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Extended Clip - Who is Kenan Yildiz? Juventus Starlet Dubbed ‘Turkish Alessandro Del Piero' (Ep. 390)
1.2k Plays2 years ago
After a breaking through scoring wonderful goals these last few weeks, Nima Tavallaey and Carlo Garganese do a profile deep dive on Juventus starlet Kenan Yildiz, dubbed as the 'Turkish Alessandro Del Piero'.
This is an extended clip from this weeks free Monday episode of The Italian Football Podcast which is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google podcasts.
To listen to this & all other full episodes of The Italian Football Podcast (with no ads), go to Patreon.com/TIFP OR now also available on Spotify to become a Patron for only $2.99 USD per month (excluding VAT).
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the Italian football podcast.
Who is Kenan Yildiz?
00:00:05
Speaker
Who is Kenan Yildiz? Juventus' Turkish del Piero. So let's profile Kenan Yildiz, who's been the breakout star of Juventus this season, 18 years old. And he's been compared to, of course, the Juventus legend Alessandro del Piero.
00:00:24
Speaker
I died inside when I saw that comparison. Like, can we stop with these ridiculous, prim-face-style comparisons? Like, just because he celebrates with his goal with his tongue out. It's absurd. Like, stop. Oh, God, I'm not even a human teen, and I just cringe. I just want to lie in the fetal position and take a hot shower when I hear this nonsense.
00:00:44
Speaker
The two of them have a very much a bromance going on. Yeah, well, that's that's great. But he's not the new Alessandro del Piero. Can we stop that, please? Oh, my God. I hate it when they called us moon the Iranian messy. There's nothing I want to stop. Stop this.
00:01:04
Speaker
Okay.
Yildiz's Juventus Journey
00:01:05
Speaker
All right. Well, let's talk about position. What position is he playing? So he's an attacker, midfielder, winger, or attacker. He has played as an attacker in a two-man attack for Allegri. But he is very versatile and flexible. He can play in different systems. And he also has the attributes, I think, certainly, to play these different roles. And he joined Juventus as a 16-year-old in the summer of 2022. His contract at Bayern Munich ran out.
00:01:34
Speaker
And Juventus were fighting it out with Barcelona to get him on a free transfer. And Juventus managed to sign him at a time when Bayern Munich was signing delect from Juventus. At the time, this was considered a massive coup for Juventus because he was considered one of the best in the world for his age. And he's worked his way up for the under-19's of UVA and then the next-gen team.
00:02:00
Speaker
and but he was you know it's been clear that for those that watched him in those teams that he was too good for that for that level and there was some frustration early this season actually that he wanted to play in the first team he wasn't getting his chance and he was there was even questions that he could leave in January in order to get those opportunities he actually made
International Impact and Records
00:02:21
Speaker
his
00:02:21
Speaker
his debut for Turkey, his full debut for Turkey before he made his full debut for Juventus. He did play some sub appearances earlier in the season for Juve, but it's only really in the last month that he's absolutely exploded. He scored a brilliant goal against Frosinone just before Christmas. He cut in from the left-hand side in between two players and he smashed it in past the goalkeeper
00:02:47
Speaker
And that made him the youngest foreigner to score for Juventus ever. And since then, he's scored two more goals, two more, both of them fantastic goals. One in the Coppertalia, again, cutting from the left, like Del Piero used to do, and lashing it in. And also, he volleyed in a really good volley. This was a very underrated volley that he scored against Frosinone again in the Coppertalia last week. It was a
Yildiz's Playing Style and Potential
00:03:15
Speaker
God, I'm going to die inside saying this, but it was like a Platinie pass from Western McKinney. Stop. This needs to stop. This needs to stop. It was a Platinie pass. Like, it kills me to say it. Yes, it was the fantastic pass. It wasn't amazing pass from McKinney. And the volley, he kind of scissor kicked it in midair, facing forward. Yeah, it was beautiful. Brilliant technique. It was a beautiful pass.
00:03:42
Speaker
Yeah, and he has fantastic qualities. The control he has, his technique, he can beat a man, he can go right and left.
00:03:51
Speaker
he you know he can shoot and like I said before very flexible tactically he seems to be he seems to have a good attitude and temperament I mean Allegri famously told him he had to cut his hair because it was too long and he got it cut straight away the next the next game I love Allegri going around telling people to cut their hair I love it
00:04:15
Speaker
But it actually has a point though, because he said that he counted, Allegra says, I was standing there counting him how many times and he touched it like 10 times in the space for a few minutes. Like the concentration and just even be fully concentrated on the game, don't be touching your hair. So I'm kind of going to get where Allegra's coming from.
00:04:36
Speaker
I think if there is a criticism that maybe he wants it too fast, like he needs to be able to have a bit of patience sometimes, but I do. I do. Yeah. You can see that there's so much quality, so, so much quality. He's, I mean, Allegri said that he's going to become a great player. Montela says he's going to be, he's going to be well-class.
00:04:57
Speaker
And there's been a lot of, there's a lot of quotes, some of them sensational, some of them comparing him to Ronaldo. Oh my God. Some of them comparing him to Del Piero. But he's a huge, huge talent. He's 18 years old.
Modern Skills vs. Yildiz's Attributes
00:05:10
Speaker
Yeah. And it's the, that's what I find so interesting again, is this, this next, you know, part of this Juventus next gen, you know, thing that they've got going with lots of interesting talented players who are just now, you know, starting to show who they are. And he's one of them.
00:05:27
Speaker
I think he's a really exciting player. I really enjoy watching him play. He seems like we were just talking about how the new modern footballer is not so much skill, but it's more power and physique and less technique, but he's quite the opposite, isn't he?
00:05:44
Speaker
He does have the skill, but that can happen at teenage level, and sometimes it does get coached and drilled out of you. They tell you, don't do this, don't do that, don't shoot from long range, like I said before, don't try and do back hills, play the high percentage, don't play the low percentage. So we'll see, that can happen.
00:06:04
Speaker
um that can happen with players but yeah he's a big he's a big time you can tell some players you can just tell straight away with him and yeah but you know there's there's an interesting player there we'll see how he develops but i i quite enjoy watching him play to be honest yeah and then he's already in the turkey team he's going to go to euro 2024 um there's been a lot of a lot of questions about you know the interest in him from Arsenal Liverpool and Arsenal are interested in him um
Interest from Other Clubs
00:06:30
Speaker
There's no chance, first of all, there's zero chance they've signed in this month, obviously. But I think that you've, I think looking ahead, summer and beyond, this is a player that you've entered, you know, looking to build the, you know, build their future around players like this, like Gield is. It's their new policy of the club. And he's, I think more interesting is who's gonna be sacrificed for him in the summer.
Juventus' Strategy with Yildiz
00:06:55
Speaker
I said earlier in the show that Moisakine could be,
00:06:57
Speaker
made more likely to be alone, but be offloaded this month because of Yielder's emergence.
00:07:05
Speaker
Well, who is going to be, somebody is going to be uploaded, at least one of Juventus' players, unless they go to, let's say they go to a three, you know, legary leagues and they go to a three-man strike force, then it's possible all five could stay maybe in a different attack. There's more space for them. But it's likely that one of the five will leave in the summer. And, you know, there's also questions about Chiesa because his contract runs out
00:07:31
Speaker
in 2025 next year and they still haven't signed a new contract and if they don't sign a new contract by let's say by the euros or by the you know let's say July then yeah there's a possibility that that they could look to cash in on him because they're not going to risk losing him on a free so yeah this yields his development has a lot of knock-on effects