Champions League performance insights: Young midfielders under the microscope

Ole Gunnar Solskjær knows what it takes to score goals for one of the biggest clubs in the world.

Therefore, it is no surprise that he has such admiration for Jude Bellingham – the Real Madrid midfielder whom he considers the best player in European football so far in this 2023/24 campaign.

In autumn’s group stage, Bellingham became the first player to score in each of his first four appearances for Real Madrid in the European Cup/Champions League. For Solskjær, it is a winning combination of ability, athleticism and attitude that defines the prodigious 20-year-old.

"He is on the move all the time, he has got the energy and he is humble enough to run," begins Solskjær, a member of UEFA's technical observer group.

"I have met the boy and spoken to him – he is a mature, grown man and he knew what he wanted. It seems like Carlo [Ancelotti] has trusted his ability, even at his young age, to find those spaces and do what he thinks is right with the best passers in the world next to him. This season he has been the best player in Europe to me."

As we look ahead to the round of 16, we asked our match observers to pinpoint the young players who had shone most brightly in the group stage and Bellingham, with his four goals and three assists, was not alone in catching the eye. Bayern München's Jamal Musiala, four months Bellingham's senior, and Paris Saint-Germain's Warren Zaïre-Emery, just 17, also earned rich praise – and we will come to them later.

But first, back to Bellingham. "He does everything," says Solskjær. "He wins headers, tackles, intercepts, he gets back into position. In most of the games I have seen he has played as a ten behind Rodrygo and Vinícius Júnior but defensively he has to run back and be a left winger in a 4-4-2. Some games they take off a striker and he plays as a striker. Ancelotti knows he can trust him in any position and he does his defensive duties."

The Englishman's goalscoring prowess is the focus of these two video clips from the group stage. The first one above follows his run into the box to meet David Alaba's cross and head in against Napoli. "He has been in the right position so many times," observes Solskjær. "He gets so many chances because of his energy and his willingness to make the runs."

The second clip below features Bellingham's goal in Naples when he carried the ball from deep and weaved his way between blue shirts before shooting. Noting how he made space for himself prior to collecting the ball, Solskjær says: "He ran in behind got the space, got Napoli to drop off, and then he got the ball in between. He had time to turn and is then such a unit – when he gets that body going, he is hard to stop as he is powerful. He is unorthodox in the way he doesn't look the smoothest but is really balanced and can go both ways – right and left."

Analysing the strike itself, Solskjær adds: "It's a bit surprising a midfielder can score these types of goals. He finishes in one movement. He has a few touches but he catches the goalkeeper and defender off guard a little – it's like a snapshot more or less… shift and shoot."

'Drop deep, turn and dribble'

To move on to Musiala, his coach at Bayern, Thomas Tuchel, has praised his capacity to carry the ball and penetrate defences. "His ability to drop deep, turn and dribble is his greatest strength," said Tuchel. And this ability is illustrated in the clip below in which he gets the better of two Manchester United defenders on a run which ends with him teeing up Serge Gnabry for a goal on Matchday 1.

"A player who can turn in between lines is a big feature and Musiala is the best example," says Roberto Martínez of the German international. "Bellingham too, though he turns in a different way." The clip below gives us a second example of Musiala's impact during the group stage, tracking his movement in the run-up to his goal against Galatasaray.

What all three players under the spotlight here have in common is their mobility and athletic prowess. As with Musiala, the ball-carrying ability of Zaïre-Emery, the 17-year-old Paris midfielder, drew the attention of the UEFA observers watching his displays in the group stage.

This is quite evident in the clip below from the home win against AC Milan where we see him collect the ball inside his own half and carry it forward, unmoved by the attempts of Tijjani Reijnders to knock him off course. "He’s quite strong physically and look at the way he created the first goal – he intercepted a pass and he drove one against one, going past people and giving the ball to [Kylian] Mbappé," says Solskjær.

According to Martínez, the teenager showed good decision-making – when to keep things simple, to protect his back four, or play close to his fellow midfielders – yet it was his strong forward runs, also seen in the second clip below, which arguably stood out most. In this sequence from the same game against Milan we see his movement upfield which ends with a cutback for Lee Kang-In to score.

Solskjær concludes: "Zaïre-Emery has similar attributes to Jude [Bellingham] – he has fantastic physical and technical attributes, he is humble, and he does things beyond his age."

Through the coach's lens

As a player, Aitor Karanka won the Champions League with Real Madrid. Since becoming a coach, he has worked in Spain, England and Israel, including managing in the Premier League and La Liga with Middlesbrough and Granada respectively. He is a member of UEFA's technical observers' group.

WORKING ON TRANSITIONS IN MIDFIELD

This is a specific exercise, but I like all the group to be involved and to understand the purpose of the session. The focus is transition and getting players forward, but the whole team are involved and working together.

In this session you have the back three working on the build-up when in their Blue zone. The Red team move across in their defensive structure and once the ball is progressed to the Red zone, they look to recover the ball as quickly as possible.

To replicate a match scenario, the team must try to attack the goal after a regain and they have one or two midfielders who can get into the final third.

A key lesson here is to gain an understanding of which midfielder should move forward and which should provide cover and balance.

The aim is for the whole team to be working on their defensive structure after a regain – and to then take this into games.

Session plan:

• Space: ¾ of a full-sized pitch
• Number of players: 20­ plus two goalkeepers

Session organisation:

• Key rules: The Blue team start to build up from the back with no pressure from the opponent. The Red team can only press in the Red zone
• The Blue team try to score in the ¾ goal while the Red team recover the ball and progress to the Blue zone to score
• From the Blue team, only three defenders can recover to defend, while from the Red team up to five players can attack (1-2 midfielders going up to create superiority with one covering)
• Note: if there are not many transitions, a coach can put a second ball in play to prompt more transitions

Session points:

The focus of this drill must be on the team that recover the ball and progress it to the creation zone. They should be organised defensively, compact, with a good positional game so they can recover the ball as quickly as possible and have good options to get out of pressure and attack the space in front of them.

• Good, quick decisions after winning the ball
• With no pressure on the ball, players ahead of the ball should take up spaces in the last third of the pitch
• Players should look to occupy attacking spaces, without being restricted by their position
• Decision-making of CM: to move forward or provide defensive balance and support beneath the ball?
• Attacks should be finished quickly, to reflect a real-game scenario