Smitten!
by TOM CURREN
scouting by LLEW DAVIES
Around this time last year, SCOUTED released its first midfield Archetype. The Developer, inspired by many hours of watching Sverre Nypan - in his pre-Manchester City era - was built primarily around movement. We felt most fans understood midfielders who progressed the ball through line-splitting passing or ground-eating carrying, but that movement was an under-appreciated, and perhaps slightly obscured, element of the midfield toolkit. So often we focus on the immediately obvious when the ball moves up the pitch, and disregard the subtle actions of the receiver: it’s always ‘what a pass’ and rarely ‘what a run,’ especially if that run is a five-yard shuttle between two zones. But there he goes, Sverre Nypan, darting between the lines, and there moves the ball, up the pitch with him. Developers are players who turn build-up sequences into dangerous attacks by moving without the ball: they are the row of stitches that hold a garment together. They turn the screw, darting behind defensive lines and sliding into advantageous positions, and they’re becoming ever-more prominent at the top level.
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In November 2025, AZ Alkmaar came to south London. Many UEFA Conference League watchers that night will have been hoping to catch a glimpse of Adam Wharton, the headline talent of this Volume, strutting his stuff in European competition. Sadly for them, Wharton started from the bench. Eyes instead were drawn to one of his opponents, a redheaded teenage Dutchman starting as AZ’s left-sided No.8. There he goes, Kees Smit, darting between the lines, and there moves the ball with him. Llew Davies was so enamoured with Smit’s performance that night he wrote a comprehensive breakdown of his every touch. “He moves, constantly,” Davies wrote; “he drops, slides and bursts towards it in every phase of play. He rolls underneath, pops up between lines, slips to the outside and breaks ahead of play, sometimes all in the same sequence.” AZ lost 3-1, but their goal came from a typical Developer sequence orchestrated by their new star. Smit starts an elegant move by the touchline in his own half, turning away from pressure before completing a one-two with a teammate, and he’s away, up the touchline; he sees a runner ahead and finds him before crashing towards the box and making the assist. Pass, move, stitch it all together. Before you know it, the ball is in the box.
In March of this year, Smit made his senior Netherlands debut. He’s still just 19, though it feels like we’ve been talking about him for ages. In many ways, we have: his youth career was long and storied, and we first laid eyes on him as AZ won the UEFA Youth League. Now the world is beginning to understand what we’ve seen. This summer will likely be decisive and the spotlight will soon be heavy. Like Nypan, Kees Smit will be of interest to the world’s biggest clubs because he represents the future of his position. Others might label him an No.10 or No.8 but Smit is a true hybrid, a multi-phase midfielder who could still be anything. In the future of midfield, that roundedness, the ability to solve all kinds of problems, is more valuable than gold.
Kees Smit was born in Heiloo, a picturesque town in North Holland, in January 2006. The name of the town means ‘sacred forest’ and in autumn the leaves turn gold and orange. It is said to be the site of a miracle.
Heiloo’s largest neighbour is the city of Alkmaar. Smit joined the academy of the club there at nine years old. Alkmaar has a population of just 110,000, but the club’s academy punches well above its weight. In 2020, AZ Alkmaar led the Eredivisie when it was called off early due to the COVID-19 pandemic, just weeks from their third-ever title. That squad was led by Teun Koopmeiners, Myron Boadu, Calvin Stengs and Owen Wijndal, four players who had been at the club since they were 12. The club reportedly have an internal target of 50% of first-team members to be academy graduates; that 2020 side hit 67%. AZ Alkmaar’s story is one of deep academy coherence, of an environment in which young players are shepherded towards the first team with a sense of near-inevitability. Since 2020, AZ have made a reported €150m from academy player sales including, in 2023, Tijjani Reijnders.
In the season preceding Reijnders’ sale to AC Milan, AZ Alkmaar won the UEFA Youth League. That campaign included wins against Real Madrid and Barcelona. Against the latter, a young midfielder - who had already made senior training, and was floating around the edges of the first team - scored from the centre-circle. The name ‘Kees Smit’ was suddenly all over the internet. In a battle of academy values, little AZ had defeated La Masia and La Fábrica, which spoke to the club’s collective coherence. Their star was on the fast-track to the first team, who himself was the perfect mirror for AZ’s holistic approach to development. Smit could do it all, snap into a tackle to start a move and finish it with a hammer from inside the box. At youth level he demonstrated the multi-phase dominance that is so often a signal for ‘I’m ready.’
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