one of my favourite things to do is look at talent, no matter where. the same naturally then goes when I am watching sport. in this series “football talent”, i will be looking at players with the maximum age of 23. that means in 2017 it will be players born 1994 or later.

i am starting this series with a player who i have watched for about a year now and whose style of play and attitude i really like. i have seen him linked with my club bayern munich and would be very excited to have him with us, unfortunately he has also been linked to Juventus and Premier League clubs. here is his profile:

name: federico bernardeschi

nationality: italy (born in carrara)

birthday: 16.2.1994 (23)

height: 183 cm

foot: left

position: right wing, central attacking mid, left wing

strengths:

• good upperbody strength in 1-on-1 – also helps him make yards against people when he changes pace
• uses skill to get into good positions/keep the ball – rather than to show off
• not scared of posession in traffic
• good at keeping the ball in an ugly way – doesn’t give it up
• picks up the ball from deep
• good passes into the striker from the area between the penalty box, halfway- and side-line
• good short deep passes (not so good pass ing with speed)
• strong shot from distance
• cool attitude and good under pressure

points of improvement:

• crossing (not because he is bad but because he doesn’t cross from the sidelines as much) – would also stretch the field for his team
• long passing (needs to be more into the run), passing while running with the ball
• defending

Overview

he is a really good young individual player who works for the team and has a great attitude to go with it. His goals per/season are at a good level, to take the next step he needs to start working on setting up others and working back defensively.

he has a solid base for both. he starts his play from very deep and can run for long periods of time, which stands him in good stead for defensive abilities. he also works hard for the team, which is not always the case for offensive playmakers. In terms of assists he can play very dangerous balls into attack from midfield, however, he could greatly benefit from a stronger supporting cast to play the ball into. Moving to a team with a strong CF would put him in a great place for that.

this would also allow him to vary his game and take it from the center to the wings, creating spaces for his teammates. in turn it would give him more opportunity to put crosses in, further helping with his assissts. he is in a great place to take the next step of his career and would equally suit a counterattacking or possession based team. if you look at his stats, whenever he moves to the next stage he takes a while to develop into it. i see no reason why he would be at the end of that development, but the champions league level teams are what he should be looking at now.

the reason why i believe Bayern could be a great switch is that he can learn a lot from Ribery and Robben, he has Lewandowski to play into, is supported by a strong midfield and defensive wing players and could be a big contributing factor to the new, young generation with Gnabry, Coman, Sanchez, Kimmich, Süle and potentially others like Goretzka still to come.

if you’re still not convinced of how good he is, just watch some tape on youtube.