Mukhammad Khakimov is a 15-year-old centre-back who plays for Pakhtakor Tashkent and the Uzbekistan U-17 National Team.
Khakimov is around 6’0″ (1.83 m) with a reasonably strong build for a player his age. Khakimov is left-footed and has decent technical ability, which means he provides a lot of value in possession. Khakimov did a decent job of breaking lines with his passing, though he was sometimes a little bit hesitant to play the ball forward. This may be because he lacked confidence when playing against older players. He still managed to play line-breaking passes with decent regularity, but by moving the ball a little bit quicker, he could have taken more opportunities to do so. Khakimov has generally good accuracy with his long balls, but he was not doing a lot to break down opponents with his long passing or to switch the point of the attack. He was often just lobbing the ball forward to the left-winger.
When it comes to the actual defending part of being a defender, Khakimov is a bit of a mixed bag. His relative size makes him quite good at winning physical battles or shielding the ball out of play. But his ability to track runners and cover space is not particularly good. He got through balls played past him a lot at this tournament. Khakimov does not have outstanding pace, but he isn’t slow either, so he can at least catch up with players getting on through balls sometimes. Khakimov is a fairly aggressive defender, stepping out to make defensive interventions. His solid enough speed is also helpful there. But, I would not say he makes defensive interventions with that high of a degree of success. His 1v1 defending, while not actively bad, does not stand out as a strength either.
Khakimov is a little bit rough, but he is left-footed with decent technical and physical profiles. He is also playing against older players, so he is naturally going to get the attention of clubs in bigger nations. I could see him playing for a Conference League-level team in a league like Poland or Serbia.
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