An unstoppable goal machine at age 14: What makes AC Milan’s Camarda so special

By SempreMilan -

AC Milan appear to have something pretty special in their ranks as Francesco Camarda continues to draw headlines for his goalscoring exploits.

Sciabolata Morbida‘s revelation on Twitter last year went viral as he highlighted that the then-13-year-old striker scored 247 goals in 40 games in 2017-18, 172 goals in 31 games in 2018-19 and 64 goals in 16 games in 2019-20 for a total of 483 goals in 87 games, at 5.5 average goals per game.

Milan’s Primavera head coach Ignazio Abate welcomed Camarda to his squad as one of three new players who got a taste of training at that level in December, and he scored twice against what was virtually an adult side. But what makes him so special? Scout7Calcio has taken a look…

Camarda possesses the following attributes: incredible Composure (instinct) and finishing, high footballing IQ, there understanding and vision for finding space and timing Runs into it, pace (over a bigger Distance), dribbling even in tight spaces, good link-up play and good hold-up ability. Sounds pretty good right?

Movement and IQ

Below you can see Camarda’s movement and how intelligent he is, as it always seems like he is two or three steps ahead and he knows exactly how he and his team-mate should move relative to how the opponent will.

The next clip is a good demonstration of his IQ and vision of the spaces that he sees and also his understanding when to run into it. He first pulls out the defender on the wing to open space for his team-mate, then by the time he is back he himself runs into that space.

Once again he sees the space he wants to run into, but it is more interesting to see his composure in front of the goal, or even moreso his instinct. The moment he receives the ball he also could try to instantly shoot, yet he makes a cutback and finishes well.

In the move below Camarda drops deep this time as the target man for a long pass. He wins the ball and instantly starts his run into the space in which he wants to receive the ball, and with his pace he gets the ball first before using his dribbling to beat three defenders.

Hold-up play

His physicality and hold-up play must be highlighted too. Despite only being 14 years of age and playing against predominantly 16-year-olds, he has an impressive physique and can hold the ball up – even against 3 defenders – very well, even when opponents throw themselves against him.

Aerial and ground threat

Camarda is also showing strong signs of being comfortable with both feet. Below you can see two different but equally emphatic finishes, one with him left foot and one with his right, to the extent you almost cannot tell which foot is the weak one. This always gives defenders massive problems, because they can’t simply show him onto his weaker side.

Camarda’s aerial ability is also impressive. According to some sources he is around 1.84m tall already which helps winning a lot of duels in the air, but he also already knows exactly how to move inside the box, i.e. when to time his jump to make dangerous headers.

Dribbling

Dribbling is another area where the teenager seems to be ahead of his years. He starts the situation below in a 1v1 but it quickly becomes a 1v2, yet the forward shows his really good tight ball control and uses a burst of acceleration to quickly dribble through both of them and score.

Even in tight space with his back against a wall he can always use his dribbling to get out of it. As seen in the next clip, he has to dribble against threee defenders in really close quarters, since the game is almost over and his team-mates aren’t moving in to help him, but he manages to.

However, at the age of 14 it is very important that he has people around him like family and friends (plus of course coaches) who keep his feet on the ground.

There is naturally the risk of trying to do too much too soon, but it feels like the U16 level is way too easy for his skill set and their has to be discussions regarding either putting him into the Primavera and letting him develop against bigger and older players, or at the very least being used in the U17s.

He has to be moved up now, because ultimately it is better that he scores a few less goals but is exposed to stronger players than letting him play every week against defences that do not know how to deal with him.

Knowing Abate and how he constantly moves up U17 players, plus also knowing that Liberali and Camarda both were both in training in December with the Primavera, it seems there is already a plan behind the scenes to bring him up when the moment is right. Then, the world will watch Francesco Camarda.

Tags AC Milan Francesco Camarda

18 Comments

    1. Different. Dollaruma is a GK NOT striker like this 14 years old boy. If you think a 14 years old boy will do great against Serie-A defender then you’re DELUSIONAL.

  1. Adli part two. These are things he should be doing. Yes he’s young but come on guys, there’s nothing special yet. His body hasn’t formed as yet and we don’t know the levels yet of the defenders in that crop of youth players.

    I remember when they did the same nonsense with Adli during his pre-season. Video highlights of passes a CAM should make and calling it incredible

      1. What a dumb comment. Firstly, the player is 14 so yes his body literally hasnt grown to it’s adult form. What exactly is wrong with the statement? It’s true, his body hasn’t formed and he’s still small..we don’t know if he’ll grow more, remain stunted or get too tall. Secondly, those are two different positions the two players play,.one is a striker the other a CAM. Their goal tallies will be different. Thirdly, do me a favour and read my post and figure out what exactly I’m trying to say. It has nothing to do with scoring but about hyping a player.
        Now if you tell me that he’s only 14 and playing against and scoring against Primavera talent then yes i’d say u made some sense as that’s impressive (and it is) but u didn’t and came up with some nonsense retort . Anyways the overarching point is he’s still only 14 and anything can happen. Just look at Freddy Adu. Smh

    1. “Adli part two. These are things he should be doing. Yes he’s young but come on guys, there’s nothing special yet. ”

      Wow. Nothing special. Have you seen the stats? I guess not. Or if you have you don’t seem to understand how significant the numbers are.

      “These are things he should be doing”.
      Sure, EVERY player should score hundreds and hundreds of goals before reaching 16. Yeah. I bet Leao was doing that too. Except he wasn’t.

      Adli part two? Because? You’d make a fiiiiiine scout. LOL.

      1. Lol bb you too? Did u not comprehend? Adli part two because this site overrated standard passes a CAM should be making, during the pre-season. Hence, “These are things he should be doing”.

        When I said he isn’t special, this is relative. There’s nothing here right now that leads me to believe he’s going to be special later on… he’s special now given his age and goals tally sure but that doesn’t necessarily translate to first team football is what I’m getting at. Right now he has the ability of a Primavera. Whether or not he can grow past that level is unknown. There are many examples of where it doesnt pan out. Kirkic is Barca’s la masia goalscorer not Messi. We all know how that went. As well as Adu.
        These articles don’t help him and other “too young” players in the same way it didnt mastour either.
        Plus he plays for Milan not some club where there aren’t eyes on him at a young age. I fear this isn’t going to end well.

        1. “he’s special now given his age and goals tally sure”

          Exactly what the others than you have been saying all along. No one were saying “he’s the next Messi for sure”. Nope. We just said he has done remarkable things SO FAR. But that doesn’t mean **** if he doesn’t make it amongst the adults.

  2. What seems to me to be his biggest weakness is lack of pace, and that is important to most strikers. But this seems like his only weakness, though.

    1. He doesn’t look slow especially since he’s 14yo playing v 16yo. This will only improve with time too so that’s the least of my worries. Lewandowski isn’t fast at all. Pippo wasn’t lighting fast either. If the kid is smart, has an eye for goal, is driven and talented that is so so much more important than speed. Speed is a dime a dozen these days. The brain is not. Wishing him all the best. Time will tell.

    2. “What seems to me to be his biggest weakness is lack of pace, and that is important to most strikers”

      Depends 100% on the player’s other abilities. Is Harry Kane fast? Hell no. Yet he has scored most goals for England and is a top-3 goal scorer in EPL history.

      Is/Was Giroud fast? Hell no. Yet he’s the number one in France national team for goals scored. Is Lewandowski fast? Nope. Zlatan never relied on speed either. Ruud van Nistelroy? Nope. Not the fastest. I could go on for hours.

  3. The problem is that typically a club has to sign a striker every transfer window because it makes directors look busy, agents typically make the most money off strikers, and it throws some fresh meat to the media and fans.

    This is what happened with Ganz and Cutrone who were both record scorers. Hell it happened to Cutrone after he’d proven himself in the first team and outscored the likes of Higuain. But they just kept piling more and more strikers on him and when they failed they sold him anyway.

    The same didn’t happen with Donnarumma because usually keepers are left alone for more than 5 mins.

    So I’m not confident this guy will break through unless we can stop signing strikers. Sure we need a top striker, and a back up, but he should be left as a third when he’s ready even if there’s injuries.

  4. This hype reminds me of Hachim Mastour with his excellent technic and godly dribble skills like Ronaldinho but what happen with him now. Talent without good mentality and attitude is sucks, I hope he didn’t follow Mastour or Balotelli carreer path.

    1. mastour is owned by a morrcan club now and from the looks of it not even playing there.
      Not many players in the history of the sport has been surrounded by such a huge hype of hope and promise for what could have been to completely fall of the surface of the earth to fail as mastour has done. He is 24 years old and still has time to prove me wrong but his career seems to have been completely ruined even before it began.

      I doubt camarda will score as many goals as he has done previously but he could still become a great striker nevertheless and at the age of 14 he is 1.84 so he will propably end up at around 1.90 – 1.95 meter tall when fully grown.

      I think there are two possible reasons why mastour has failed as miserably as he has done. One is that he might be a technical gifted player but has a lack of understanding of the game itself and its responsibilities and propably would be more suited to play beach football in rio or something than actually playing 90 minutes 11×11. Secondly considering he has already by now been at ten clubs or something his personality either have some bad traits or simply he isnt suited for the profesional demands of footballers because why wouldnt a great deal of clubs be interested in giving him a chance to play. Something must be wrong there because technically he is very gifted.

      Carmada is more dependant on just scoring goals and hasnt have participate as much in the buildup and defending as mastour would have to do so i see no huge complications here but clearly he should take notice of balo and mastours careers and go the opposite direction.

      1. Whether or not Mastour would’ve worked out the fact is not a single player from that youth team made it to the first team. NOT ONE.

        Even Cristante was pushed out (after we signed a passed it Essien….) despite it being obvious he was going to be a top player (and by “top” I mean playing for Roma having won the European Championships with Italy).

        Mastour came through when Milan were churning through literally hundreds of players (inclusive of youth team and loans) each transfer window.

        He was hyped up to the max and then given zero support.

        He was probably never good enough but for me a typifies the wider problems with modern football.

  5. Some people are born to score goals and this kid is one of them. Looking forward to seeing his development; he’s making all the right noises at the moment..

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