This summer we are running a series profiling 50 exciting players under the age of 25 — who they are, how they play, and why they could be attracting interest in the coming transfer windows.
So far, we have run the rule over a striker on Manchester United’s radar, Gen-Z’s answer to Sergio Busquets and the France forward who has gone from zero to €100million in the space of a year. You can find all our profiles until now here.
Next up is a Brazilian rated by many as one of the best strikers the country has produced since Ronaldo. Barcelona announced they had agreed a deal to sign him just a few weeks after this piece was first published…
When he was a kid, playing youth football in Minas Gerais, Vitor Roque had a nickname.
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Tigrinho, they called him — Little Tiger. It was a reference to his dad, an amateur footballer who went by Tigrao (Big Tiger), but it also captured something about the youngster’s game. Roque was fierce, explosive, fearless. He stalked the field like it was his own personal property.
He was a defensive midfielder back then, but he wouldn’t be for long. The academy coaches at his first club, America Mineiro, felt that his attributes — not least his searing pace — would be best employed further up the pitch. Skip forward a few years and that decision looks a lot like Brazil’s entry in the next No-Brainer Olympics.
Today, Barcelona have agreed a deal to sign 18-year-old Roque after he became one of the most sought-after young strikers in world football. His displays for Athletico Paranaense and the Brazil Under-20 side have convinced Barca to pay up to €61million (£52.2m, $66.9m) for him (the club said he will sign a contract until the 2030-31 season with a buy-out clause of €500m and he is expected to join for the 2024-25 campaign).
Earlier this year, Roque became the youngest debutant for the senior Brazil men’s team since Ronaldo — a player to whom Roque has also been compared. That chugging sound you can hear is the hype machine moving through the gears.
Vitor Roque celebrating a goal for Brazil Under-20s vs Venezuela in February (Photo by JUAN PABLO PINO / AFP) (Photo by JUAN PABLO PINO/AFP via Getty Images)Identifying future superstars is a perilous game. Potential curdles easily. Roque has a long road ahead of him and a few rough edges to smooth. Watch him play, though, and it is hard to avoid the conclusion that he has something special. Not for nothing does Luiz Felipe Scolari, his former coach at Athletico, expect him to become one of the best players in the world.
Roque had shown flashes of quality while playing for Cruzeiro in the early stages of the 2022 season, but he really rose to prominence on the national stage after moving to Athletico in April. There were goals against Cuiaba, Libertad (in the Copa Libertadores) and Palmeiras, but his real coming-out party was the 3-2 win over Atletico Mineiro in August.
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His first goal in that game is worth looking at. It exhibits a few of the qualities that make Roque such an exciting talent.
As Pedrinho, Athletico’s left-back, advances down the left, Roque — who is playing up front in a 4-2-3-1 system — drops deep, drawing his marker out of position:
Roque is two-footed: he favours his right, but is capable of carrying the ball and finishing with his left. His speed off the mark also makes him a thrillingly direct dribbler. Here, with a drop of the shoulder and two quick touches with his left foot, Roque turns his man and accelerates into the space in behind:
With two defenders coming across, Roque has to reassess. His low centre of gravity allows him to jag back onto his right foot, again leaving his marker grasping fresh air:
Having created room for himself, there’s only one thing left to do. His shot, a study in violence and control, sends the ball flying into the top corner of the net:
That strike caught the eye of Tite, the Brazil coach at the time. He also admired Roque’s second goal of the match: a less spectacular finish, but a good demonstration of his movement in the penalty area.
“He makes a run, the cross comes in, he anticipates it and finishes at the near post,” Tite swooned in a subsequent interview. “I thought, ‘Wow, this kid has an extra gear’. He’s really fast — a force. Beyond his technical skill, he has the physical attributes of a senior player. It’s impressive.”
Ramon Menezes, the current Brazil caretaker manager, is a big fan. It was he who gave Roque his senior international debut against Morocco in March — reward, in part, for the forward’s performances in the South American Under-20 Championships at the start of the year. Brazil, coached by Menezes, took the title; Roque was joint-top scorer with six goals in eight games.
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He has maintained that momentum in the months since, helping Athletico to top spot in their Copa Libertadores group and the quarter-finals of the Brazilian Cup. He is already the darling of the fans; just this week a local rapper released a song in his honour.
A record of 11 goals in 26 games in 2023 is solid rather than otherworldly, but the devil is in the details. Take his opening goal against Sao Paulo earlier this week, which displayed some really smart misdirection.
As Vitor Bueno advances down the right, Roque shapes to make a darting run towards the near post:
The centre-back tracks the movement but ends up marking no one as Roque peels away behind him and into space at the far post, giving him an easy tap-in:
This kind of strike won’t grace many end-of-career highlight reels, but is a good guide when it comes to a player’s predatory instincts. Roque, who has scored a number of goals from close range, has the happy habit of being in the right place at the right time inside the six-yard box.
His pace also makes him dangerous on the break. Here, against Gremio last month, the striker cleverly occupies both centre-backs by curving his run into the gap between them:
He then pins his ears back and targets the space in behind:
The second defender is following him closely at this stage and perhaps even looks favourite to cut out the through ball. But Roque motors away from him, holds off the challenge and digs out a shot that loops over the goalkeeper and into the net:
This goal neatly captures Roque’s interpretation of his position. He is not a striker who gets too involved in combination play. He likes to play on the shoulder and exploit his speed.
“Vitor Roque isn’t a player who drops back to look for the ball,” former Athletico coach Paulo Turra explained earlier this year. “He’s more about power. He’s very fast, really explosive. He knows that his main characteristic is the way he attacks space.”
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The statistics back this up. The graphic below shows the ways Roque contributed to ball progression for Athletico in last season’s Campeonato Brasileiro. A significant chunk is from receiving progressive passes.
Also notable is the 26 per cent from his own dribbling. Over the last 365 days, Roque has attempted 3.8 take-ons per 90 minutes in the Campeonato Brasileiro, hinting at his willingness to commit defenders and drag his team up the pitch whenever possible.
Roque’s lack of involvement in the build-up is also laid bare by the data. He has attempted just 11.2 passes per 90 over the last year, putting him in the bottom percentile in that category across all of what Fbref calls the “next eight” leagues (Campeonato Brasileiro, MLS, Eredivisie, the English Championship, Liga MX, Primeira Liga, Copa Libertadores, Europa Conference League). No player with over 900 minutes of game time in the “big five” leagues (Premier League, Serie A, Bundesliga, La Liga, Ligue 1) has attempted fewer.
This is not necessarily an issue. It’s a style point, to some extent, and every player’s stats are necessarily conditioned by the role they are asked to play. But it is something that interested clubs might wish to consider.
One area in which Roque has taken great strides is in the defensive phase. At the start of 2023, Turra challenged him to do more, telling him that foreign coaches would be paying most attention to his work off the ball.
“Out of possession, he has an important tactical role,” Turra said. “He has to close down spaces, know when to pressurise the defender and when to hold back, know when to try to intercept a pass. That’s what we’re teaching him. With the ball, he’s already a class apart.”
Roque seems to have taken the advice on board: he is in the top 25 per cent of forwards in the “next eight” leagues for tackles, interceptions and defensive actions that lead to a shot attempt over the last year.
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Throw in his knack for scoring in big games — witness the last-gasp winner against Estudiantes in last season’s Libertadores — and you have a pretty compelling picture. Alexandre Mattos, Athletico’s director of football, probably didn’t have to do much of a hard sell when he travelled to Europe for talks with Barcelona last month.
“He’s a spectacular talent, the best forward in Brazil,” Turra said in May. That is not an outlier opinion, although the second part will be out of date before too long after Barca’s announcement.
The Little Tiger: coming soon to a jungle near you. You can’t argue with roar ability.
(Photos: Getty Images; design: Sam Richardson)
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