MLS Scouting Report: The Top Five Talents This Season – 2023

With the arrival of superstars like Lionel Messi from Paris Saint-Germain, Sergio Busquets, and Jordi Alba from Barcelona, the MLS has suddenly seen a big rise in popularity.

But even before these La Liga giants crossed the pond, the American domestic league had already been full of talent; some were more prominent than others, but they were there nonetheless.

And that’s important to note, considering the MLS is still primarily seen as a ‘retirement’ league or simply a league in a tier below the rest.

While that may have been true for prior years, the tides seem to be shifting.

Slowly but surely.

In this data analysis, we will dive deep into the statistics and tactics to highlight five promising and interesting youth prospects that could explode (or have already exploded) that you may need to be made aware of.

The parameters were simple; these are all players who top their respective categories in whatever role they perform.

The only real condition was that they were aged 23 or younger, which puts them in the youth category or, at the very least, on the brink of entering the prime years of their careers.

We also tried to include five players in five different roles to keep things more interesting.

The analysis will provide data visuals and in-game screens to give you a brief overview of each player.

Note that these are not full scout reports but rather short profiles aimed to serve as introductory content to familiarise you with the youngsters we’ve highlighted.

Thiago Almada, 22 years old, attacking midfielder, Atlanta United and Argentina

Thiago Almada is by far the most accomplished name on this list and one most – if not all – of our readers will be familiar with.

However, he is also the most prominent young star of the MLS bar none; excluding him would’ve been criminal.

It’s also challenging to pinpoint what should be highlighted for this young Argentine.

Almada is a complete profile.

He is a player who does everything at an incredibly high level, especially considering his age—22.

You can start visualising those words by looking at his data profile below.

Almada is highly proficient in every game phase, and Atlanta United has his fingerprints (or footprints) all over their team.

The 22-year-old impacts their build-up, chance creation, goal-scoring and defending; he is simply that effective and that good.

The only real gap in this otherwise stellar profile may be in the defensive categories.

However, this isn’t due to a lack of work rate or unwillingness to commit; on the contrary, Almada is quite an active defender, which can also be seen in the numbers as not many other players in his role attempt as many defensive duels as he does per 90 minutes.

The efficiency of those duels could be a point to consider, but when applying a high press, just the energy and commitment are already a bonus for attacking flair players like Almada.

Still, if we had to highlight one part of his extensive arsenal, it would have to be his chance creation.

When it comes to pure statistics, you cannot ignore this kid; he tops virtually every category in our data and the platforms we use, so excluding him was never really an option, regardless of his well-known persona.

Shot assists and pure assists are just the tip of the iceberg but are nonetheless very impressive.

For comparison’s sake, we’ve also decided to include his shots; Almada is a complete attacker because he regularly creates and converts chances.

In 2023, the 22-year-old assisted 15 goals from 9.84 xA and scored nine from 8.18 xG.

This puts him at 24 goal contributions for just the MLS season, excluding the cups and other competitions in 2023.

These numbers are impressive for anyone, let alone such a young player who is arguably still at the beginning of his career.

Looking at the data above, there is a lot of variety in both his finishes and assists.

Almada is a set-piece specialist, a delivery master, an excellent ball-striker and a good poacher.

To have all of this in a single package is incredible for his club and country.

Again, it isn’t easy to pinpoint just one thing to highlight, but his deliveries are a work of art.

The following example shows one of his dinks into a runner.

The technique on that pass and the accuracy are off the charts; this is the definition of an assist served on a silver platter.

Unfortunately for Almada and his team, the sequence depicted doesn’t end in a goal.

Nonetheless, it shows us what the kid is capable of.

It will be interesting to follow his career further.

César Araújo, 22 years old, defensive midfielder, Orlando City and Uruguay

The next player on the list is likely far more unknown than someone like Almada.

However, César Araújo is interesting because he seems to be a player topping the categories of defensive midfielders in the MLS, a highly sought-after role among the European elite.

Whether the player himself is good enough to break into that sphere of football remains to be seen, but 2023 has so far been impressive.

Araújo’s data profile reads like that of a defensive midfielder, but surprisingly, he is quite proficient in attack, too.

He registers above-average goal contribution statistics and even boasts an excellent delivery with his right foot.

At 181cm and 69kg, Araújo is also well-built and can already ride challenges at a reasonably high level.

The following graph will give us a closer look at his skill set.

As we mentioned earlier in this data analysis, Araújo’s statistics describe a defensive midfielder. He’s got a good presence in the build-up phase, racking above-average passing numbers across the board, and is defensively solid, striking a nice balance of aerial and ground challenges.

None of them, however, top their respective categories outright, but Araújo manages to be effective in every phase while still retaining the fundamentals of his role.

Interestingly, the attacking spectrum of his arsenal is what often stands out, even though his tasks are mainly defensive.

This is due mainly to his adventurous nature and excellent technique when delivering the ball.

Even though this isn’t something you would explicitly want from him week in and week out, it seems to be part of his repertoire.

But he does well on the pitch regarding the most critical tasks.

Both of these aspects are further analysed through data in the following graphs.

Araújo dominates the centre of the pitch, and his defensive territory spans everything inside the first two-thirds of the pitch.

He isn’t necessarily often seen pressing high, but that should not be the case anyway, considering he’s usually the team’s anchor, defensively and offensively.

His progression statistics are also quite good; Araújo is excellent at connecting the thirds and is no stranger to a vertical pass that can break the lines and even create a goal-scoring chance if necessary.

Again, this isn’t his primary job, but the Uruguayan seems quite proficient at it.

His full arsenal is best seen when he combines the defensive elements with the more offensive ones; sliding into a tackle before retaining possession and recycling the ball highlights his profile.

That exact sequence is shown in the following example: slide to stop the opposition’s progress, retain the ball, and then continue the attack calmly.

That’s the essence of Araújo in two images and a single prolonged action.

He’s not necessarily a complete profile, but he’s still very good at his work.

Considering he is Uruguayan, this may not come as that big of a surprise, given their unyielding mentality and high proficiency at precisely this type of play.

The defensive midfielder may be one of the most demanding roles in football, but they seem tailor-made for them.

Time will tell if Araújo can follow in those same footsteps.

Brian Gutiérrez, 20 years old, left winger/left attacking midfielder, Chicago Fire and United States

The next player on the list is the 20-year-old left winger/left attacking midfielder Brian Gutiérrez.

This young United States forward with a Mexican passport is still in the process of entirely breaking through the ranks.

His game time is steady, and he is a regular at Chicago Fire, but his influence and efficiency are certainly not at a superstar level just yet.

However, the underlying numbers and the style of play are already forming quite nicely, and if he can sustain this, he might be a player to watch out for in the upcoming years.

Naturally, we are still talking about a 20-year-old prospect, and a two-year gap between him and the previous two names on our data analysis list may not seem like much at first, but in football, a lot can happen in that period.

Looking at his statistics in the following graph, Gutiérrez’s profile is well balanced across the board, with the caveat that he is not necessarily topping any of them just yet.

Intriguingly, this was the case for our previous player, who was a defensive midfielder, but what these two do on the pitch is vastly different from what the data would tell us alone.

Gutiérrez is a creator first and foremost, and while that isn’t outright reflected in his statistics, he’s also a pretty proficient one too.

He is excellent on the ball, registering above-average numbers in every in-possession attribute we scouted in our data analysis but mostly impressing in chance creation and progression.

The fact that he’s also a hard defensive worker is just a cherry on top of an already well-balanced profile.

Of course, compared to someone like Almada, who plays a similar role, Gutiérrez fades, but no one in the MLS can go toe-to-toe with the 22-year-old Argentine.

Still, Gutiérrez is different because his role often involves playing wide on the left side of the pitch.

However, he will cut inside onto his preferred right foot or drop deeper to assist the build-up.

We saw in the statistics earlier that his progression data is quite good, too, and that’s precisely why.

Next, we’ll examine his chance creation and winger actions, including dribbles, crosses, and general movement across the pitch.

Given his tendencies, it’s not surprising that the left half-space and the deeper areas are his preferred zones of impact, as it’s from there that he shows his creativity and progression, respectively.

It has to be noted, however, that Gutiérrez is not a goal-scoring forward.

But with seven assists in the 2023 MLS season, he is the second-best creator in the league, tied with Léo Chú from Seattle Sounders.

The best part about the shot-assists and assists you can see above is the variety; Gutiérrez deploys them from different angles and positions in and around the box, making him a versatile creator.

It may initially be slightly surprising to see the low number of passes originating from the left flank.

However, considering he is a player who inevitably inverts and drops deeper, the left wing is a starting point for the 20-year-old forward.

However, that doesn’t mean he can’t deploy passes into runners from exactly that position.

Our next example shows us one of the things he does best – through balls.

While Gutiérrez is far from a finished product or even a breakthrough star, he may be less known to the public while still slowly but surely making a steady impact on the Chicago Fire and the MLS as a whole.

The road ahead is still long, and the 20-year-old is yet to demonstrate he can and will do this regularly, but the basics are there, and so is the talent.

Will that be enough to ultimately warrant a place on this list? We’ll have to wait and see.

Duncan McGuire, 22 years old, striker, Orlando City and United States

The next player on our list is the only out-and-out striker.

Duncan McGuire is 22 years old and plays for Orlando City and the United States.

Interestingly enough, the MLS has several interesting strikers, and initially, we had gone for someone like Jesús Ferreira, who’s already catching the public’s eye.

However, McGuire is more of a pure striker and even more importantly, he’s more of an anomaly than Ferreira.

While the latter is a winger/10/striker hybrid, an impressive combination for sure, who has a more complete profile, the former is currently a relentless scoring machine.

Of course, specific teams might value one over the other depending on their needs.

Still, looking at the statistics, McGuire seemed to stand out even more than the guys who ultimately had better goal contribution values.

His data profile in the following graph tells us more about this specialisation in front of goal; this is very much a number nine who prides himself in his poaching and finishing inside the box.

As such, his offensive numbers stick out ahead of the rest.

McGuire stands tall at 185cm and weighs 86kg, meaning he’s built like a tank and is essentially an immovable object once in full motion; the 22-year-old runs in long strides and can change directions quickly, albeit not very subtly.

But often, it doesn’t matter.

Even in this first image of his data profile, we can already see the big overperformance in his expected goals and his actual goals; McGuire is a finishing machine.

And true to his striker nature, he tallies a lot of touches inside the opposition’s penalty area, signalling we have a proper poacher on our hands.

Recently, the trend in modern football seems to be tilting back in favour of the ‘old-fashioned’ number nines.

McGuire is more of a traditional striker than necessarily a modern one.

It’s not that his technical quality is lacking; quite the contrary, the statistics suggest he has a knack for dangerous passing and is quite proficient at it, too.

However, that’s nowhere near his bread and butter.

Finishing is.

We can see as much in the following visual as well.

McGuire has scored 11 non-penalty goals from 29 shots and only a total of 4.94 xG, good enough for 0.17 xG per shot.

This is the anomaly we discussed earlier in the data analysis; McGuire’s overperformance is too big to be ignored and is the reason he is ultimately on this list.

But it gets better than that.

Looking at his goals and attempts, we can quickly see he has various finishes in his locker: heading, shooting with his right and shooting with his left.

He does it from different angles and with different tools when it comes to finishing.

In fact, while other strikers like Ferreira or Julián Carranza are scoring more or less in line with their expected output, McGuire has recorded 14 goal contributions from an expected value of 8.36.

The big question here, of course, is how sustainable it is moving forward.

But considering he scored 19 goals in just around 1500 minutes in the fall of 2022, this might just be more than a lucky one-off wonder season — even more so when we combine his movement with the excellent finishing touches.

In this last example, we see McGuire recognise the space between the defenders and immediately speed up with those long strides we discussed earlier.

But then, even more impressively, he suddenly changes the direction of his run, using his body to block the marker from getting to the ball first and then finishing first-time into the far corner.

This whole sequence is just a glimpse of the type of goals McGuire is capable of scoring.

Sustaining this run of form might be difficult, but we’ve seen him do it.

The 22-year-old is someone to keep an eye on.

Cameron Harper, 21 years old, right-back, New York RB and United States

We wanted to round off this data analysis with a promising defender, and ultimately, the choice came down to a right-back vs a left-back, Harper vs John Tolkin.

However, the latter is a more established youth prospect many have already written about.

Harper, on the other hand, deserves more of the spotlight.

This isn’t a slight on Tolkin’s ability, but they operate slightly differently, apart from playing on different sides of the pitch.

Harper is much more of a modern full-back, established in going forward and bombarding the box with crosses and key passes from out wide.

Several chance-creators have already been identified in our data analysis, but Harper is the first defender who does that job equally well.

The next graph depicts his profile, as seen through the lens of our statistics.

It’s important to note that Harper is also not an output machine; his data may suggest high efficiency in his wide zones delivery, but the final product is yet to emerge fully.

In just over 2000 minutes in the 2023 MLS season, Harper has recorded only two goals and one assist from 5.32 xGA.

Judging by the output, someone like Tolkin would have been the better choice.

However, when it comes to a total attacking package that promises better numbers later on, Harper still takes the cake.

Looking at his data profile in the previous image, we can see why that could be true.

Barely anyone can rival him in dribbling, and he has a significant presence in the opposition’s box through touches and shots alike.

For a right-back whose speciality is crossing the ball, this added edge to his attacking play is a welcome surprise.

But back to the delivery, Harper’s ball-striking is visibly pleasing already.

The actual contribution still needs to catch up to the expected value, but that should also come with time.

Next are his winger actions and shot assists.

Again, since the output – or the conversion from his teammates – is not there, there aren’t many actual assists to analyse in the statistics.

However, there are many shot assists in there, even originating from either side of the pitch.

This tells us Harper’s delivery is often on point, and he manages to hit his targets.

Interestingly, while his dribbling volume is impressive, he seems more successful in the deeper areas of the pitch, while the final third attempts have been far less efficient.

Still, most of his deliveries come from similar zones out wide, and that seems to be his preferred area to cross the ball and do it rather well.

He is right-footed, so these angles suit him, too.

Harper has been occasionally deployed on the left, which he can do reasonably well, but at the moment, he is truly comfortable on the right side of the pitch.

Our final example will show us one of his deliveries and the technical quality on display.

Harper receives the ball from one of his teammates and controls it well.

Upon settling, he immediately deploys an outside of the boot cross right into the path of his oncoming teammate.

The sequence doesn’t end in a goal, but Harper has done his job well.

If the 21-year-old wants to establish himself as a future star, his output will inevitably have to rise.

However, the ingredients are there.

Now, it’s all about combining them all into something truly remarkable.

Conclusion

The players on this list may or may not be familiar to you, depending on how much you watch the MLS.

However, we believe they all top their respective roles or specific categories for a simple reason – despite their age, they are good at what they do.

Will all of them become superstars of the future? Probably not.

But do they all have the potential to be great at the very least? Absolutely.

They are also very young so that consistency might be an issue and the next step in their evolution.

Lighting up the stage is one thing, but keeping it ablaze is a different beast altogether.

Either way, it will be interesting to track their progress.