6 players in line for breakout years – Part II
Welcome to Part II of our search for 2021’s breakout stars, where we use the Twenty3 Toolbox to help identify those who are primed to explode this year.
Part I gushed over the passing style of Teun Koopmeiners, the spritely creativity of Emile Smith Rowe and the boldness of Roger Ibañez.
Here, we select three more players set to breach the wider consciousness of football fandom in the months to come.
Loïc Badé, 20, RC Lens
Centre-Back
Recently linked to Liverpool and central—quite literally—to RC Lens’ impressive surge up the Ligue 1 table as a newly promoted outfit, it’d be a major surprise if Badé begins the 2021-22 campaign in red and gold.
He has an upright running style and a composed defensive assertiveness, or authority. It’s a style shared by fellow up-and-coming French centre-back William Saliba, and reminds just a tiny bit of Virgil van Dijk in places.
Badé has impressed from his station in the middle of Lens’ back three, playing a sweeping role that takes advantage of his incredible size, recovery defending, speed and 1v1 prowess. He’s 6’2”, fleet of foot and his long legs are perfect for blocking, intercepting and tackling.
The Frenchman can match almost any striker for speed or strength and, as his Defensive Actions chart shows, he’s comfortable splitting to the side and defending the wider zones, acting almost as a sweeper and covering channel runs behind his wider centre-backs. This bodes well for a potential transition into a regular back four.
The bit for Badé to work on is his passing game. He hits a nice long variant when given time to pick it out, but he lacks a natural ease on the ball under pressure (which may never come, in truth), and perhaps a lack of slickness in his short play.
That means his standout traits really are his defensive ones; the recovery speed and 1v1 ability, in particular, shine through constantly, making Ezri Konsa of Aston Villa—who has been dribbled past just once this season—a fair comparison in terms of style.
Ibrahima Diallo, 21, Southampton
Central Midfielder
Southampton bought him and stashed him, but they couldn’t keep him hidden for long. January 2021 has been Diallo’s breakout party, finally given the chance to string some games together and boy has he seized that opportunity.
Suspension and injury to Oriol Romeu—who had been in the form of his life, breaking up play next to James Ward-Prowse in Saints’ two-man midfield—had the potential to be disastrous for Ralph Hasenhüttl’s European tilt. But Diallo has stepped in, picked up the slack and then some.
An absolute ball hound, he scampers across midfield in search of turnover opportunities and has a knack of timing his interventions perfectly. His diminutive size may have played a part in honing that: at around 5’9” and with a smallish frame, he’s never been able to overpower opponents.
Diallo’s extremely defensively conscious, tracking midfield runners properly and often ending up back in his own box, cutting out cut-backs. It’s in those situations you realise how incredibly fast he is, too, eating up the ground in pursuit of markers.
His passing range is understatedly handy, a good technique allowing him to find some nice angles and distances, while his short game is all it needs to be in Saints’ 4-2-2-2 system—reliable and snappy.
A player of this style, size and tenacity will, inevitably, be compared to N’Golo Kanté, and it’s one almost encouraged by Diallo’s clear love of defending and the fact he plays in a similar system to the one Kanté shone in for Leicester City in his first Premier League season.
Jota, 21, Benfica (on loan at Real Valladolid)
Winger
First came Jota, of Brentford and Birmingham and Aston Villa; next came Jota, of Atlético Madrid and Wolves and Liverpool; and now comes Jota, of Benfica and currently on loan at Real Valladolid. We’re just one more Jota away from a Peep Show quote about naan bread.
In terms of natural talent, this latest Jota trumps all the others. His skill and prowess on the ball have been evident for years—but only to those who spend their time watching Portugal’s youth teams, as for some curious reason, Benfica have never even come close to trusting him with a run of games.
Now out on loan at Real Valladolid, the 21-year-old has been integrated into the team cautiously but his brilliance is starting to force head coach Sergio’s hand. Jota is an electric, thrilling presence on the ball who simultaneously plays at 100mph and in full, considered control. It’s a breathtaking sight.
In a relative handful of minutes—354, to be exact—he’s shown both an ability to cut inside off the right flank and then shoot or create, or take the outside lane on the left and send in crosses. Having the ability to go either way makes a winger infinitely more difficult to deal with, as you can never afford to gamble or second-guess their movements.
Jota’s touch, technique, balance, agility and general control at high speeds is rare. There’s a sprinkling of Neymar to it, though there are fewer pauses in his play. He has the urgency and the ability to go either way like Justin Kluivert—a good comparison, since both have small sample sizes this season. To draw a Portuguese comparison, he has echoes of Pedro Neto’s dribbling and João Félix’s 360-degree work in tight spots.
For whatever reason, the natural talent hasn’t converted to chances and minutes in Europe’s top five leagues…until now. Jota is finally ready to strut his stuff.
If you missed Part I (how dare you), where Sam Tighe identified three other players in line to breakout in 2021, you can read it here.
All the graphics and visualisations in this article use Wyscout data and were produced in the Twenty3 Toolbox.
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