Contextual Scouting: Next Breakout Stars in South America

Every season, a handful of players break through from leagues outside the ‘Big Five’. They arrive under the radar, adapt quickly, and become key contributors - sometimes even turning into major transfers within a year or two. So how do some clubs spot these players early, while others miss out?

Talent alone isn’t enough. To succeed, a player needs to match a team’s style, system, and role expectations - in possession and out of possession. That’s where Contextual Scouting comes in.  With this approach, the goal is simple: help clubs find players who match specific tactical and stylistic needs both in and out of possession. Not just “good” players, but the right ones - increasing the certainty around these key investments. 

The second part of effective scouting, and what we want to focus on here, is identifying emerging talent in and ‘untapped’ leagues and markets that can generate high resale value.  In this piece, we combine the two frameworks introduced in our earlier articles - the Playmaker Index and the Pressing Index - to create a Total Index Score. This score captures a player’s overall impact on the game by evaluating their attacking and defensive contributions in tandem, offering a more complete scouting lens.  We’ll go through some realistic scenarios for clubs in different situations to show how these scores can add precision and more certainty in recruiting for key positions, focusing on emerging markets; places where quality often goes unnoticed, and where value can be found before prices skyrocket. Our next stop is South America, using data from the 2024 season.

Club Context: A Mid-Table La Liga Side Operating on a Budget

In our second scenario, we take on the role of a mid-table La Liga club searching for a new midfielder - with a specific focus on the LATAM market. The player must be Spanish-speaking, making South America a natural scouting ground. Operating on a limited budget, the club follows a “buy low, sell high” policy aiming to identify undervalued talent with strong resale potential. 

We're looking for a versatile midfield profile: one that combines strong ball progression with defensive reliability. The player offers tactical flexibility, being comfortable as one of the two in a 4-2-3-1 double pivot while also able to operate as a number 8 in a three-man midfield.

The LATAM market is especially appealing since many of the world’s best players, particularly from Brazil and Argentina, have emerged from this region and seen rapid rises in value. One clear example is the growing demand for Brazilian centre-backs, something SCOUTED explored in their “centre-back goldmine” analysis earlier this year. 

Clubs across Europe are already tapping into this market. Brighton hit gold with Moisés Caicedo (€5m), selling him to Chelsea for €116 million, and with Alexis Mac Allister (€8m), sold to Liverpool for €65 million - a combined profit of €168 million (excluding sell-on clauses). Below is a snapshot of recent and similar transfers emerging from the LATAM market:

In short, South America offers exciting opportunities for uncovering hidden talent, developing them on a bigger stage, and eventually securing major profits through smart resale.

Methodology

For our search, we’ve applied the same Total Index Score methodology as in our previous scenario in Scandinavia, but with the adjusted weighting to favour defensive output. In practice, this means that the Pressing Index now carries 60% of the score and the Playmaker Index 40%, rather than distributing weight across each category individually. 

Our shortlist comes from the Argentine Primera División, Brazilian Série A, Colombian Categoría Primera A, Ecuadorian Serie A, and Uruguayan Primera División, targeting versatile midfielders who combine strong ball progression with high volume and intensity out of possession - players who can anchor our style and deliver future profit potential.

In the top three of midfielders under 26, we can find the technically gifted Ecuadorian midfielder, Kendry Páez. Chelsea recently secured the 18-year-old for just €10 million. Instead of integrating him straight into the first team, they’ve opted to loan him to their partner club, RC Strasbourg, for the upcoming season - a move that underlines their long-term development strategy which mirrors similar models seen at clubs like Manchester City and Red Bull. 

Chelsea also won the race for the highly sought-after Estevão - and yes, he too appeared in our Total Index Score when we filtered for wide attackers. Looking ahead to the 2025 season, Franco Mastantuono (now signed by Real Madrid) ranked inside the top five of our Total Index Score. Both players are already earning regular minutes at the top level and stand out as clear examples of the rising stars category.

Another player we highlight as a potential rising stars is Augustín Soría, a 20-year-old recently signed by Al-Sadd in the Qatar Stars League.

Lastly, we want to highlight “hidden gems” Hércules and Richard Ríos (maybe not so hidden anymore). Hércules earned a move to Fluminense and impressed at the Club World Cup, while Ríos, a Colombian international, joined Benfica this summer - a club renowned for buying smart, developing talent, and securing high resale value.

The other midfielders on our list are relatively unknown names, and perhaps this is where the real value lies for a La Liga club operating on a limited budget?

Breakdown of Breakout Stars

Let’s take a closer look at how they perform across the different categories, both in and out of possession. In this comparison, we’ve ranked our selected players in descending order by their Pressing Index.

Remember, we're looking for a versatile midfield profile: one that combines strong ball progression with defensive reliability. In our context, the ideal data profile must excel in both Progression and Volume, offering value on and off the ball.

One player that caught our eye in the data is Alejandro García, a 24-year-old attacking midfielder from Once Caldas in Colombia’s top division. García ranks highly across four of our six index categories, suggesting he can contribute effectively in and out of possession. Notably, he also appeared in our Index Score for the ongoing 2025 season, highlighting his consistency.

In the following section, we will take a closer look at García and compare him with Hércules and Ríos, who both made moves following the 2024 season.

Scouting Alejandro García

We have already established that García’s profile is exciting based on his strong index score. However, for our sporting director we want to deliver a more detailed report, supported by intuitive visualizations and metrics connected to our playing style. A natural starting point is to break down García’s events using heatmaps to better understand the areas of the pitch he most frequently operates in.

In the top-left heatmap, we see García’s passing options. The darker areas indicate where he most frequently moves to get open and receive the ball. He tends to drift toward the left side of the pitch while still operating centrally, though there are also movements toward the right. The top-right heatmap, which illustrates his on-ball engagements (defensive actions), shows that these actions are concentrated mainly on the left side. Taken together, this makes it clear that his positioning is primarily oriented to the left. The same applies to his possessions, although his off-ball movements display greater variety when progressing into the final third. In summary, García demonstrates strong spatial coverage, influencing large areas of the pitch with contributions on both sides of the ball.

We can further contextualize the heatmap by incorporating physical metrics. The scatter plot below illustrates this by comparing our shortlisted players’ explosive accelerations to HSR and Sprints per 90 (x-axis) with their total sprinting distance per 90:

Erick Mendoza stands out as our most explosive player averaging 7 explosive accelerations (to above 20 km/h) per game, something also reflected in his intensity score from the breakdown. However, his high index score is largely driven by his playmaking qualities (see breakdown), which are also reflected in his goal contributions. So far this season, he has recorded 8 goals and 2 assists in 18 appearances for Delfín in the Ecuadorian Serie A.

García and Ríos both score strongly on explosiveness and sprinting distance, which reinforces our initial impression of García’s physical profile from the heatmaps.

Tactical Context - Will The Player Fit Our System?

To determine if García is a good fit for our club and style of play, we can use scatter plots to handpick metrics that are important for us. 

Our tactical context matters: as a mid-table side, we're unlikely to defend a lot in a high block like the top teams. Instead, we’ll spend much of our time in a medium block, looking to progress the ball from deeper areas and transition quickly when we win the ball.

This means we need to search for players who are not just high pressers, but who are accustomed to defending in a more compact structure, while still showing the progressive qualities we prioritise in possession.

Below, we’ve highlighted our shortlisted players based on two key metrics: their On-Ball Engagements in the Medium Block per 30 OTIP (x-axis) and their On-Ball Engagements in the High Block (y-axis).

The scatter plot provides further context to the players pressing volume, showing that García averages more than 30 on-ball engagements in the medium block per 30 OTIP, which so far suggests a strong fit with our style of play. We can also observe that Kendry Páez ranks highly for on-ball engagements in the high block, a trait that likely makes him well-suited to Chelsea’s high-pressing approach.

The next step is to assess the effectiveness of García’s engagements. In the following scatter plot, we visualize the percentage of actions where players force the ball backwards or affect the opponent’s line-breaking passes:

Players in the top-right corner perform well in both metrics, hindering progression in two ways. The data suggests that García and Hércules will help our team to be defensively solid and stop the opposition from carrying or playing through our lines.

For the final part of our tactical context analysis, we shift focus to an offensive metric. We have already verified that García meets our requirements for defending in a medium block, but our aim is to spring quick counterattacks and punish opponents in transition. To capture this, we now look at which players recorded the highest number of eight-meter carries at above running speed in transition:

The bar chart highlights the top 15 players in our selected South American leagues, with García ranking in the top five with 2.2 carries in transition per 30 TIP. When focusing on carry retentions at above running speed, Agustín Soría also appeared alongside García and Paez.

In summary, García profiles as a strong fit for our style of play, which is built on defending in a mid block and launching quick counterattacks.

Off-Ball Profile

We have now confirmed that García meets our requirements for both defensive and progressive qualities. Looking back at the percentile breakdowns, however, he stands out as the weakest in the finish category, which mainly covers pass attempts to runners in behind and cross receivers. Since it is rare to find players who excel in every area, we want to examine his off-ball profile to gain further context and assess whether qualities there might compensate for his limited direct goal contributions and chance creation volume.

Below, we compare García’s radar with those of Hércules and Ríos, who also rank within the top three of the pressing index.

From the off-ball radar, it is clear that García is a runner. He ranks above the 90th percentile in several offensive run types, and few players can match his output on underlaps, where he averages 2.4 runs per 30 TIP. Our head coach particularly values midfielders who make these movements consistently, as underlaps demonstrate game understanding and a willingness to create space for teammates. It is often a selfless act, since the runner does not always receive the ball. Video scouting confirms that García makes these runs deliberately: after carrying the ball and releasing it to a winger, he frequently follows up with an underlap, at times even gesturing with his hand to signal the space he intends to attack. 

When comparing his profile with the other two midfielders, García’s run distribution most closely resembles that of Richard Ríos, now at Benfica. The key distinction is that Ríos seems to contribute more in build-up, reflected in his higher scores for dropping off and coming short runs. Hércules, by contrast, is more involved in direct chance creation, leading the trio in cross-receiver runs and runs in behind - reinforced by his 75th percentile score in the Finish category. 

Contextual Scouting: From Data to Decision

We've now done the groundwork of data scouting by identifying a player whose profile aligns with our playing style. The next step is to validate these findings through video analysis, confirming that the traits highlighted in the data translate to the pitch. 

At this end of the market we cannot expect to find a complete midfielder who excels in every aspect of the game. Instead, we have prioritised qualities that are central to our style of play. García’s biggest strengths lies  in the preceding phase, progressing the ball up the pitch and opening up space for his teammates, as well as covering a lot of ground both offensively and defensively. With that in mind, he could be deployed as a space-eater or runner in midfield, complemented by another more advanced playmaker (8/10) more specialized in goals and assists. At a market value of just €900k (Source: TransferMarkt 20.06.2025), García could represent excellent value for a club within our budget, provided we platform his strengths effectively within the team environment.