Who wins your Golden Ball?
Plus: the UEFA U-17 EURO final is set, the future of Portuguese forwards, and Arsenal choose Šeško
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Watchlist
The players we watched this week, and will be watching next.
Here we are. The final curtain. The U17 EURO will reach its finale on Sunday, and it'll be contested by France and Portugal. France overcame a spirited Belgium in the opening semi-final, before Portugal squeezed past Italy in the second. The Azzurri took the lead twice, but Portugal kept pegging them back, and a crazy penalty shootout saw the goalkeepers make five saves between them and get touches to a host of others. In the end, big Romário Cunha reigned supreme.
We've picked out a few standouts from the semi-final clashes, plus the key names to watch in the final. It's this Sunday, June 1, at 19:30 GMT - you can watch for free here.
The semi-finals
🇫🇷 We liked Rudy Matondo in France’s opener against Germany for his non-stop effort, and we liked him even more in France’s dramatic semi-final against Belgium for his hustle and bustle.
The Auxerre prospect is a compact bundle of endless energy that manifests in running and carrying, hustling and challenging. Without him, France genuinely wouldn’t have got out of their half in the first half—and they wouldn’t have won the game were it not for his sweet left-foot finish and wicked right-foot cross for the second and thirds goals.
The 17-year-old runs a lot, battles hard, links efficiently and drives forward: there will always be a place for those qualities at every level of football.
🇧🇪 Belgium’s standout performer all tournament, Jesse Bisiwu is one of those players you love to watch.
Tall and slender, he is a shifty but smooth mover that has an excellent feel for dribbling. He can slip through traffic with ease, using his innate combination of shiftiness and skill to do so. He speeds up and slows down, shimmies and shakes, shifts and bursts. It consistently gets him into great positions in and around the penalty area, where his decision-making and ball-striking needs some work—but that will come. It was all on show in the first half against France as Bisiwu was driving a relentless onslaught.
Already a regular in the Belgian second division for Club Brugge’s B team, watch out for Bisiwu next season. This tournament was a tasty teaser.
🇮🇹 Andrea Luongo might be going home, but he does so as one of the tournament's standout players. Italy have a handful of tall, slender technical attacking talents, and Luongo was the thread stitching them all together.
Torino's creator was a ghost, drifting into the left half-space to combine with his forwards and full-backs, knocking the ball past his markers with gorgeous knocked touches, rolling the ball between his feet to subtly change the angle of a pass. Sometimes it looked like he had eyes in the back of his head - I'm sad we don't get to watch more.
🇵🇹 Anísio is an enigma. He piqued Jake's well-tuned Power Forward radar with his target play against Albania on the opening day, and my 'oh dear' radar for how many chances he missed. But he was getting them.
Against Italy he offered something different: a cultured, intelligent performance which saw him drop deep to turn towards play and find runners himself. He has a really interesting passing style I noticed as he clipped a clever deep cross towards the box in the first half - then he used the same technique again, and again, and again. It's somewhere between a loft and a chip; he strikes downwards with his laces and the ball floats at pace. Each attempt caused Italy a different problem, and Anísio might be more faceted than first appeared.
The final:
🇵🇹 Stevan Manuel has grown into this tournament as it's gone on, and Portugal have the big winger to thank for their chance at glory. He equalised Italy's opening goal with a space-eating blindside run on his marker to tap home a smart Duarte Cunha cross, and was a handful all evening.
Broad, strong, and with feet that fly everywhere and seem to still often emerge with the ball, Manuel looks like he has the physical capacity to be a problem at senior level already. He worked really hard to cover his full-back and drove inside with a bunch of powerful runs to cause Italy constant problems in transition. I expect he's made a good enough case to start in the final - let's see what issues he can cause France.
🇫🇷 Emmanuel Mbemba. You could pick a handful from this France team, but Mbemba has been their rock at the back and has the makings of a highly sought-after prospect.
Perhaps a touch shorter than your average centre-back, he more than makes up for it with a high-level athleticism that includes mobility, agility and robustness. Mbemba is the ideal build for the modern hybrid defender role and, as a result, is adept at defending on the move and in isolated situations. On top of that, you have on-ball qualities that are of a high standard. Easy on the ball, there’s a crispness to his passing that catches the eye and look out for his trademark diagonals in the final.
Vox Populi
We’re listening - here's a quick poll, for fun.
The time has come. The finalists are set. So we wanna know: who is your U17 EURO Golden Ball?
Let's try something different: we'll include the best responses in the Team of the Tournament piece we're releasing next week. Go wild and flex those scouting muscles.
Short…listed:
A short recommendation from Scouting Editor Llew Davies.
As you can tell by my Short…listed picks in recent weeks, I’ve been watching quite a bit of Iberian football recently. One of the players that I’ve become enamoured with on my digital tour of the peninsula is Roger Fernandes.
You may have heard the name: the 19-year-old initially broke into the first team reckoning at 15, even scoring a handful of goals at that age, and has gradually ramped up his minutes to become a regular. His 3,015 minutes across a total of 48 appearances this past season are his most yet, and while his six goals and assists in the Primeira Liga don’t jump off the page, what he does on the pitch jumps of the screen.
Roger is sharp—that’s the first thing. Quick off the mark and intense in his changes of tempo, he ducks and lean, weaves and needles. He is adept at beating defenders with the ball at his feet, using Amad-like traits to do so. A left-footer that predominantly plays on the right wing, the teenager does a lot of cutting inside to open up dribbling, passing and shooting angles on his strong side. He definitely has the far corner in his locker and I think he has plenty of upside as a plus passer, not least because he tends to make intelligent decisions.
Still young, another season in Portugal would serve him well. Braga have just appointed Carlos Vicens, a Pep Guardiola assistant for the past four years, as their new head coach—he could unlock Roger’s next level. But don’t be surprised if clubs come calling this summer, trying to get ahead of his breakout season.
Culture Club
No thoughts, head empty, vibe on.
Here's Djibril Cissé in an all-white, long-sleeved Auxerre x Kappa kit with a PlayStation sponsor in the early 2000s. You're welcome.
HEATWATCH
SCOUTED50: Keeping tabs on the golden boys.
🔥 13 / CHRIS RIGG
Chris Rigg is Premier League. Tom Watson and Eliezer Mayenda may have been the reason Sunderland overcame Sheffield United in the Play-Off Final, but Watson's summer move to Brighton means Rigg will have centre-stage next term. Exciting times ahead.
Headliners
The SCOUTED news radar. Ping, ping, ping.
Jake Entwistle
Bence Bocsák
Further reading
Royale Union Saint-Gilloise are Belgian champions. SCOUTED's Joe Donnohue visited the club in 2023 to learn how advanced scouting and recruitment returned the storied club to the pinnacle of football.
Modern Renaissance
Sunday, June 4, 2023. Saint-Gilles. Tucked away in South Brussels’ leafy and aptly-named Forest suburb, the approach to Stade Joseph-Marien is unassuming, accessed through residential streets. You’d miss it if you didn’t know it was there. The stadium, constructed for the 1920 Summer Olympiad, boasts a red-brick, Art Deco facade with sporting iconography carved into its stone. Parc Duden's greenery juxtaposes the jutting veneer on each of its adjoining sides. Most days it’s the very picture of peace.
Not today. Today the Union Bhoys are the soundtrack of Saint-Gilles. Today the park is yellow and blue.
Today is the final day of the season and there are eighty-eight minutes on the clock. Royale Union Saint-Gilloise lead Club Brugge 1-0. USG have been without a major honour for 88 years: they’ve spent 50 of those outside of the top division; it’s been 15 since they almost dropped into the Belgian fourth tier. Now they are minutes away from claiming the Belgian title.
Then Club score.
Then they score again.
And again.
Heartbreak doesn't come more distilled than this.
Three days later, I sit with USG’s directeur sportif Chris O'Loughlin in his office, which feels almost out of place within Stade Joseph-Marien; sleek, bright and modern, less ornate than its adjoining rooms. He reflects on the defeat with admirable perspective, considering how fresh it must feel. "Sunday was, in that moment, the day after [the defeat], 36 hours after - it was disappointing.
"First of all we have to move on. We're already preparing for the new season. It's coming. The days and the weeks won't stop because we're sad and disappointed.
"Let's take a step back and get some perspective,” O’Loughlin says between mouthfuls, juggling a hasty lunch break and my questions. He raises the fork, pauses and continues to speak. The duration between each bite grows the longer we talk, the deeper we go into topics O’Loughlin is clearly passionate about, as does the guilt I feel for occupying him at this time.
Joe Donnohue
That’s all, folks. See you next Friday.
For everything on the next generation, stay tuned to SCOUTED.
