A new Argentine offensive talent is currently maturing in Atlanta. The 21-year-old Thiago Almada did not go directly to Europe from his home country, but took a detour via Major League Soccer. His playing style on the pitch, meanwhile, is extremely straightforward.
Thiago Almada is only 1.71m tall, but for the second time in his career he is too gigantic for his surroundings. “He grew out of the Argentinian league, but then surprisingly switched to the MLS, for which he also seems too big,” reports a scout who has been following Almada’s career for a long time. Eight points in five MLS games for Atlanta United and his debut goal for the Argentine national team in March had increased international attention for the 21-year-old considerably. Almada is now being associated with a move to Europe, but some will still ask: ¿quién?
Like Carlos Tévez two decades earlier, the young attacking player grew up in the problem district of Fuerte Apache in Ciudadela, not far from Buenos Aires, and began his career as a child, just like Tévez at Santa Clara. But the scouts from Vélez Sarsfield, an established first division club and ten-time champions from the capital, discovered Almada at the age of five and brought him to the youth academy. At Vélez, he played through the youth teams until his professional debut under coach Gabriel Heinze at the age of 16. Heinze used Almada primarily as a winger, while successor Mauricio Pellegrino regarded the young homegrown player as an attacking midfielder.
Almada’s scorer quota rose to eight in 20 Liga Profesional games in his last season in Argentina 2021. But it wasn’t just rudimentary statistics that drew the attention of many clubs to Almada. His style of play, especially his narrow and flat ball control (on good ground) and his dynamics in the left half-space attracted potential buyers. Gabriel Heinze was a coach in Atlanta in the first half of 2021 and he is said to have reported highly on his former protégé to the club management around Darren Eales.
Instead of taking the route from the Argentinian league to Europe, primarily to Spain or Italy, as many compatriots do, Almada opted for a move to Atlanta United, which paid around 16 million dollars to Vélez Sarsfield. Almada became MLS’ record signing and became a regular in the second month. In his first season, he contributed 13 points, including six goals. However, the Atlanta team under Heinze’s successor Gonzalo Pineda was only partially competitive against the top teams in the MLS. It was only enough for 11th place out of 14 in the Eastern Conference. In the 2023 season that has now begun, Almada again came up with blatant promotions and the path to Europe now seems predetermined.
Always seeks the gate and rarely the shift
However, with all the playful highlights and highlight hits, there are also question marks on and off the pitch. The first question would be to what extent Almada could assert itself in a top league due to its small and slender stature. He has a dynamic first and second step, although he’s not a fast-paced player, which was evident at times during his time on the wing. But the short start can give him the necessary separation from opponents in narrow spaces in front of the defense, in which Almada likes to move.
In addition, he is not yet fully tangible as a player type. Because, although Almada is an attacking midfielder on paper, who can play for example on the ten in 4-2-3-1 or the early eight in 4-3-3, he is not a structure giver or anything like that. His gaze is usually forward in search of a deal or a final pass through an interface that presents itself. This can work especially well in the service of a transition team or a vertically oriented ball possession team, but in the Bundesliga, for example, many head coaches expect their tens to keep an eye on the overall situation on the field before and at the moment of receiving the ball.
Almada’s pre-orientation is improvable and his decision-making is quite conclusion-oriented, which includes the execution of “key passes”. Statistically, for example, he performs extremely well with his colleagues at FBref.com. With almost 9 progressive passes and 6.75 shot-creating actions per 90 minutes, he is one of the top three percentiles – but in the so-called “Next 8 Competitions”. These include the MLS, Brazilian Serie A, Mexican Liga MX, Dutch Eredivisie, Portuguese Primeira Liga, Copa Libertadores, UEFA Conference League and English Second Division. It’s not automatically the who’s who of football.
So a second football question arises anyway: How are Almada’s performances to be evaluated against the sometimes second-class defensive ranks in the USA? MLS has produced strong attacking players in the past, but these often received their finishing touches in Europe, as Alphonso Davies and others show. The colleagues from Goalimpact try to measure the performance of players based on their participation in the goal difference with their model, which has been developed several times, whereby the strength of the opponents is also included in the evaluation. The graphic below doesn’t make you gasp – an Alphonso Davies was early on with a peak goal impact of 180.
Rape allegations and racist goal celebrations
Of course, such number models are not everything and many sports directors as well as coaches will first and foremost see a lot of potential in the 21-year-old Argentine. Last but not least, national coach Lionel Scaloni made it possible for him to take part in the World Cup, during which Almada played six minutes in the group game against Poland.
Concerns may still arise because of some headlines in which Almada appeared in debt or through no fault of his own. In February 2021, he and fellow player Miguel Brizuela were accused of raping a 28-year-old woman at a party organized by Juan Martín Lucero in December of the previous year. Brizuela and Almada were then suspended by Vélez, but were brought back to the team a week later after “new evidence, assessments and statements” emerged. The alleged victim’s lawyer, however, claimed that the evidence had not changed.
Incidentally, this whole process ensured that Atlanta could not or did not want to complete the transfer earlier in 2021. After the transfer went through, allegations against Almada again came up because of a goal celebration he showed, in which he widened his eyes, which is seen as provocative or racist in parts of Asia and in the Asian communities of the USA. Velez Sarsfield’s fans sometimes practice this goal celebration, arguing that it celebrates winning the Intercontinental Cup, the precursor to the FIFA Club World Cup, against AC Milan in Tokyo in 1994.
Almada apologized on Atlanta United’s Instagram and has so far benefited from the belief that many believe he will continue to mature and cease to cause controversy as he ages. Some clubs will still take a close look at mandatory background checks. Actually, like Tévez, Almada can write an impressive and inspiring story. But for this, on the one hand, the performance must be right even after an impending move to Europe, and on the other hand, unnecessary incidents must be a thing of the past.
