Jean Claude Aziangbe is a 21-year-old midfielder who plays for Yokohama F. Marinos in the J-League. He has also played 14 times for Togo’s national team.
Aziangbe has an impressive physical profile. He is tall being listed at 6’ 1 (1.87 M) with a thin build. He is also very fast. Aziangbe is primarily a ball-winning midfielder and his physical profile is extremely helpful with this. His ability to cover ground quickly makes him very effective at closing the ball down and his height gives him long reach with his legs to win the ball back. Aziangbe is a very aggressive defender and this means that sometimes he overextends himself and fails to win the ball. But his speed means that, more often than not, he is able to get back in time to win the ball. It was not uncommon to see Aziangbe sprint to get tight to a player, get turned by that player, and then rush back to win the ball anyway. Of course, flying into so many tackles means that Aziangbe commits a decent number of fouls. Aziangbe is often visibly upset when a foul is called against him, waving his arms around and getting in the face of the referee. This hot-headedness may get him in trouble in the future.
On the ball, Aziangbe is a bit of a mixed bag. His first touch and ball control is not particularly good. Aziangbe often gets caught in possession. He especially struggles with receiving the ball with a player on his back, often turning right into the player or playing a panicked backward pass. He could also improve his positioning in possession as he often sits for too long in the shadow of an opposing player, eliminating himself as a passing option. However, once Aziangbe gets the ball facing forward he does have some decent passing skills. He can break lines and likes to play driven diagonal balls which are accurate and can bypass a large part of the opposition team. Aziangbe’s size and speed can make him an effective ball carrier. However, he is a little bit clumsy on the ball which means that his carrying is not the cleanest. Aziangbe often makes runs into the box and gets a decent number of dangerous shots from inside the box. His size means there is probably more room for his box-crashing to grow.
Jean Claude Aziangbe is a very chaotic player. However, he has a great physical profile and some definite technical ability so he is probably going to draw interest from higher levels. I think top clubs will be put off by his lack of reliability in possession but I could see him doing well for a sub-top club outside of the top-5 leagues like Rangers.
Target Scouting 