Scout Report: Jean-Philippe Mateta

The Young French Striker is Bossing Germany This Season

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Some of you may know this, but some won’t. My 9 to 5 is a high school teacher here in Australia.

With that in mind, I’m going to start this article with something I go over with my year nine students about once a year.

Have you ever heard of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon?

It’s also commonly known as the yellow (or blue, or red, or whatever…) car syndrome.

Basically, when you start to notice something (like a yellow car), you all of a sudden start to see it everywhere.

Well, for me, French striker, Jean-Philippe Mateta has been a player like that in the past few months.

Once he was on my radar, he’s been all over the place.

In this article, we’ll look at Mateta as a prospect.

Player Profile

Name: Jean-Philippe Mateta
Age: 23 (1997)
Position: Striker
Club: Mainz 05
Rookie Season: There are stickers from the 2016 season, and cards from the 2018-19 season

About Jean-Philippe Mateta

Before I deep-dive too much into Mateta’s play style, I want to share this little nugget with you.

I was looking into some numbers the other day, and I wanted to learn a little about the players under 25 that are averaging at least 0.5 xG per 90 minutes in the top five leagues this season. (I put a hurdle of needing to play 500 minutes this season to avoid bench players scoring once and skewing the data).

More importantly, I wanted to see how many touches in the box these players are getting.

And when I did, I saw something pretty cool.

Guess how many players 25 and under were averaging 0.5 goals per 90….

Thirteen!

That’s is less than I first thought it would be. You’ve got the big names on the list like Haaland (who is so good he’s basically an outlier), and Lautaro Martinez, along with some other guys.

However, Mateta is one of those thirteen.

And, he’s getting a high xG per 90 off not too many touches in the box.

The fact that he’s fourth in xG per 90 while being last on the list in touches in the box, means that the touches he does get in the box are bloody efficient and gets shots in great areas.

Basically, he gets in a lot of great scoring positions.

Which is awesome.

When it comes to play style, the first thing you notice about Jean-Philippe Mateta is his height.

Mateta is absolutely massive. At 192cm, he’s a physical presence on the field.

However, he doesn’t always play you’d expect a lumbering tall striker to play. He offers quite a bit off the dribble and in build-up.

He also uses his one on one ability to create chances for himself. Here is a great piece of work to get himself into a shooting position.

Here is another great example of a one-on-one play that leads to…. a shot?

His feet (an a well-timed keeper rush) get in the way a little here.

Mateta seems to have so many of those moments that are almost a goal…

High Expected Goals

Like I mentioned at the top, Mateta has a high expected goals per game this year. In fact, his shooting positions have really improved over his short career.

And they weren’t too bad to start with either.

Just take a look at his shots from open play last season.

As you can see, there’s quite a few shots from tighter angles.

This ends with a bunch of shots either missing the goal, or getting blocked.

Now, take a look at where his shots are coming from this season. Again, these are all from open play.

As you can see, these shots are from way better positions. There’s plenty

A lot of Mateta’s high xG comes from getting in good positions with his off-ball movement.

Here he loses his marker and gets a shot in. While he doesn’t finish, you’d take a shot from there from a play like that 100 times out of 100.

His movement isn’t just from crosses either. Jean-Philippe Mateta seems to always be on and ready.

Here is a great example of a late-game situation, with high stakes, where Mateta can still make the right run - credit to the keeper too on this one.

Player Comparison

I feel lazy when I compare a quick, young, tall striker with Tammy Abraham.

But here we are….

However, this one is a good one. Just look at Mateta’s heat map throughout his career.

Now, look at Tammy Abraham’s positional heat map…

Don’t worry too much about Tammy’s having darker colors. He has about 12,000 more minutes logged on Wyscout which explains the differences.

So, you can see that they operate in very similar areas.

It isn’t just where they operate though. It’s their overall contributions.

Check out how their underlying numbers stack up against one another over league play in the last four seasons.

Pretty much identical everywhere, with Abraham getting a few more assists, but more importantly, Mateta offering a lot more around the ground with an xG Buildup almost double what Tammy Abraham does.

Reminder…

So to condense a lot, we’re not exactly looking at “Tammy Abraham if he offered more around the ground”…. But that’s what the numbers say.

What’s Next For Jean-Philippe Mateta?

Mateta was linked with both Spurs and Crystal Palace in the last offseason, but decided to stay at Mainz.

I’ll let him explain why in an interview with Kicker…

"I didn't see myself in any of the clubs that wanted me.

"I said to myself; 'the best thing to do is stay in Mainz, play a good season and then see what happens next summer'."

Basically, what that is telling me is:

1. He didn’t want to go to Tottenham and be a Harry Kane backup

2. He thought he could do better than Palace

Which, I kinda love. It means that he’s looking for the next move to be the right move. If he keeps performing like he has been, I can certainly see a bigger club looking to bring him in.

He’s represented France at the U21 level, and he’s going to want to do all he can to try and get a look in with their hyper-competitive national team.

Jean-Philippe Mateta For Collectors

Like I mentioned at the start, Mateta’s first sticker was from the 2016 season when he was at Lyon. He even shares the sticker with Lacazette, which is pretty cool.

On a side note…. God that set has a lot of great rookies in it…. Even if it didn’t include Mbappe, it would be worth buying.

Outside of that rookie sticker though, there is a lot of great Mateta cards out there from his time in Germany.

Obviously, with Germany being Topps territory, he’s got a buch of great cards from al the Topps sets. There’s even some Museum cards that I think look pretty cool.

Your Next Steps

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1. Signing up to Soccer Cards Rock if you haven’t

2. Share this with a friend of yours in the hobby. Or share it on your socials, and feel free to tag me @soccercardsrock

3. Shoot me a message on Instagram let’s talk some shit.