Scouting Report: Sebastiano Esposito

Sebastiano Esposito first popped up on my radar a few years ago when he was about sixteen years old and coming off the Euro Under 17 tournament.

Esposito and his Italy side were the runners up in that tournament and his four goals peaked the interest of Manchester City, Liverpool, PSG, and a bunch of other huge clubs. However, he stayed at Inter Milan - which, let’s be honest… is a massive club in it’s own right.

He’s now at SPAL on loan in Serie B, where he can is getting a solid amount of playing time.

Player Profile

Name: Sebastiano Esposito

Age: 18 (2002)

Position: Striker

Club: S.P.A.L (on loan from Inter Milan)

Country: Italy

Rookie Season: 2019/20 Season

About Sebastiano Esposito

Like I touched on at the start, Esposito is now on loan at S.P.A.L. in order to get more playing time.

He’s a classic striker when you look at his positioning, spending most of his time central, although he can play on flanks when needed. Esposito also likes to drop a little deeper.

Granted, a lot of his appearances for Inter Milan were as a substitute, which means he did have to fill some gaps during games, which skews his data a touch. Still, you can see where he likes to be with this heat chart below.

Watching Sebastiano Esposito play limited minutes at Inter Milan, there are a couple of things that really stand out.

The first thing is that he gets a lot of touches in the box. Especially when he gets decent minutes. In the two games he played over 60 minutes for Inter Milan last season he had five, and seven touches in the box - which is a big number.

In fact, if we check this graph out that compares his stats to other players around the world, you’ll see his Touches In The Box per 90 minutes (TIB/90) is massive.

A lot of these touches come from great positioning and movement off the ball and work with those players around him.

I often see him, or a teammate make a sacrificial run into space, dragging a defender away so the other striker can have a better run at goal.

This leads me to my next point which is his link-up play. Like I said, he works well with other attackers around him (I think at this stage of his career he’d struggle as a lone man up front), and while I wouldn’t say he consistently plays awesome balls on for other attackers, he is capable of doing so on occasion.

For example, I absolutely love this pass.

There are plenty of more experienced strikers that don’t make that read on the teammate running in behind.

His quick thinking turns what could have been a slow buildup into a quick move, and a goal.

A big part of his buildup play too is his dribbling. He averages over five dribbles per 90, which puts him with a select few players like Vinícius Junior as teenagers in top leagues to average both five or more dribbles, and five or more touches in the penalty box per 90.

Another thing that stands out watching Esposito play is his defensive energy. A year or so ago, I would have said he was a little too balls-to-the-wall with his pressing and was almost trying too hard to win every ball back.

Sometimes it would work, and others it would leave massive spaces for opponents to attack.

This, is actually pretty typical of a player who feels like they have something to prove.

However, since then, he’s really matured and is making better plays defensively. For example, take a look at this defensive play below:

There are so many attacking players that would just sit and let the opponent get out of that situation. However, he presses at the right time, makes the tackle, and turns a defensive action into an attack.

I also love how he makes the easy pass in that play too.

All in all, his game is pretty well-rounded for a young striker and there’s other abilities he has like being able to take some wicked free kicks that I haven’t mentioned too much. The reason I haven’t mentioned his free kicks is that it’s fine to take them for Italy junior teams or Serie B, but he’ll need to start taking them in the big leagues first.

What’s Next For Sebastiano Esposito

As I mentioned earlier, Sebastiano Esposito is on loan at SPAL this season in an attempt to get more game time. Inter Milan have a pretty set attacking lineup with Martinez and Lukaku, so Esposito’s opportunity would have been very limited.

Sometimes people don’t like to see young guys go out on loan, but I am all for it. Especially if they’re at a top team and won’t get too many important minutes.

He’s played most games at SPAL this season, and while their season has been pretty poor so far, Esposito just needs to get consistent playing time.

And along with that game time, he can hopefully score some more goals. It's a hard life as a substitute striker, you’re expected to come on in with 15-minutes left and perform straight away.

He needs to get 90s into him, and build up his goal tally.

Hopefully, he can have a good season and set himself up for either:

1. A loan to a Serie A side next season

2. Getting more game time at Inter next season

Regardless, don’t look at the loan move as Inter losing confidence in the player. Sebastiano Esposito is certainly one a striker that Inter Milan have a high hopes for going forward.

Sebastiano Esposito Cards and Stickers

Sebastiano Esposito’s rookie year for cards was the 2019/20 season with his time at Inter Milan.

This means that there’s the Panini stickers, which, to many, will be considered his “true rookie”. However, the whole card vs sticker debate is for another time.

Don’t worry though, as well as the Panini stickers, there are also the rookie products from Chronicles.

The Serie A Chronicles form 2019/20 is so underrated in my eyes. A bunch of good players there.

One awesome part of Esposito’s loan move is that he won’t get a new card this year. There might be a sticker, because Italy does have limited stickers form their second and third tier leagues in their premier sticker collection.

However, because SPAL are in Serie B, and not Serie A, they won’t be in Chronicles.

With any young guy, Esposito is a risk. However, I do like what I see so far and hopefully a loan will do well for him.