Barcelona may already own their Lewandowski replacement

I was poking around young player stats in various leagues and it dawned on me that Barcelona may have already bought and loaned out their Lewandowski replacement.

“Vitor Roque's big chances since 2023! Barcelona wanted a tiger but it seems they got a bush cat.” —YouTuber criticising Barca’s 18yo Brazilian buy last summer.

Fast forward to this season in La Liga and um…

Or go back to his last Paranaense season and um…

There’s little worry in my mind that he can’t finish over a sustained period of time. I feel like he might be a little bit “shoot first” right now, but he has the best expected goals numbers of any player in Spain not named Robert Lewandowski. That’s a pretty good sign?

Yes, it’s early in the season, and yes, we need to see whether he can maintain this level of output consistently. But! La Liga is really good and Roque is *whispers it so Chelsea can’t hear me* nineteen.

Perhaps the most intriguing element of his TransferMarkt profile is it says Betis not only have him on a two-year loan, but they also have the option to buy him for €25m with a 20% sell on clause. But Barca also have a buy-back for €27.5m? So they have to pay €2.5m to keep him, basically?

So many levers for just one teenager.

ANYWAY… he looks really good and almost ready for prime time, assuming the above can be navigated in a somewhat sensible fashion.

Meanwhile, a league below throws up this weird profile from a player Castellon plucked from Atletico Madrid’s B team.

Why is this player interesting? Well, in addition to be an absolute chucker, Calatrava is putting up nearly half a goal a game in expected assists from midfield (almost all from open play). Part of that is due to the extreme attacking system employed at Castellon, but some of it might also be a lot of late-blooming talent (he’s 24).

Castellon are one of the more switched on teams in world football, and they are owned by former professional NBA bettor and crypto-bazillionaire Bob Voulgaris. It’s interesting to see if they unearthed a hidden gem for themselves, or someone who’s going to be good wherever he goes.

It’s only mid-November, but these are the types of things you notice in recruitment early in the season and then check back basically every month to see if they stayed notable, or were just hot streaks.

Before we leave you, here’s Scott Twine’s radar from this season at Bristol City.

Twine started to get noticed as one of the sweetest ball strikers in the English Football league back in his early 20s. He even had a twenty-goal season from midfield at MK Dons, including a Messi-like number of goals from dead balls.

Now he’s been the best player on Bristol City, and continues to improve his decision-making. He’s not particularly young (25), but it’s cool to see see the progress, and he’s still a lot of fun to watch in the Championship. —TK

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