Dejan Kulusevski is the prospect you wish you'd heard of
Your first question about Dejan Kulusevski might be, "Who is Dejan Kulusevski?" And you couldn't be blamed for asking... except that Juventus just paid €35m for him. Your second question is probably, "Why?"
The 19-year-old Swede (who also has North Macedonian nationality) came to Atalanta's youth system in 2016 and made a handful of appearances for the Bergamo side in the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons. But for a creative winger and attacking midfielder, opportunities were always going to be limited – and for good reason – while Papu Gomez was around. So he finally got a loan to Parma, where he's having his breakout season.
Kulusevski has played more than 500' at both RW and CAM with fairly similar styles at both positions. He's a big dribbler who's already close to average in ground duels for Serie A. Despite his height of 1.86m, he isn't very active in the air, which sort of goes with the territory at Parma. He gets into the box a lot, but he's more likely to look for a teammate than to shoot himself. Throughout his career, he's had about twice as many assists as goals.
In attack, Kulusevski tends to use longer passes at RW and more link-up play at CAM, where his ball retention and his attacking output are higher. In fact, though it's early days, his attacking output at CAM is already better than for most players at that position in Serie A. And that's probably what got Juventus's attention.
That, and the fact that some of the few young players with similar styles to Kulusevski's are named Calvin Stengs and Cengiz Under – two more of the hotter attacking prospects in European football. Or maybe it was that Kulusevski already has a cap for Sweden at age 19. Or maybe they just liked his red hair.
Either way, Kulusevski will be joining Juve for 2020-21 after finishing his loan at Parma, which Juve have extended. And the timing may not be coincidental. The club don't have any other young attacking midfielders or second strikers of Kulusevki's stature, and next season could be Paulo Dybala's last in Turin. His contract is up in 2022, and he'll be 27 years old in the summer of 2021, still a good age for the club to cash him in. After that, will it be Kulusevski's show?
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[Photo: FedeNerazzura]
