Aly Malle, 3rd best player at U17 World Cup

http://www.mondoudinese.it/watford-...per-5-anni-e-stato-il-terzo-migliore-in-cile/

Signed for 5 years - says Watford are the new Udinese for signing up talent!

 

Seen a few gigs there, great venue

 

Excellent stuff, thanks for sharing.

 

Harefield has failed.

 

5 years? We've got him at least until his voice breaks and his balls drop.

 

We had loach and Bond until their balls dropped, but they dropped them too frequently.

 

Man City were interested in him

 

Mondo Udinese has some decent content. Like this, where a Udinese fan and an Italian Leeds fan discuss the FA cup and Leeds' slow demise to obscurity.

http://www.mondoudinese.it/watford-e-granada/due-chiacchiere-con-leeds-united-italia/

"What they mean to an impoverished noble as Leeds United all these years of purgatory?"

 

Let's just hope he can emulate some of the stars of the past, who have won the prestigious 3rd Best Player at the U17 World Cup award.

 

Just looking at the first U17 WC entry on Wikipedia (2007): Bojan won 3rd best player at the U17 WC, with Toni Kroos winning 1st place. Nothing to be sniffed at.

 

Any others?

Genuinely interested, in case you think I'm being sarcastic.

 

I'm not sure about third place, but the last few winners have been: Kelechi Nwakali (2015), Kelechi Iheanacho (2013), Julio Gomez (2011), Sani Emmanuel (2009), Toni Kroos (2007), Anderson (2005) and Cesc Fabregas (2003).

Interesting to see that three of the past four winners (Emmanuel, Iheanacho and Nwakali) are all Nigerian - I'd imagine this is a reflection of their players tending to be more developed physically than the typical European.

EDIT: Given that all I have to do aside from this is my dissertation, here are a few recent results:

2015 - Nigeria won
1. Kelechi Nwakali (Nigeria)
2. Victor Osimhen (Nigeria)
3. Aly Malle (Mali)

2013 - Nigeria won
1. Kelechi Iheanacho (Nigeria)
2. Nathan (Brazil)
3. Ivan Ochoa (Mexico)

2011 - Mexico won
1. Julio Gomez (Mexico)
2. Jonathan Espericueta (Mexico)
3. Carlos Fierro (Mexico)

2009 - Switzerland won
1. Sani Emmanuel (Nigeria)
2. Nassim Ben Khalifa (Switzerland)
3. Ramon Azeez (Nigeria)

2007 - Nigeria won
1. Toni Kroos (Germany)
2. Macauley Chrisantus (Nigeria)
3. Bojan (Spain)

2005 - Mexico won
1. Anderson (Brazil)
2. Giovani Dos Santos (Mexico)
3. Nuri Sahin (Turkey)

2003 - Brazil won
1. Cesc Fabregas

2001 - France won
1. Florent Sinama Pongolle

Can't find below first place before 2003.

Interesting to see how few have actually come to much.

 

Twin brother to Ally Pally

He also has a 100 ft television mast built on his head

 

Probably more to do with their under 17s being typically in their mid 20s.

 

Ah yes, of the famous 'You've got a TV mast on your head" chant.

But what's she gonna look like with a chimney on her? No one's ever answered that coherently for me.

 

Ah I remember that well. Charming Sicilian film about a boy growing up and his love of film.

 

Like Mary Poppins.

 

Interesting, thanks for doing that.

Agree the Non-Europeans generally do not seem to be very successful, but there are exceptions.

I forgot all about Fierro, he used to be amazing on FM!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQvUKr1S4NM

Has a bit of Rod Thomas about him..

Love the tune to this montage, much better than the euro trance we have been subjected to in recent montages.

 

One of my favourites,let's hope Aly is as good!

 

WD say it's close but not done.

 

I'm sure you meant that as a compliment but a few years after Rod Thomas got rave reviews playing for England Youth or whatever he was working in an office.

I was working as an IT contractor in the city & got the shock of my life when Rod Thomas delivered my mail one day. He must have been about mid-twenties at the time. I was gutted TBH.

 

It must have been a bit of a shock for him as he was touted one of the top talents when 16/17..

When it happens now it would probably comes at even more of a shock to the young player with all the riches on offer to those who make it.

 

Scouting closer to home in Hackney unearthed Lloyd Doyley and Bruce Dyer but we stopped helping the scouts who did that.

 

There is a long journey from U18 to being a professional footballer.

Ashley Young, arguably our greatest academy success, was passed up fro a pro contract. It was only because a small group of staff campaigned for him and they let him stay on but without paying him. The fact that he came from a strong and supportive family background that they decided to keep him on.

 

As a reminder: Isaac Success was bought by Udinese for a 400k€ transfer fee (he was still 16YO) after he shined (scoring 7 goals) in the U17 Africa Cup of Nations 2013, won by Nigeria.
In the following 2013 U17 FIFA World Cup Success played only 2 games (scoring 2 goals) before being injured, so he was out-shined by Iheanacho, who scored 6 and won the prize as best player in tournment.

BTW, Udinese tried also to buy Iheanacho, in vain as he chose Manchester City. Probably WFC already in Premier would have lured him better.
Good scouts can certainly find very good deals in the International U17 tournements as they can discern those really promising.

 

Cherry picking the best of the U17s mean that with our league's rules that by the time they've done 3 years in our academy they count as home grown no matter what country they come from.

 

https://www.clubcall.com/watford/watford-beat-psg-and-inter-to-african-teenager-1801127.html

Apparently he's signed a 5 year contract and we beat PSG and Inter to his signature. But no surprise...he will be loaned to Granada for at least the first year of his contract. Shows how far we've come that we're signing players ahead of teams like PSG.

 

Doubt he will go to Granada if they are relegated this season.

 

At 17 years old, he could do a lot worse than start his career in Europe in the second division in Spain. It'd certainly been a smaller change than moving straight into one of the best leagues in the world - how many 17 year olds are there in La Liga, even Spaniards? I can't imagine there are many.

A disadvantage of this, I suppose, would be his status as a home grown player - if he joins us before his 18th birthday, am I correct in saying that by the time he turns 22 (and thus has to be included in the Premier League squad) he would have had three years training in England and therefore be homegrown? Not sure if it's three years before the age of 18 or 21, after thinking about it I'm leaning towards it being the former.

 

I suspect that this is part of the Success deal??

 

What are the rules for home grown players? If he is registered to us but is loaned out to Granada is he not considered our player?