Daniel Carter is a 20-year-old striker who plays for Real España in Honduras. Carter is in his first full season as a senior player for Real España and has shown promising signs with 5 goals in a little under 1000 minutes this season. He also made his senior international debut in a friendly against Guatemala and played in all three of Honduras’ games at the 2023 U20 World Cup, recording two assists. I previously wrote about Carter in our coverage of the 2023 Central American Championship. Carter is an extremely raw player with a lot of things to work on but he also shows a huge amount of promise.
Daniel Carter is a Target-Man. He’s 6’0 and although he is slim he is quite strong physically. Carter is always a danger in the air thanks to his strong vertical leap and his ability to generate power with headed shots. However, he doesn’t necessarily win that high of a percentage of his aerial duels. I think part of this is, that although he is strong and a good jumper, he’s a bit lacking in overall coordination. In fact, pretty much all of Carter’s greatest strengths are partially undercut by some kind of defect. This can be seen as a negative, and if he never improves it certainly will be. But the way I tend to look at it is that if Carter can be this effective with these problems then he will be elite if he can make the improvements. Carter is a consistent danger in and around the goal, thanks to his decent movement. Carter has a strong sense of where he should be at any given moment. However, his movement could be more dynamic. He’ll run in a straight line to more or less where he ought to be but sometimes he ends up stuck behind a marker. Some feints or changes of direction would make him a lot more dangerous. Carter has a real knack for picking up loose or second balls in the box. He is pretty quick and that can allow him to get to the ball quicker than everyone else when it’s bouncing around. Carter does not offer very much on the ball. I mentioned his poor balance earlier but it can’t be emphasised enough how much this guy constantly looks like he’s about to fall over. This really limits his dribbling and his ability to hold the ball up. He loses the ball a lot either with bad passing or failing to beat opponents on the dribble. Defensively Carter could also do better. He’s not very active, which may partly be a tactical thing, but I think he’s also a bit slow to recognize where he can take defensive actions. That said, I think his physical qualities could allow him to become an effective presser.
This report puts a lot of emphasis on Carter’s shortcomings. There certainly are a lot of those. But, at the end of the day, he’s a strong, fast guy who gets a lot of shots in dangerous areas. That alone gives him a pretty high floor. Also, if you compare him to other successful Honduran players when they were 20, Alberth Elis, Romell Quioto, Luis Palma, etc, he compares very favourably. Central American football is low-scoring and chippy. Scoring goals in those leagues is hard, especially for young players. If he’s able to figure out one or two of his problems then his potential really is pretty high. I don’t think he’s ever going to reach the very top but if everything goes perfectly I think a smaller Big 5 team is plausible. For now, MLS seems like a logical next step or a league of a similar level.
Target Scouting 