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Extended Clip - Who Is Joshua Zirkzee? The Giant Bologna Striker Wanted By AC Milan & Napoli (Ep. 374)
1.3k Plays1 year ago
After an impressive start to the season for Bologna in the Serie A, Nima Tavallaey and Carlo Garganese do a profile deep-dive on former Bayern Munich striker Joshua Zirkzee.
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.
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Transcript
Zirkzee's Breakthrough Season
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the Italian football podcast. Let's move on to another attacker that is having a great season and we're going to do a little profile on Joshua Zirksi of Bologna who has really really
00:00:21
Speaker
exploded this season in Serie A.
Early Career at Bayern Munich
00:00:26
Speaker
If we take a little step back first, big things were expected of him when he joined Bayern Munich as a 16-year-old in 2017. I can remember how highly rated he was. He scored a hat trick on his debut for Bayern Munich's second team, the reserve team of Bayern when he was 17. He was then integrated into the Bayern
00:00:48
Speaker
first team and he was part of the squad that won that historic treble in 2020 during the Covid season and he scored four goals in nine Bundesliga games in that season and he was tipped by some as being potentially the eventual successor to Robert Lewandowski.
Struggles and Redemption
00:01:07
Speaker
But then he kind of lost his way at Bayern. He failed to progress in the following season. He was loaned out to Parma in the second half of the 2020-21 season. And he was a total flop that season. They got relegated. He then moved on loan in the 2021-22 season from Bayern to Andalette. And he did well there. He scored 16 goals in the Belgian Pro League.
00:01:34
Speaker
And that saw Seria come back in for him again. Bologna signed him in the summer of 2022. But he struggled again. Last season, he had a very bad season for Bologna. He scored only two goals all season for Bologna. And his reputation wasn't very high coming into this current season. And some question whether he would ever fulfill that potential.
Transformation at Bologna
00:02:03
Speaker
In fact,
00:02:04
Speaker
I mean, I'll be honest with you, I didn't see him exploding like this. I mean, if you watched him play last season, he's very tall, 6 foot 4 inch. He looked like someone that was very big, lanky, but his touch was heavy. He was a very untidy player.
00:02:25
Speaker
some of his decision making. And you just didn't think he was going to, you just couldn't think that he was going to develop like he has done. But this season, under Tiago Motta, who obviously is one of the best young coaches in Serie A, he really has developed so much so quickly. And, you know, for such a giant of the striker,
00:02:44
Speaker
He's so good at holding up the ball, bringing others into play. He's got quick feet. The way he protects it, the way he even gets out of tight spaces with his quick feet, technically he's very good. And like due to his kind of his height, strength and technique, that kind of special blend, he has been compared by some to Zlatan Ibrahimovic. I mean, I know that is an exaggeration that I think that's not even put him in the same, but it's not put him in under the same umbrella as Zlatan.
00:03:14
Speaker
He has got something. He's got something
Playing Style and Comparisons
00:03:18
Speaker
there. His game can still be untidy. He has some loose passes. He does have some heavy touches. I think his shooting definitely needs to improve. He's not the cleanest with his strikes. But there is something there, and big teams are starting to look at him now.
00:03:36
Speaker
And he's caused problems this season to the biggest teams in Serie A. He's got a wonderful equalizer against Inter when Bologna come back from 2-2 at Inter, at San Siro, to draw 2-2. He was man of the match in the 1-1 draw at Juventus. He caused them all kinds of problems in that game, got the assist for Luis Ferguson in that game. And he's been a key player for a Bologna team who are threatening to challenge for a European spot this season.
00:04:04
Speaker
So yeah, he's done a great, he looks like a really, really, I mean, he's 22 years old, so he's young. He looks like a really interesting player for the future, doesn't he, Nimr? He really does. He really looks like, the thing about these big guys, because he is a big guy, he's what?
00:04:23
Speaker
He's six for four, 193 centimeters in metric, in the metric system that most of the world uses. He's a big guy and he's very technical in the sense that, did you see that? Was it a sassolo, I think, that the way he can, his first touch, that's the thing about him. His first touch can look really bad, but then he has this ability to do
Interest from Top Clubs
00:04:49
Speaker
these crazy
00:04:50
Speaker
like insane technical numbers, like that goal against, I think it was Sasolo, that long ball
00:04:58
Speaker
that goes to him and just in one movement with the back heel, he takes it down and goes, I mean, it was stunning. It's contender for one of the goals of the season. That was so, so nice to see. I don't know what I think of him. I think the problem with him is I think when he's good, he's like, wow, but when he's bad, he's almost unwatchable.
00:05:26
Speaker
Yeah. And that's very typical, I think, of young players, talented players, that you don't really know. They're like, when they're good, they're really good, but when they're bad, you just want to like, oh my god. And it's a lack of maturity. But to be fair, what you said about Tiago Motta, I think this season,
00:05:46
Speaker
barring that opening game where he was awful, since then he's consistently played at a good level, at a high level. And he's a very good... I remember us talking about him after that game. We were almost... well, I was. Oh, it was bad. No, it was horrible. He looked dreadful. I mean, this is what I mean. He looked like he barely was a professional footballer at times with his touch and movement. And then you watch him after that and
00:06:14
Speaker
you know, you see again against, I think against Asolo, that goal is just, there's not very many players in the world who can score a goal like that. Very, very simply put, which is interesting and it's going to be really interesting to see what he does.
00:06:29
Speaker
this season. We're looking at Soule, we're looking at this guy. There's quite a few young players that are having quite an interesting season. It's going to be interesting to see what his next move is because I think that if he continues like this and he reaches double figures in the Serie A at the age of 22, well, I think the big, the Napoli's and Milan's of the world will probably want to have a closer look at him.
00:06:58
Speaker
Well, that's just it. Milan were reported to be interested in him in the summer and they're going to need a replacement for Giroud.
00:07:11
Speaker
Potentially they could look at him again. I know Jonathan David is the is the favorite but Napoli I've also been linked as assigned him as replacement for for Victor Osman. I don't think he has that killer in him that That maybe well certainly but the Osman doesn't have he doesn't have that. I mean he needs to score more goals I think he's got four goals this season, which isn't bad. It's still still a good number But you know, he he I think he definitely his shooting and finishing can probably probably
00:07:38
Speaker
can probably improve but we know that with strikers nowadays, number nine nowadays, that they're all around game and their ability to bring others into play, link up and hold the ball up and that is so important nowadays, isn't it? And especially when you're playing
00:07:54
Speaker
for a big team when you're going to dominate the possession and the territory and you're going to have very deep lines, you know, having to break down deep lines. I think Xerxes can be very, very useful for that. But he can also be useful when he's isolated because he's very good at holding the ball up. So I just think that he's, yeah, I think he's a very, very useful player.