Finding a nest for Full-back Flyers

We’ve come full circle. When we first explored Full-back Archetypes, the Flyer, closest to the traditional perception of this position, emerged as the most compatible for the modern meta due to the focus on High Intensity Running, Speed and Lapping Runs.

Since then, Milos Kerkez, pinned up as the Poster Boy for this profile, has joined Liverpool. Bournemouth have signed Adrien Truffert to replace him. Jeremie Frimpong, the extreme wing-back variant of this Archetype, has also joined Liverpool. Tino Livramento continues to be linked to Manchester City. I have updated a previous scatter plot to cover the entire 2024/25 season. It has aged well.

Meanwhile, Achraf Hakimi is becoming a more legitimate Ballon d’Or candidate by the day, punctuating PSG’s UEFA Champions League triumph and FIFA Club World Cup run with consistent displays of freakish athleticism. Running the Flyer Physical test with the Per Match filter helps identify the full-fledged profiles, like the Moroccan. The fact PSG’s right-back spends 40.36 minutes TIP per game means his Per Match output is greater than the Per 30 normalisation. For High Intensity metrics, I would argue this is more impressive given the athleticism required to repeat these actions.

Through further research, I have also realised that Flyers record a greater proportion of their High Intensity Activity in the TIP phase; another metric we can use to identify the Archetype.

All this is to say that recruiting players in this profile will not only set a club up to flourish in the ‘athlete era’ of football, but open the door to profit, as it has for Bournemouth. The Cherries signed Kerkez for £18m in 2023; two years later, he was sold for £40m. Meanwhile, Hakimi is the only player to feature multiple times in the top ten most expensive right-back transfers.

The aim of this article is not to discover the next Kerkez or Hakimi specifically. Inspired by our Striker Factories epic, I want to identify the clubs and competitions hatching the next generation of Flyers. Let’s use data to discover a Nest.

At SCOUTED, we have access to 46 senior men’s competitions. In order to discover a potential hotbed, I ranked the average output of each league’s Full-back Position Group based on 12 key Physical metrics below and calculated a Nest rating.

Below is the full breakdown for the top 10 highest scoring competitions.

Serie A was the only league that featured in the top five for all 12 metrics. I had an instant theory as to why: wing-backs. Here is a further breakdown of each division’s most common Full-back roles, based on the percentage of each Position’s contribution to Physical checks passed for the Position Group.

Although it’s immediately clear both Italy’s top flight and second tier have an increased preference for wing-backs, the correlation between Nest rating and Percentage of Full-back checks as Wing-backs is inconsequential. This holistic search has introduced Italy as the ideal destination for Flyers to migrate to for development and a boost in reputation and output.

For the next phase, we will look to identify the clubs within these apparent hotbeds that provide the ideal Flyer environment. To do so, we will switch our focus to Off-ball Running.

The reason for highlighting Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal is to show just how far Pep Guardiola’s side are from the modern Full-back meta. If the Club World Cup is anything to go by, they know it - and we can expect them to move closer to Arsenal next season, especially if they do move for Livramento. Liverpool, meanwhile, have doubled down. Replacing Trent Alexander-Arnold with Frimpong and refreshing Andy Robertson with Kerkez could land them somewhere between Newcastle and Bournemouth on the scatter plot below.

The Cherries themselves have been labelled to show that Kerkez was given the ideal environment to spread his wings. It’s not the first time Andoni Iraola has platformed a left-back like this; he did so with Fran García at Rayo Vallecano. García was named the club’s Player of the Season in 2022/23, which led to a call-up to the Spain senior squad for the 2023 Nations League and caused Real Madrid to trigger their buy-back clause.

Similarly, one of the main reasons Atalanta appear as an outlier is because of Don Gian Piero Gasperini. Stephen Ganavas previously highlighted “athletic wing-backs” as one of Gasperini’s five key principles.

Although this style has not yet resulted in a consistent turnover of mega-money Full-back exports, the renaissance of the Flyer has just begun - and Gasperini has built the foundation to take advantage. Matteo Ruggeri’s move to Atlético Madrid this summer is an example of La Dea’s Nest generating profit, turning an academy graduate into a €20m sale. And what a Nest it was. Across the past three Serie A seasons, here’s how the average Atalanta Full-back ranks in Serie A:

• 🥇 Dangerous Lapping Runs P30 TIP (1.89)
• 🥇 Lapping Runs Targeted P30 TIP (2.78)
• 🥇 Lapping Runs Received P30 TIP (2.27)
• 🥈 Lapping Runs P30 TIP (7.38)
• 🥈 Threat of Lapping Runs P30 TIP (0.12)
• 🥈 Lapping Runs Leading to Shot P30 TIP (0.36)

A quick look back at the Full-back Flyer Physical retrospective scatter plot suggests Raoul Bellanova could soon follow. Signed at the start of the season in a €25m deal, just how much profit a Bellanova sale could generate may now depend on how far new head coach Ivan Jurić deviates from Gasperini’s philosophy.

This also suggests we should keep tabs on whether AS Roma’s wing-backs take flight following a period of incubation under Gasperini. Watch out for 2003-born Brazilian right-back Wesley, the club’s first full-back signing since their new manager took charge. But also keep a close eye on the development of 2007-born Buba Sangaré, too. The youngest senior debutant in Levante’s history, Sangaré joined the Giallorossi from his boyhood club last summer for €2m and has already been capped for Spain at Under-19 level. Develop him in the Flyer mould and AS Roma could generate enormous profit.

In fact, this applies to the whole of Italy and is the main reason why you would build a Nest. Despite Serie A being a less intense league overall, our Flyer Test confirmed that it is clearly a competition which demands a lot from its Full-backs. So, now is the time to focus on signing and developing more prospects in this position. Or should I say accelerate it?

You can make a strong case that Atalanta have already recognised this. They have followed the aforementioned Bellanova signing from last summer with a €17m move for Genoa’s 2008-born left-back Honest Ahanor this year and have been linked heavily to RC Strasbourg’s Diego Moreira - you might have spotted him on the previous graphs. There is another club ahead of the curve, too.

Lecce signed Patrick Dorgu directly from FC Nordsjælland’s youth academy before selling him to Manchester United for €30m after 57 first-team appearances. This summer, they have signed Christ-Owen Kouassi from Overlap outliers Stade Lavallois in a record sale for the Ligue 2 club.

Unfortunately, this seems to be pure coincidence. Despite Kouassi stating that he is looking forward to playing in his natural position, right-back, at Lecce, he played almost-exclusively as the RCB in a back three last season so he does not appear in our Full-back search. But it’s worth making a note of his name. Fortunately, Lecce have also been linked to Tuur Rommens, who does not just appear in an individual full-back search, he jumps out.

Rommens may well be the reason for KVC Westerlo’s number one rank for Underlaps. The 2003-born Belgian left-back ranks second in the entire dataset for Underlaps P30 TIP, ahead of our Poster Boy Kerkez, and first for Percentage of Runs as Underlaps.

Even within the context of Lapping Runs as a whole he continues to impress. Rommens ranks fourth for Dangerous Lapping Runs P30 TIP in the entire dataset but ranks first among all 123 players born in 2002 or later, once again ahead of Kerkez.

Destiny Udogie also features. The Italian international - there are four in that top 20 - was signed by Tottenham Hotspur for €20m almost immediately after Udinese had activated their €4m option-to-buy clause.

It’s also worth highlighting Archie Brown. The Derby County academy graduate was reportedly on the verge of joining AC Milan before deciding to sign for Fenerbahçe. Instead, Milan could potentially look at Flávio Nazinho (2003), Francisco Chissumba or Riyad Idrissi (2005) as a potential long-term replacement for Theo Hernández in addition to their signing of peak-age Pervis Estúpiñan.

Perhaps I should have given Italy’s top flight more credit for recognising their position as Europe’s premium roost. But a recent mini saga sums up the need to scale and accelerate the process.

Marc Pubill featured heavily in our 2025 Under-21 EURO analysis as an under-the-radar Flyer big-five league clubs should be scouting. Fabrizio Romano reported the Spaniard was set to join Wolves despite interest from Serie A sides only for a move to Atlético Madrid to materialise at the last minute. This transfer encapsulates three key points:

1. The fact Italian clubs were scouting Pubill shows they value this profile.
2. The fact that Wolves were circling shows that Premier League clubs value this profile.
3. The fact that Atlético Madrid have signed Ruggeri (99th percentile for Overlaps P30TIP) and Pubill (90th percentile for Underlaps P30TIP) further highlights the shifting meta towards Flyer full-backs, especially when platforming wide playmakers like Álex Baena and Thiago Almada.

Italy’s top flight profiles as the most accommodating environment for our increasingly popular Full-back profile. By signing young Flyers from the other high-rating Nests - Belgian Pro League, Danish Superliga, French Ligue 2, LaLiga 2 and even their own second tier - Italian clubs will increase the likelihood their flocks will migrate to the richest competitions around the world, and perhaps bring something shiny back with them.