Fun players to watch in Europa League today + an amazing GK performance

Hello football hipsters, and welcome to the most interesting of Europe’s continental competitions. When it comes to Champions League and Europa League, I am the “I sleep/REAL SHIT” Shaq meme.

If you didn’t get to watch this week’s CL games, I’ll fill you in real quick: The better teams won and the second legs will be drama-free. Snore. Give me the weird stuff. The players your mates haven’t heard of yet, but will be moving to big clubs in the summer. The band you saw in a 100 capacity pub 6 months before they were on Radio 1.

I’m being a smartass, the Champions League is great and these guys aren’t that obscure. But if you’re not mega plugged in to the second tier of teams on the European continent, you might not know much about them. So here’s 5 really fun dudes to watch on Thursday.

Malick Fofana, Lyon

Rayan Cherki gets all the hype, and deservedly so, but there’s a slightly under-the-radar talent who’s balling out on the other wing. Malick Fofana has been one of the Europa League’s best performers, combining his certified Dribbly Boy status with excellent shot selection. The title of his comp on Brazil Scout is Saucy Boy. Surely that sells you on its own.

Takefusa Kubo, Real Sociedad

Kubo was linked to Liverpool, among other rich clubs in the summer, but ended up staying at Real Sociedad. He continues to perform at a high level, but in a pretty defensively-focused team that makes it hard for him to pop crazy stats. He’s still making the most of the touches he does get around the box, and he’s an excellent dribbler.

I have no anti-Sociedad agenda, but please get this dude on a team that likes having the ball in the final third and getting numbers into the box.

Hugo Ekitike, Eintracht Frankfurt

Mohamed Mohamed wrote for us early this year on Ekitike and other tall strikers on the road to stardom. I think Ekitike has only gotten better since then, though he isn’t racking up big xG numbers in Europa League specifically.

His speed and finishing have been high level for quite some time, but Ekitike has become a much more consistent playmaker this year, and is setting up teammates just as much as he’s finding scoring opportunities for himself. Frankfurt depend on him to be an all-around star following the Omar Marmoush sale, and he’s risen to the occasion.

Dani Vivian, Athletic Bilbao

I doubt you’ll ever seen Dani Vivian sold to a rich club. First, because Athletic, as a team that only recruits local players, really do not need the money. Second, because he’s a very off-meta center back for the current times. When even Pep Guardiola’s team is focused on signing guys who are at least 6’3” with 65% aerial duels won, the short kings aren’t getting much love.

So the 5’11” Vivian has been excluded from some teams’ search filters outright, but he’s still a really effective ball player and ground defender. And when you’re a team with Athletic’s recruitment policy, you don’t really have room to be super picky about defender height. If a dude can play, he can play. And besides the one hole in his game, this guy can absolutely play center back.

Nicolo Rovella, Lazio

In 2023, Rovella joined Lazio on a two-year loan from Juventus with an obligation to buy at the end for €17m. He currently looks like someone who would fix a lot of the problems with Juve’s midfield. Whoops!

Rovella is a bit athletically limited and an average dribbler, but he’s an extremely productive passer and works his socks off without the ball. There aren’t a lot of guys who provide this combination of defensive output and progressive passing. He’s reportedly already agreed to a long-term contract with Lazio that will kick in this summer, so that’s a very nice piece of business.

While this might not fit the theme of the rest of today’s newsletter, I felt like Alisson Becker’s performance for Liverpool on Wednesday deserved a mention, in light of what we wrote about yesterday. Walter Benitez turned in one of the weakest goalkeeping performance in Champions League knockout stage history, which Alisson followed up a day later with one of the best.

Alisson kept a clean sheet in Liverpool’s 1-0 win over PSG, stopping 1.65 post-shot xG with his 9 saves, according to StatsBomb’s model. Because he hasn’t started all of their Champions League games and is working with a pretty small sample, that one great performance was enough to take Alisson’s stats in the competition through the roof — his save% is now 14% above expectations for the average keeper, the best in Champions League this year.

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