Bravo Bologna: SCOUT NOTES, March 6th
Bayer Leverkusen were the focus of SCOUT NOTES last week. Since then, they’ve further stretched their lead over Bayern München in the Bundesliga.
They’re going to win it, unless there’s a monumental collapse that would be as impressive as it would be crushing. It’s definitely not a fairytale, Leicester-esque underdog story — they’re literally named after their owners, one of the biggest pharma companies in the world — but it is a great example of what can be achieved with a clear plan that focuses on young talent.
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Catching up with the UEFA Youth League
After a juicy set of round of sixteen clashes, the quarter-finals of the UEFA Youth League are set.
It wasn’t without drama though, with four of the eight ties being decided by penalty shootouts, including one which saw defending champions AZ Alkmaar get knocked out by Porto.
It maintains their streak of not having lost a UEFA Youth League match in normal or extra time for three seasons. Nevertheless, that won’t make this defeat any easier to swallow, of course.
Here are all the results from last week’s fixtures:
There were a couple of surprise results in here as well, with Manchester City falling to Mainz and Salzburg succumbing to a 1-0 defeat at home to Lens.
Stevie was away on a camping trip in the Aussie outback last week — yes, a camping trip in the Aussie outback — but is currently clobbering together a round-up of these games that will be out later this week as we prepare for the quarter-finals next week.
And what a set of quarter-finals they are…
All eyes are on that blockbuster Milan-Real Madrid tie in particular — they are probably the two most stacked teams in this competition and the favourites.
Bayern will face Olympiacos, who have been on a pretty stellar run that has seen them knock out Lens and Inter in their last two matches. We’ll be interested to see if Adam Aznou and Lovro Zvonarek make a return for Bayern, after they have both spent some time hanging around the senior squad in recent weeks.
FCK and Porto will face strong tests as well in Nantes and Mainz, although we’d be favouring them both to progress.
And as always, after the round-up this week, we’ll have another round-up next week after the quarter-finals. We can’t wait.
Bologna, Bologna, Bologna
We talked about Joshua Zirkzee a couple of weeks ago, but it’s time to properly recognise what Bologna are doing this season.
Under the managerial guidance of Thiago Motta, and the transfer market craftiness of former Atalanta director Giovanni Sartori, the Rossoblu are riding high in fourth place in Serie A after a 2-1 win over Atalanta on the weekend.
You have to admire what the club has done over the last couple of years, with a collection of shrewd acquisitions such as Zirkzee, Lewis Ferguson, Arthur Theate (now at Rennes), Jhon Lucumí, Ricardo Calafiori, Giovanni Fabbian, and Dan Ndoye, amongst others, all playing key roles in a very strong team.
Ferguson is a particularly interesting case for the relative lack of coverage he’s had in the admittedly English-centric football media in the UK. This is a 24-year-old Scotsman captaining an upstart side to Champions League qualification in Serie A, scoring multiple decisive goals along the way, yet you hardly hear anything about it. So if you hadn’t, now you have.
Anyway, thank you to Kenny Millar for pointing us in the direction of the little docuvideo (real word?) below about Ferguson’s time in Emilia-Romagna. It has James Richardson in it. We love James Richardson. Watch it, drink it in.
After finishing in 13th position in 2021/22, Bologna have risen first to 9th in 2022/23, and now 4th in 2023/24. They’re now on a six-game win streak and playing some very pretty football in the process.
With Italy likely to clinch a 5th Champions League spot for next year, the club might just be starting to dream of a place in Europe’s premiere club competition for the first time in 60 years, and their first appearance in Europe in over 20 years.
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Pafundi is playing plenty
Anyone that keeps a keen eye on youth football during the transfer windows will have seen that Simone Pafundi — the highly-rated Italian playmaker — made the rather curious move from Udinese to Lausanne in Switzerland.
Why is it curious? Well, because he’s highly-rated for one. Furthermore, he moved there with an option to buy clause that would smash the Swiss transfer record if (or when) it will be taken up. We talked a bit more about it in our deadline day round-up.
Anyway, one of the question marks we raised about it in the podcast above was would the teenage Italian play in Switzerland? The answer a month into the move is yes, absolutely. He’s started the last four game for Lausanne in the Swiss Super League after cutting his teeth with a couple of substitute appearances.
And as we noted in the podcast above, the move is much less curious when you view it in the granded multi-club scheme. Lausanne are owned by INEOS, who also own OGC Nice and now control the sporting stake in Manchester United. This is very obviously a move that has either of those clubs in mind.
Watch out for Finn Jeltsch
Those that kept up to date with our FIFA U-17 World Cup coverage at the end of last year will — or should be — very familiar with the name Finn Jeltsch. We wrote about him quite a lot, and he was in our Team of the Tournament.
You should watch out for him because he’s just broken into the first team at 1. FC Nürnberg in the 2. Bundesliga. He had been on the bench plenty but never made an appearance before coming on at half-time recently, and he’s started the two games since. He has the ability to stick there for the foreseeable.
Jeltsch is particularly exciting as an emerging centre-back prospect because he’s a good example of the modern interpretation of the role: the teenager is a mobile and compact athlete, a smart defender in all kinds of situations, and has the technical talent to play with speed, precision and flexibility. You can easily see him playing in a two, a three, as a full-back, or even in midfield.
That’s why you should watch out for Jeltsch. His profile is popular.
And seeing as we’re on Nürnberg, it’s worth noting that Can Uzun – their exciting attacker that’s scored 15 goals this season – has confirmed he’ll play for Türkiye at senior international level, despite German efforts to secure him.
He bolsters an exciting attacking class of 2005 that features his boyhood friend and fellow Regensburger, Kenan Y?ld?z, Real Madrid’s Arda Güler, and breakout Be?ikta? talent Semih K?l??soy. Woof woof woof.
Coming soon… SCOUTED x Tifo Podcast
When the incomparable Jon Mackenzie slides into your DMs to ask if you want to come onto the excellent Tifo Podcast to talk about the football subject you love, take up that offer — so that’s what we did!
Stevie and Llew spent a good hour on Tuesday afternoon (or Wednesday morning for the Auslander) chatting to Jon about all things youth football, with a particular focus on the development side of it all. It will probably drop sometime next week, so keep your eyes peeled for it.
Football Manager Corner
This is where we usually punch in a young prospect that you should sign on your FM24 saves, but we can’t this week because our (read: Llew’s) game has corrupted when trying to install the winter update and it’s stuck in a non-stop download cycle on Steam. Fuck knows what’s going on, to be frank.
But forget that, though, because winter update! Now’s the time to load it up and just browse aimlessly to have a look which young players have had big bumps. There should be plenty.
Also, now’s the time to start a new long-term save. Here’s a little list of lesser-known clubs that you should consider for your next save:
We’ll be back with the usual player recommendations next week once we (read: Llew) sort this Steam issue. Before then, go well.
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