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Dobson has apparently a high ceiling, starter for a top half team in the big 5, but currently pretty low base and lots of areas for improvement
scouting reports
- Thread starter grazorblade
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Agree with the scouting report for Dobson as he ranks highly percentile-wise in certain metrics like chance creation and discipline, but there are other areas, especially defensively, where he needs to improve. He has the potential to go to a top European side but don't think he's ready for the Big Five leagues yet.
WhatAmIWatching
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I hope that Dobson is smart enough to stay in the AL until his body matures a bit more and is capable of playing 90 minutes.
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Super critical scouting report of badalato
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Alex Badolato (Newcastle Jets) – Scout Report
Alex Badolato is a 20-year-old midfielder who plays for the Newcastle Jets in the A-League. The Jets are Badolato’s second A-League club, having left the Western Sydney Wanderers for more game time…
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WhatAmIWatching
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Like all young players he gets a lot of hype as stated but now he needs to be smarter. I don't think that he will bulk up so he will need to learn to read the game better.Super critical scouting report of badalato
Alex Badolato (Newcastle Jets) – Scout Report
Alex Badolato is a 20-year-old midfielder who plays for the Newcastle Jets in the A-League. The Jets are Badolato’s second A-League club, having left the Western Sydney Wanderers for more game time…
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Xavier Bertoncello (Newcastle Jets) – Scout Report
Xavier Bertoncello is a 20-year-old winger who plays for Newcastle Jets in the A-League. Bertoncello is in his first season as a first-team player and made some waves in the Jets’ Australia Cup vic…
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Pretty accurate reports on the players,
Dobson just needs to keep his head down, do his apprenticeship and should turn out a handy player.
Badolato has dropped off a cliff since the beginning of the comp, with Burgess looking like being out for a while , he will have more responsibility, and hopefully gets his mojo back.
Bertoncello, I haven't seen enough of him so far, seems to have potential, but can go missing in action in some games. But as with most 20yr olds, needs to stay grounded. I think Badolato was starting to feel a bit big headed. He could just have girlfriend troubles, who knows.
Dobson just needs to keep his head down, do his apprenticeship and should turn out a handy player.
Badolato has dropped off a cliff since the beginning of the comp, with Burgess looking like being out for a while , he will have more responsibility, and hopefully gets his mojo back.
Bertoncello, I haven't seen enough of him so far, seems to have potential, but can go missing in action in some games. But as with most 20yr olds, needs to stay grounded. I think Badolato was starting to feel a bit big headed. He could just have girlfriend troubles, who knows.
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Max Cooper (Newcastle Jets) – Scout Report
Max Cooper is an 18-year-old centre-back who plays for the Newcastle Jets in the A-League. Cooper has established himself as a semi-regular starter this season, which is his first as a professional…
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Thanks a bunch for starting this thread and posting these scouting reports, Grazor.Super critical scouting report of badalato
Alex Badolato (Newcastle Jets) – Scout Report
Alex Badolato is a 20-year-old midfielder who plays for the Newcastle Jets in the A-League. The Jets are Badolato’s second A-League club, having left the Western Sydney Wanderers for more game time…
This Badolato evaluation is quite critical, but I'll add a few game based performance criteria and other comments, where this scout is making huge mistakes.
* I know as a long term teacher and semi-pro coach, one never , ever makes appraisals so young in a player's career what they are and are not capable of long term in terms of which leagues they are capable of playing as seniors. It is an inexact science to predict which league a player will play in. Some of my foolish fellow teachers make the mistake of telling parents at an early age their children will be nothing more than average academically, or, football coaches rate their young players and predict some will never amount to anything as seniors. Time shows them to often be wrong.
* Players haver a different capacity to adapt to playing in unfamiliar circumstances overseas. John Iredale loves being overseas and thrives.
* There is no scope for the scout rating Badolatao's capacity to read the game ahead of play. Bado predicts where the ball is going ahead of other players of his age. Speed of thought can be more important than speed over the turf.
* Vision - before Bado receives the ball he has good spatial awareness of his teammates being in various positions in terms of viable passing lanes.
* The scout idiotically ( this should have died out 16 years ago), stated that Bado doesn't try adventurous enough, high risk passes. Where a player passes is dependent on the off the ball movement of fellow players to open viable passing lanes. I thought Rob Baan, Han Berger, Ad Derkson and Arie Schans put this to bed in 2008?
* One of the best obs from the scout was Bado's inability with first touch, to hold off his marker under pressure - but this is more of a physical trait than a technical one. At his age, as he gets stronger and pursues a football specific weight training program and plyometrics, he should improve.
Martin Boyle and Aidan Hruistic struggle with this and they have had supposedly successful UEFA club careers and Socceroo careers.
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Patrick Beach (Melbourne City) – Scout Report
Patrick Beach is a 22-year-old goalkeeper who plays for Melbourne City in the A-League. Beach became City’s first-choice keeper in the 24/25 season. He made some high-profile errors early in the se…
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Beach ready to start for a league ranked 10-15 and potentially peaking for a weaker big 5 team which is flattering
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Liam bonetig
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Liam Bonetig (Melbourne City) – Scout Report
Liam Bonetig is a 20-year-old centre-back who plays for Melbourne City in the A-League. Bonetig was previously on the books of Celtic, where he made 19 appearances for their B team. This season, he…
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ashtongate
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Piss off, scouts. Let them stay at Newcastle for a couple more years.
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Justin Vidic (Brisbane Roar) – Scout Report
Justin Vidic is a 21-year-old striker who plays for Brisbane Roar in the A-League. Vidic previously made a handful of appearances for the Newcastle Jets but has broken through as the main striker f…
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Sounds about right
Hoping we get the occasional player with a strong physical and technical profile
https://targetscouting.com/2025/12/23/2026-mls-superdraft-recap/
This features former Victory academy player Mitchell Baker
This features former Victory academy player Mitchell Baker
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looks pretty flattering!
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Youlley with a flattering scouting report, thinks he can play in the top half of the big 5 if he fulfils his potential
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good physical and technical profile though I personally am not quite as flattering
Okon' scouting report is interesting, suggests he could go to a midtable eredivisie team (which is probably about right) but doubts he has a high ceiling due to his poor progressive passing. But I think his progressive passing is strong. He had a couple of really poor games recently so it could be skewed by those games
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Rhys Youlley (Sydney FC) – Scout Report
Rhys Youlley is a 20-year-old midfielder who plays for Sydney FC in the A-League. Youlley spent time with Western Sydney and Macarthur before transferring to Belgian side Westerlo. He played fairly…
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good physical and technical profile though I personally am not quite as flattering
Okon' scouting report is interesting, suggests he could go to a midtable eredivisie team (which is probably about right) but doubts he has a high ceiling due to his poor progressive passing. But I think his progressive passing is strong. He had a couple of really poor games recently so it could be skewed by those games
Paul Okon-Engstler (Sydney FC) – Scout Report
Paul Okon-Engstler is a 21-year-old midfielder who plays for Sydney F.C. Okon-Engstler was previously in the systems of Club Brugge and Benfica, but never made a first team appearance for either. H…
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Youlley with a flattering scouting report, thinks he can play in the top half of the big 5 if he fulfils his potential
Rhys Youlley (Sydney FC) – Scout Report
Rhys Youlley is a 20-year-old midfielder who plays for Sydney FC in the A-League. Youlley spent time with Western Sydney and Macarthur before transferring to Belgian side Westerlo. He played fairly…
good physical and technical profile though I personally am not quite as flattering
Okon' scouting report is interesting, suggests he could go to a midtable eredivisie team (which is probably about right) but doubts he has a high ceiling due to his poor progressive passing. But I think his progressive passing is strong. He had a couple of really poor games recently so it could be skewed by those games
Paul Okon-Engstler (Sydney FC) – Scout Report
Paul Okon-Engstler is a 21-year-old midfielder who plays for Sydney F.C. Okon-Engstler was previously in the systems of Club Brugge and Benfica, but never made a first team appearance for either. H…
Some of the games I've watched of Okons I considered his forward passing a strength.
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I think he got unlucky with the games the scout watched
he had a couple of very poor games recently and scouts usually just watch a few games
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Gabriel Tilo (Sydney United) – Scout Report
Gabriel Tilo is a 17-year-old winger who plays for Sydney United in NPL New South Wales. Tilo has garnered a lot of attention (relatively speaking) in the opening weeks of the NPL season as he has …
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curious about @scout_aussie view
seems waaay too high in the short term, though the english football system allows a lot of loans to lower divisions
the style in league 2 is still very hoofball, so I personally think it is bad to go to england if you aren't at least league 1 standard and if he isn't starting week in week out in the a league I'm skeptical he is there just yet? Maybe a year or two from now