Baena to Wirtz: Eight young stars who could shine in Europe

Baena to Wirtz: Eight young stars who could shine in Europe
By Jacob Whitehead and more
Mar 5, 2024

The European knockout stages are where the truly great teams emerge — and the same goes for players.

With the round of 16 in progress across all three competitions, talented young players have the opportunity to shine — and for several, it represents a chance to impress at a point in the season when planning for the summer transfer window begins in earnest.

The Athletic has highlighted eight talented players under 25 to watch over the next week. It’s not a comprehensive list, just young players who make us want to turn on the TV — and who Europe’s top clubs will be keeping a close eye on.

Florian Wirtz

Age: 20
Club: Bayer Leverkusen

A €100million player in the making. Wirtz has been a developing force in German football for a long time, but an anterior cruciate ligament tear in 2022 threatened his trajectory. A nine-month recovery ensued but — if anything — Wirtz has re-emerged as a better player. More direct, certainly, and far more dangerous in transition.

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His evolution under Xabi Alonso has been startling. In a team where every player has improved individually, Wirtz has profited from a system that, through its strength in wide positions and ball-playing ability at the base of midfield, has equipped him with possession and space in central areas and allowed him to show the full range of abilities.

Wirtz is a fine ball carrier, but he also boasts an exquisite passing range, especially slide-rule passes. Leverkusen can push five or six players forward in attack and are ideally equipped to exploit that kind of subtlety.

In Thursday’s Europa League trip to Qarabag, Leverkusen will likely set up in a 3-4-2-1 formation, with Wirtz operating as one of two No 10s, typically alongside Jonas Hofmann. This, opponents have been faced with a pick-your-poison scenario when trying to cut off their source of supply.

Being woven into a high-performing team should not distract from just how good a player Wirtz has become; a goal-creator and scorer, but outrageously elegant on the ball and impossibly smooth on the half-turn. A maestro, really.

Sebastian Stafford-Bloor

Charles De Ketelaere

Age: 22
Club: Atalanta, on loan from AC Milan

In his first season in Italy, De Ketelaere struggled to make an impact. After arriving at AC Milan from Club Bruges for €35million (£30m; $38m at today’s rates) in the summer of 2022, he made 40 appearances with no goals and just one assist.

His positional versatility was a blessing but also a barrier — he failed to make a specific role his own or be afforded the time to adapt and improve with it.

After moving to Atalanta — the Lombardy club have an option to buy him permanently in the summer — De Ketelaere has flourished in the half-spaces of Gian Piero Gasperini’s 3-4-2-1 system, such as this assist against Salernitana in December.

After Ademola Lookman joined up with Nigeria at the Africa Cup of Nations in January, De Ketelaere took on the creative mantle and performed superbly. He has eight goals and five assists since December, with the highlight being a spectacular finish against Genoa a few weeks ago.

That hot streak in front of goal is illustrated in the graph below, which charts De Ketelaere’s goals scored against his expected goals (xG, a measure of the quality a goalscoring chance). After finishing his chances at a rate below what would be expected from the average striker (the red-shaded patch this season), he has been outperforming his xG in recent games (the blue-shaded patch).

After struggling at Milan, European competition perhaps has an outsized importance to clubs watching De Ketelaere, as they will want to see that he can replicate his domestic form at a higher level. There has been speculation that Atalanta could look to flip De Ketelaere if he plays well for Belgium at the European Championship this summer, a tactic they also did with Cristian Romero, by exercising their buy option before negotiating a new transfer with another club.

Atalanta travel to Sporting Lisbon in the first leg of their Europa League tie — but for now, onto one of his former team-mates…

go-deeper

Jacob Whitehead

Lois Openda

Age: 24
Club: RB Leipzig

Lois Openda scores goals.

He has 65 of them, in fact, across the last three seasons between three different clubs in three different countries — 24 for Vitesse Arnhem, 21 for Lens, 21 and counting for Leipzig – as he has adapted seamlessly to every step up in class, and across teams who play divergent styles.

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He is not part of the school of modern strikers who drop deep to connect the midfield with the attack, but instead likes to stretch the defence vertically. While he only averages 27.8 touches per match — towards the bottom of Bundesliga strikers — seven of those fall in the opposition penalty area, in the top seven per cent of strikers in Europe’s top five leagues. That box presence can also be seen in his shot map below.

Openda scores with variety — in the league over the last two seasons, he has 16 goals with his right foot, 12 with his left, and nine with his head.

Considering he is only 5ft 10in (178cm), his aerial ability stands out. That athleticism was on full display against Manchester City this season in the Champions League — he scored three goals from their two group games, including twice turning Manuel Akanji to score at the Etihad.

“He’s physically strong,” said Leipzig head coach Marco Rose after that match. “That’s what we saw today against strong defenders. He won one-on-ones. He’s fast. He scores goals.”

What next for him? Openda is not brilliant defensively, which limits his potential options, but that will not matter to teams in need of a proven scorer. He is likely to feature at Euro 2024 (with some observers in Belgium surprised that he was not used more by Roberto Martinez at the 2022 World Cup), which could increase levels of demand.

Aiming to overturn a 1-0 deficit against Real Madrid on Wednesday, also keep an eye out for Leipzig’s Benjamin Sesko. The 20-year-old Slovenian striker has been tracked by several of Europe’s top clubs but Leipzig are unlikely to sell him and Openda in the same window.

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Jacob Whitehead

Alex Baena

Age: 22
Club: Villarreal

For once, Villarreal decided to cash in last summer.

A prolific academy, along with a steady platform for their graduates to showcase their quality, means that some of Europe’s most established players have enjoyed stellar breakout seasons at La Ceramica. The sales of Nicolas Jackson (to Chelsea), Pau Torres (Aston Villa) and Samuel Chukwueze (Milan) brought record profits before the season began, but arguably their brightest talent stayed behind.

Despite his age, Baena has a wealth of experience, owing largely to a fruitful loan spell in the second tier with Girona. He played an important role in helping Girona earn promotion and back at Villarreal, he has since made 58 appearances in the top flight, his creative influence growing with each passing game.

No La Liga player has made more assists than Baena this season — from devilish set-piece deliveries to perfectly-weighted through balls — and only Sevilla’s Suso can better his 4.3 successful passes into the box per game. He is inventive and energetic, defends diligently from the front, and relishes the challenge of picking the low-block lock.

As his touch map below illustrates, Baena likes to roam between the midfield lines, but does his best work in the half-space, able to cut inside and curl inswinging crosses with his stronger right, or dance towards the byline and dig out the cutback with his left.

He packs a punch from distance too, having hit the target 17 times from outside the box since the start of last season, scoring three times.

Things have not been easy at Villarreal, who travel to Marseille for their Europa League game on Thursday, this season: they are already onto their third manager of the season, each with a different footballing philosophy to the last. But they have all found a tune from Baena.

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Thom Harris

Diogo Costa

Age: 24
Club: Porto

Costa talks because he knows he has the pedigree — and ability — to back it up.

“They have weak points,” he said of Arsenal before the first leg of their Champions League tie. “If they are the favourites, they need to show us.”

The result? A 1-0 Porto win, where Costa impressed with his bravery as set-pieces and impressive distribution.

Costa is not newly emerged — he is Portugal’s starting goalkeeper who, in last season’s Champions League, became the first player to save three penalties in three consecutive European matches.

Iker Casillas earmarked him as his long-term successor at Porto in 2018 — and Costa plays with the sort of confidence that compliments like these create. Since making the mistake that saw Portugal knocked out of the World Cup by Morocco, Costa has been virtually flawless.

Last season, he massively outperformed his expected goals on target (xGOT, which looks at the probability a shot will result in a goal) of 21.7 by only conceding 15 goals, suggesting he saved six or seven more goals than the average goalkeeper. He has been impressive in 2023-24, too, outperforming his xGOT by 2.5.

Two parts of Costa’s game stand out. The first is his bravery in claiming crosses — he has stopped 10.1 per cent of them in this season’s Champions League, among the most in the competition and defused Arsenal’s dangerous set pieces in the first leg.

The second is his distribution — as can be seen in the graphic below, he is capable not just of long, lasered passes in the Ederson mould, but also more layered dinks to the full-backs, one of Porto’s favoured ways to beat an opposition press.

With the second leg against Arsenal next Tuesday offering another chance to impress, it appears a matter of when rather than if he joins one of Europe’s leading clubs — but he will not come cheap.

Jacob Whitehead

Martin Vitik

Age: 21
Club: Sparta Prague

If Costa is an established name, centre-back Vitik is the opposite. Nevertheless, he is extremely highly rated in the Czech Republic — and having already won one cap for the national team, is expected to be in the squad for Germany this summer.

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First, however, comes the problem of dealing with a dangerous Liverpool attack in Thursday’s Europa League first leg.

Vitik is 6ft 4in and blessed with pace — he has a similar body shape to Everton’s Jarrad Branthwaite. Here, he chases down prodigiously quick Real Betis winger Abde Ezzalzouli, despite starting significantly behind, waiting for his opponent to fractionally slow before diving in to regain the ball.

His aerial success rate (73.1 per cent) is third among all players aged 21 and younger in this season’s Europa League, but there is recognition that this could improve as he bulks up.

It is off the ball where Vitik has made the most improvement. Eighteen months ago, as a relative newcomer to the Sparta first-team squad having skipped their B team, he made a terrible mistake in possession in the derby against Slavia Prague.

Lesser characters would have shirked but Vitik responded with elegant displays. Such is his technical ability, he is capable of stepping in as a central midfielder. He has been likened to Manchester City centre-back John Stones by Sparta team-mates.

One of his trademarks is to drive forward in possession. Here, against Sigma Olomouc in July, he beats almost the entire opposition team to create an assist, half by dribbling, half with a through ball.

He can also score himself — he has managed four already in 2023-24 from his defensive berth. There is a recognition that he still has some defensive improvements to make — but given his physical and in-possession abilities, top European clubs have been keeping tabs.

Last summer, Sparta spoke to several in the Netherlands before Napoli showed serious interest in January.

Jacob Whitehead

Viktor Gyokeres

Age: 25
Club: Sporting Lisbon

The Championship is rarely been the first stop on a European transfer-window shopping spree, but Gyokeres might have blazed a new trail.

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His summer move from beaten play-off finalists Coventry City to Portuguese title-chasers Sporting has been a resounding success, scoring 32 goals and assisting 11 in 35 games, while bringing an explosive dynamism to the top of Ruben Amorim’s exciting 3-4-2-1.

The secret to the Swede’s success is hidden in biomechanics, a unique body shape and tireless mentality fuelling every sinew-stretching run. A slender 6ft 2in build coupled with a springy, powerful stride helps Gyokeres to slink between challenges and shuttle down the channels, tip-toe into pockets of space and crash the box with force.

Often, the expectation with a highly athletic striker is that their technical ability may not match their physicality. This is not the case with Gyokeres.

He is two-footed — check out the above left-footed finish against Vizela in August, or an equivalent finish into the top corner in Sporting’s last European fixture against Young Boys — but the real thing to watch out for against Atalanta on Thursday is his ball-striking.

Gyokeres consistently manages to get a great contact on the ball — it effectively makes the goal bigger for him, because he doesn’t necessarily need to find the corner to beat the goalkeeper.

Before leaving Coventry in the summer for £17.1million ($21.7m at today’s rates), several Premier League sides had turned down the chance to match Sporting’s offer. With Gyokeres’ release fee now at €100m, they may be regretting that decision.

Thom Harris and Jacob Whitehead

Mohamed Amoura

Age: 23
Club: Union Saint-Gilloise

What Amoura does next is going to be difficult to predict. He has scored 17 league goals this season for a title-chasing side but considering where the Belgian Pro League sits in the European food chain, he will almost certainly be playing elsewhere next season. But where?

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Amoura is a technical player. Diminutive, ambitious on the ball and capable of beating defenders on either side, he plays with a dynamic purpose that, in the right system, is highly destructive.

He can play as a No 9, or on either side of a front three, but who he plays with is as important as where. Amoura is a carrier. Someone who can take on and beat opponents in isolation, or in close quarters within the penalty box. However, he is not particularly creative with his passing, so needs to be in the right situation — ideally, on the counter — and surrounded and allied with playmaking team-mates.

His chance creation has room for improvement but as can be seen below, his goalscoring threat is unrivalled in Belgium. He is receiving more high-quality chances than almost anyone in the top flight and putting them away with remarkable efficiency.

He is of interest to all sorts of different clubs around Europe. In the summer, he will have options in the Premier League and Ligue 1 in particular. He looked far too good for Eintracht Frankfurt in the play-off round of the Europa Conference League and, with Fenerbahce to visit on Thursday, is one of the most destructive players left in the competition.

Sebastian Stafford-Bloor

(Top photos: Getty Images)

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