Gabriel Tilo is a 17-year-old winger who plays for Sydney United in NPL New South Wales. Tilo has garnered a lot of attention (relatively speaking) in the opening weeks of the NPL season as he has bagged 3 goals and added an assist in the first 4 games. This is partly down to a shift to playing on the wing after mostly playing as a fullback in his previous senior appearances.

Tilo is a small player, standing around 5’7″ (1.70 m) with a slim build. Tilo is quite fast, which makes him a big danger in 1v1 situations. He is not necessarily the most technical dribbler, but he is good at knocking the ball past opponents and beating them that way. Tilo’s pace also makes him a danger to get on the end of balls played in behind the opposition defence. Tilo has decent off-ball movement, which allows him to get shots from decent areas in the box. That said, he has a tendency to just shoot as soon as he gets the ball anywhere near the opposition’s goal. This leads to a lot of shots from very difficult angles, and he doesn’t have the ball striking to make up for shooting from a less-than-ideal location. Tilo tends to occupy a wide position in possession. He is quite good at finding either overlapping fullbacks or underlapping central players in transition. However, when he played as a fullback, he did not look as assured in his passing against more set defences. Tilo’s pace and solid enough dribbling also allow him to get to the by-line and play cutback passes, which often create high-danger shots.

Although I think he is much stronger as a winger, Tilo’s experience as a fullback does make him relatively strong on the defensive side of the ball. This allows him to win the ball back pretty frequently on the press or when tracking back. His speed also makes it difficult for opponents to beat him by knocking the ball past him.

I don’t expect Tilo to keep his current goal-scoring pace up for the whole season, as he has been a tad lucky with his finishing so far. But he looks about on par with teenagers who have gone on to make a big impact in the A-League. If his performances continue like this, he would be a very obvious pick-up for any team in that league. Sydney United’s ties to Croatia might also create some avenues for him to make the jump to the professional game.