After back to back promotions under Emilio Ferrera, RFC Seraing is currently fighting against relegation in the Jupiler Pro League. After losing league games in a row they faced STVV, who was the club they last beat back in november. Away from home it didn’t go well for Seraing. STVV looked in control throughout the whole match and opened the score after 40 minutes through Daichi Hayashi. The away side managed to get back in the match before half time, when Nadrani put in a good cross from the left. Just when it looked like the match was probably going to end in a draw STVV got quite a cheap penalty after Christian Brüls went down in the box. Brüls himself converted the penalty into a lead, which meant RFC Seraing had to go all out of the draw. Seraing pushed up far, which left big gaps at the back. In the 94th minute STVV’s Taichi Hara headed in a nice cross from Chris Durkin after a fast counter-attack to seal the deal.
Seraing setup in a 5-4-1 formation. Often one of their two wide midfielder, Youssef Maziz and Antoine Bernier, would push forward as a second striker. Whilst the other would play as the third centre midfielder. Creating more of a 5-3-2. When they would try to push forward, both of them would play more as inside forwards, which then looked more like a 5-2-3.
Ratings:
- A1 – Very good, could play higher
- A2 – Strong potential to play higher
- B1 – Good, strong player at level
- B2 – Potential to be strong player at level
- C – Average for the level, re-watch
- D – Below average in this match
Georges Mikautadze
Player profile:
- Nationality: Georgian/French
- Age: 21
- Date of birth: 31/10/2000
- Current club: RFC Seraing (On loan from FC Metz)
- Career: AS Saint-Priest, FC Metz, RFC Seraing (Loan)
- Position: Striker
- Secondary position: Left Wing, Right Wing
- Preferred foot: Right
Georges Mikautadze was one of the biggest revelations in the second tier of Belgian football last year. On his official debut for RFC Seraing the striker managed to put four goals past Lommel SK. The loanee from FC Metz ended up scoring 22 goals in 24 games and was one of the main reasons why Seraing got promoted to the Jupiler Pro League.
This year Mikautadze is still scoring goals on a regular basis, but not as easy as in 1B. The 21-year-old striker had a really tough game against STVV. He was often isolated up front as lone striker and barely had the ball, since Seraing’s midfielders struggled a lot to get the ball forward. Seraing played a lot of blind long balls in his general direction hoping for him to do something with it. Standing at 5’9” being a targetman and trying to win a lot of headers certainly isn’t the role you want him in. In the second half there were more moments where Mikautadze was able to show his qualities on the ball. There were a few moments where positioned himself smartly between STVV’s centre back and right back and had some opportunities in a 1v1. The Georgian international looked very fast on the first meters, but his top speed didn’t look that high. Mikautadze is very agile and easily changes direction with the ball at high pace or before taking his first touch.
Mikautadze prefers his right foot, but has a decent shot in his left foot as well, making him very unpredictable in the box. His shooting against STVV wasn’t great, but both the shots he took with his right foot were after very long sprints with the ball. The striker is very comfortable carrying the ball forward. He has great dribbling and is not afraid to try and take on his opponent. However this game, especially in the second half, I felt like there were quite some moments where he tried too much on the ball instead of playing an easy pass.
Rating – A2
Mikautadze had a tough game against STVV, but I felt like this was mainly because of a poor team-performance. He is a very dangerous player that could be of use for most of the teams in the Jupiler Pro League.
Youssef Maziz
Player profile:
- Nationality: French/Moroccan
- Age: 23
- Date of birth: 24/06/1998
- Current club: RFC Seraing
- Career: FC Metz, US Avranches (Loan), Le Mans FC (Loan), RFC Seraing (Loan)
- Position: Attacking Midfield
- Secondary position: Centre Midfield
- Preferred foot: Right
Youssef Maziz played as the left attacking midfielder for RFC Seraing and like all of his teammates also had a difficult game. In possession Maziz would either move up quite far forward as sort of a left winger/second strike or he dropped back to support the two central midfielders, but this was mostly dependent of his counterpart on the right, Antoine Bernier. If Bernier was very far up the pitch, Maziz would drop back a bit and vice versa. Standing at 5’9” and not being the fastest player, his main strengths are his technical abilities. Maziz has good dribbling using both feet and is a very tricky player. Sometimes it just really felt like he was playing on the street. Maziz also showed to be a very smart player with good awareness of his opponents and teammates. He scanned very well before taking a touch and also on the ball. In the 44th minute this lead to a very nice pre-assist to Mathieu Cachbach. After a corner Maziz had the ball on the edge of the box. He faked a pass to Mikautadze in the middle and with one smooth movement he played the ball to Cachbach who made an overlapping run on the left. Nadrani then scored from Cachbach’s cross.
Maziz certainly didn’t play a perfect match however. He made quite some mistakes with controlling high balls and quite a few sloppy passes. There were also some moments where he overcomplicated a situation with a backheel or took too much time on the ball before making a decision, which followed in loss of possession.
Rating – B1
Technically Maziz is one Seraing’s better players and he showed the he can be effective and important in the final third. I feel like a lot of players in his team aren’t quite on the level of the Jupiler Pro League, but Maziz could definitely be a good player in this league
Target Scouting 