-catching balls, which will hurt his standing in some people’s eyes, but as a defender, the key is always defending — this is an area where he stands out among his peers.
The 18-year-old Serb is careful not to get dragged into dangerous areas by attackers. He’ll often get touch-tight when an attacker drops to receive to feet while turning his body sideways and using his strength to help defend against them. Meanwhile, when defending against a dribbler 1v1, he’s excellent at positioning his body in the right spaces to deny them space to target, meaning they are either forced back or, if they do try to take him on and continue forward, the duel takes place on his terms, without getting dragged in and exposing himself.
Overall, we’d describe Simić as a solid, reliable option at the back who exhibits excellent body shape and positioning in defensive phases, making him a very difficult player for attackers to play past.
Kevin Zeroli
Our second AC Milan starlet is Kevin Zeroli, who’s been coming through the AC Milan youth system since he was five years old — making him 100% a product of I Rossoneri’s academy.
Like Simić, Zeroli is not lacking in the physical department despite his young age, standing at 187cm/6’2” and weighing 167lbs/76kg, which will have helped his progression towards the senior squad for whom he’s now made three substitute appearances in all competitions this season.
Zeroli is a central midfielder and the captain of AC Milan’s Youth League team. Like Simić, he exhibits admirable leadership qualities that coaches and fans alike will love to see from their young talent, both in terms of interpersonal skills and his personality expressed through his footballing performances.
As per the player’s heatmap from this competition throughout the 2023/24 campaign, he covers a lot of space on the pitch. He can typically be found in the deep right central midfield position or advanced right half-space in possession phases but will also drift out into wider areas or even over to the left as he looks to exploit space where he can find it, make himself a passing option for his teammates, receive and create.
Zeroli can be a very difficult player to defend against due to the quality of his off-the-ball movement. He’s constantly drifting into little pockets of space between the lines or on the wing, where he finds opportunities to carve out goalscoring chances for his side via key passes.
Another aspect of Zeroli’s game that makes him very fun to watch but difficult to defend against is the variety of pass types with which he can hurt you and the consistent quality of his final ball — he has created numerous chances via lofted crosses from the wing, cutback crosses from the byline and defence-splitting through balls from central areas.
As well as his movement and technical quality when delivering these key passes, Zeroli is calm and cool under pressure, displaying excellent decision-making even in fast-paced situations with a lot of moving parts and in big games, as he’s shown throughout Milan’s UEFA Youth League campaign.
A young midfielder who oozes class and quality, Zeroli is undoubtedly one who appears to have the right attitude, mentality and, of course, ability to make an outstanding career for himself — this tournament could end up being the launchpad for that.
Christos Mouzakitis
Moving onto Olympiacos, we’re going to start off by looking at Christos Mouzakitis. There isn’t a lot of information on Mouzakitis’ height available; funnily enough, from what we were able to track down, we could place him at 175cm/5’9”, but at 17 years old — too young to remember Greece’s famous win at the 2004 UEFA European Championships — there remains some scope for further physical growth.
Like Zeroli, Mouzakitis is a central midfielder but a slightly deeper one who typically plays on the left for his team, being our only left-footed player in this analysis — we’d expect to see him and Zeroli end up in one of the most fascinating individual battles on the pitch in tonight’s contest.
The main reason we’ve opted to take a look at Mouzakitis for this analysis is his contribution in the ball progression phase of play. We see his progressive pass map for the current Youth League season in figure 3, and this illustrates how involved the young midfielder has been for his side in this respect throughout their run in this tournament, averaging 7.11 progressive passes per 90 with an impressive 82.61% success rate.
When receiving behind the opposition’s first line of pressure, what immediately stands out when watching Mouzakitis is his active movement to find space and become a decent option for the first line of possession, as well as his active scanning at the right times to aid his decision-making on receiving the ball and keep the team’s play moving at a reasonable pace. Furthermore, he demonstrates top-class ball control even under high pressure.
When he’s given space in midfield, Mouzakitis is very dangerous due to his vast passing range. He can pull off beautiful, accurate long passes from the left-holding midfield position, switch play over to the right, or find a teammate with a well-weighted ball to feet in space behind the opposition’s midfield line. As a result, we’d expect Zeroli to be pressing him aggressively in this evening’s game.
At times, when time and space are at a premium in midfield, Mouzakitis does drop deeper, splitting the centre-backs and becoming more involved in the first line of possession, so as to try and create the time and space he likes in order to use his passing range — clearly a valued aspect of his skill set by his team.
In terms of decision-making, Mouzakitis does have some issues with coming too short at times or drifting too far from the centre, which makes it easier for the opponent to defend against him and his side.
On top of that, his pass selection is sometimes not the best, resulting in the receiver being put under enormous pressure and potentially causing a turnover.
So, there are some areas for improvement in the 17-year-old’s game, but still, he’s proven to be a highly impactful player within this Olympiacos side and one we’d expect to play a big role this evening.
Charalampos Kostoulas
Last but certainly not least, we come to Olympiacos’ goalscorer—16-year-old Charalampos Kostoulas. He has five goals and two assists in seven UEFA Youth League appearances thus far in 2023/24 and will undoubtedly be keen to add to his goalscoring tally in the final this evening, hoping to etch himself into his club’s history books even deeper at youth level.
Kostoulas is well developed from a physical standpoint, considering he’s the youngest player in our analysis, standing at 185cm/6’1”, so he won’t struggle too much from that perspective.
This is a player we’d be confident of hearing a lot about over the coming years, though that can always change, and no one can predict the future 100% accurately. Still, his skill set is so varied for a young striker and he’s already performing to such a high level that he does have a good chance of carving out a good career for himself.
For now, though, the focus has to be on getting past AC Milan and finishing the job in the Youth League against another side packed with quality young talent — and Kostoulas will undoubtedly play a vital role in whatever success his team ends up having this evening.
Here, we see the young striker’s shot map from the current UEFA Youth League season, displaying his four non-penalty goals from 18 shots. From those 18 shots, he’s generated a solid 3.18 xG, averaging out to 0.18 xG per shot.
These are impressive numbers which indicate excellent positioning and shot selection to consistently put himself in positions to avail of opportunities like he has during the Youth League campaign.
Indeed, the young striker does display very intelligent decision-making in the final third on top of quality off-the-ball movement to get into positions where that decision-making ability can be helpful. Kostoulas is also, of course, a very good technical finisher on top of all this, making him a very good all-around package as a centre-forward.
Right-footed but capable on his left, intelligent in terms of movement, shot selection, and general decision-making, a quality finisher, and decent in terms of physicality for his age, Kostoulas is a centre-forward to like. He’s definitely one Olympiacos fans should have some level of excitement about, whether that’s with regard to this evening’s Youth League Final or beyond that.
Conclusion
In conclusion, these four are players we expect to have a vital role to play in this evening’s UEFA Youth League Final and remain ones to keep tabs on as they continue their career development.
This tactical analysis and scout report has shown how all four operate, what their main strengths are and how their skill sets could be best utilised by their team’s tactics.
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