Xavier Bertoncello is a 20-year-old winger who plays for Newcastle Jets in the A-League. Bertoncello is in his first season as a first-team player and made some waves in the Jets’ Australia Cup victory.
Bertoncello is around 5’9″ (1.75 m) in height with a fairly stocky build. Bertoncello has been exclusively deployed as a left winger for the Jets, cutting in on his strong right foot. Bertoncello’s main skill is his ability to make runs between the opposing centre-back and fullback. Almost all of his dangerous shots are a result of receiving a pass after making that run. Bertoncello also takes a fair number of shots from distance. He is a powerful ball striker, but a lot of these shots end up being blocked, which I think speaks to a difficulty with creating separation from defenders. Bertoncello’s dribbling is not particularly good. He is not very shifty, and his close control is not very good. He is quite a powerful runner, but at the moment, this only leads to a lot of dangerous-looking runs that just end with him getting tackled. Bertoncello is quite strong for his size, so he can hold off defenders to a certain extent, but his poor close control usually negates whatever advantage this gives him. Bertoncello is not somebody who is going to be breaking defensive lines with his passing. But he does some good secondary passing work. He does a pretty good job of connecting with an overlapping fullback. He can play some bounce passes with a defender on his back thanks to his relative strength. He is also sometimes able to play some decent cutbacks when he gets the ball on the outside of the box.
Bertoncello’s defensive play is not particularly good. He doesn’t seem to do a good job of cutting off passing angles. This means that he gets bypassed by the other team’s build-up really easily. That being said, he does do a good job of tracking back, and his strength does allow him to bump opponents off the ball.
Xavier Bertoncello is quite a raw player. I don’t see him as a top prospect, but with a couple more years of development in the A-League, I could see him turning into a useful high-volume shooter. If everything goes well for him, he could take a step up in Asia or somewhere in the English-speaking world.
Target Scouting 