Who Is Jorrel Hato?
Finding new talent at Ajax used to be a given; the Dutch titan’s footballing academy has been among the most prominent places for the next big things in the sport for years.
However, even the top franchises experience bad times.
Ajax was no different and even De Godenzonen were not spared.
But football often works in cycles; if you were once on top, you’ll likely get there again eventually.
For all their ups and downs, Ajax still have talent production nailed down.
The proof is Jorrel Hato, the 18-year-old prodigy climbing the ranks of Dutch football and already attracting Premier League giants such as Arsenal.
So, who exactly is Jorrel Hato and how good is he?
This tactical analysis will give you a full scout report on Hato and use data analysis to provide you with his in-depth player profile with strengths and weaknesses, describing how he complements Ajax’s tactics.
Jorrel Hato Style Of Play
Jorrel Hato is an 18-year-old Dutch centre-back currently playing for Ajax in the Eredivisie.
Standing at 183cm and weighing 76kg, the young defender has a stocky build with an excellent duelling frame, albeit one that he is still very much growing into.
He’s a left-footer and is also mostly deployed on the left side of the pitch, either slotting in as the left centre-back or even a left-back at times.
In the current season, Hato has played just under 1000 minutes across all competitions, including the domestic league and UEFA Europa League.
However, since the data is relatively scarce, we’ve decided to use his 2023/24 campaign for some of our analysis, which ultimately gave us a bigger sample to dissect.
Jorrel Hato Radar Map At Ajax
Looking at his profile from last season, we can immediately see some of Hato’s main strengths through the lens of a statistical analysis; he’s a player very comfortable on the ball as he’s both used to volume receiving and distribution of passes.
Both of these categories, as well as his passing accuracy, put him in the top 25% of Eredivisie left centre-backs.
For a possession-heavy side, this is an obvious requirement.
But on the ball, Hato is also quite adventurous and brave; the 94th percentile ranking for dribbling suggests the 18-year-old breaks the lines of pressure through running, even more so than necessarily passing, and this can be a tool across the phases of attacking play.
Similarly, while he’s not a shooter or someone who tallies touches in the opposition’s box often, he still contributes to Ajax’s overall goal-scoring.
Defensively, we’re talking about a player who reads the game well and uses his physical attributes in duelling, counterpressing and tracking back.
However, certain blemishes may yet need polishing before he’s ready to rise to stardom.
Jorrel Hato In-Possession
We already touched upon Hato’s strengths in possession in the opening section of this scout report, but seeing how he’s already accumulating fame for exactly those attributes it makes for a great place to start.
Positionally, we are talking about a player who starts deep but often finds himself in the advanced areas of the pitch as the attacking play develops.
This is clearly visible in the following heatmap and touch map for his 2024/25 and 2023/24 seasons, respectively.
Jorrel Hato Touch Map & Heat Map
We’ve included both to highlight that he is still being used the same way in the new season despite the drastically smaller sample.
The touch map is better used in such instances when there aren’t many actions to analyse, while the heatmap works better with a bigger sample as it can give us a look at the more and less frequented areas.
As can be seen in the graphs, Hato spends a lot of time in the attacking third once the opponent has already been pinned down; this is where both his circulatory and offensive attributes come to light.
However, as evidenced by the graphs and the data itself, he is often a conductor or even a deep creator from the first phase.
In the current 2024/25 campaign, Hato is averaging 46.8 passes per 90 minutes with 84.6% accuracy, good enough to be ranked 11th in the league among his peers for sheer volume.
This once again emphasises his comfort with being the foundation of Ajax’s build-up phase, receiving and deploying a lot of passes per game.
However, if we look at just the progressive passing, we see that this is not his primary role.
Jorrel Hato Passes & Progressive Passes Map
We’ve used his 2024/25 stats for this part of the tactical analysis simply because they are easier to read at this point in the campaign.
But even if the sample was bigger, the volume would still remain on the lower end.
Simply put, Hato is a recycler in the first phase when it comes to passing, and any progression that happens is usually done with a long pass directly into the final third.
That said, the data suggests that he’s been quite proficient so far, tallying 9.9 progressive passes per 90, good enough to be ranked sixth in the league among lateral defenders.
However, that stat is also flawed because he has only played 196 minutes, somewhat skewing the findings.
One thing that is a constant, however, is his distribution.
Hato efficiently identifies and immediately exploits the space with his long passes, often accessing the final third with a simple ball over the top.
Interestingly, this is obviously a good progression tool as it quickly moves the play forward, but in Hato’s case, it’s also a clear chance-creation tool, explaining why his goal-contribution numbers for the 2023/24 season were so high, especially for a centre-back.
With one goal and one assist throughout that season, the bar was obviously not as high, but only two games and 196 minutes into the 2024/25 campaign, Hato already has one goal and two assists to his name.
That could be the start of something special for the 18-year-old.
Two other attributes we have to mention alongside his chance creation are progressive runs and deep completions, both of which are prominent weapons in his arsenal.
Hato is great at breaking the opposition’s pressure with dribbles and then continuing the run high into enemy territory.
His dribble locations and their respective distances are covered in the following graphs.
Jorrel Hato Dribbles & Penetrating Carries Map
We must note the starting and ending positions; Hato starts his dribbles deep in the first line but often ends them inside the final third.
From there, he can either link up with his closest teammates or, as is the case quite often, try to create threat himself through incisive passing.
Wyscout defines a deep completion as a pass (excluding crosses) received in a 20-metre radius from the opponent’s goal line.
Hato is currently the lateral defender with the most such passes deployed in the league, tallying an impressive 5.4 per 90.
These deep completions are often deployed at the end of a penetrative progressive run, which puts the 18-year-old in danger zones.
From here, he can deploy them more easily.
We can see such an example in the following sequence.
Note how it starts deep, continues as he beats multiple markers, and ends with a pinpoint pass into the box and the feet of his teammate.
Naturally, this isn’t something he does every game or even very often, but it’s a good representation of his ceiling if he continues developing.
Hato is extremely comfortable with the ball at his feet, and much of this is owed to his reading of the game and maturity in possession.
Although he is a defender first and foremost, the other side of his profile is equally, if not even greater, important to the team’s tactics.
Let’s explore that in the next section of our scout report.
Jorrel Hato Out-Of-Possession
Jorrel Hato is an impressive defender in his own right, especially considering he’s only 18 years of age.
However, while certain a boost in his hunger, work rate and the need to prove himself, that youth also means he’s still growing into his frame and learning how to properly manipulate it.
This is best seen in some 1v1 duels or when having to reposition and/or maintain full focus when having to cover for his teammates.
Looking at his defensive coverage and high regains from last season, we can get a glimpse of his overall defensive profile.
Jorrel Hato Defensive Territory & High Regains Map
Interestingly, Hato likes to push up to press and follow his markers deep into enemy territory.
This can be good when his timing and anticipation are good, but it can also be risky if those two things are not perfectly aligned.
Considering we’re still talking about a young and largely inexperienced player, these moves can be taken advantage of by the opposition.
That said, he can physically get himself out of a sticky situation.
He’s stocky, which helps his duelling capacity.
He also has good acceleration over short-to-medium distances and from a standstill position.
As such, we can talk about a potent pressing — and especially counter-pressing — tool.
This ability is nicely paired up with Hato’s reading of the game, especially when it comes to blocking shots in some of the most crucial defensive areas of the pitch.
In this sequence, we see all of these things in action; Hato reads the play well and recognises where the opposition attack is going to go next.
Then, he bursts from a standstill position and times his run to intercept the ball and stop the action from advancing.
Defensively, this is where Ajax get the most out of his profile but naturally, this type of defending extends into more advanced territory with more aggressive actions.
Looking at some of the previous graphs in this tactical analysis, we can see that Hato spends a lot of time high up the pitch, both offensively and defensively.
He can be found in advanced areas on and off the ball.
The latter is largely due to his pressing when he sticks to his marker a lot and also due to his counterpressing as the player in the outer ring of Ajax’s rest defence.
For that reason, we can find Hato in situations you can observe in this latest sequence of play.
The young 18-year-old is often the one tracking back or facing wingers in isolated wide duels, but he is also often in a situation where he has to make a tackle from behind due to his initial positioning during a counter-press.
Naturally, it is admirable that one is willing and able to offer such a service while also actively participating in the team’s attacking structure.
Especially for a player whose stocks seem to be on the rise.
Overall, despite some of his blunders in body shape when facing those duels and lapses of concentration, Hato’s duelling seems decent but still slightly lacking overall.
The following graphs show his performance in some of the main defensive areas, both on the ground and in the air.
One of those, however, is clearly better than the other.
When we do the math, it seems that Hato has so far won 46/85 of his duels on the left flank (54%), 33/53 duels in zone 14 (62%), 21/38 duels in the penalty area (55%) and 3/3 on the right flank (100%).
While these numbers are not bad, they also show there’s a lot of room for improvement, especially considering those lost duels have already caused six goals from 3.51 expected goals.
But things get even worse when we consider his aerial (in)ability.
With just 29/62 aerial duels won (46.8%), Hato seems a liability in the air for now, and the opposition could be looking to exploit this particular flaw in his player profile.
This is particularly bad inside the penalty area, where his success rate sits at a lowly 37.1%.
Conclusion
Jorrel Hato is a hot new prospect in the Dutch school of football, and his stocks are certainly rising rapidly.
His in-possession value is already high, and he is doing quite well under the pressure of volume, progression via runs, and even chance creation.
However, defensively, while he’s physically improving, he still needs to better control his frame and translate his great reading of the game into better duelling, especially in the air.
Once that is ironed out and improved upon, he’ll be ready to make a proper stamp in Europe.
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