Baba Scouted: Marcelo Allende

What do you know about scouting?

Not much hu? This is why we have Juan Gafas, who’s back with the popular BabaScouted edition after more than a month break. During our maintenance period, Juan managed to find himself part of a news incident in Colombian nation media, when his report encouraged a Football Manager gamer to sign Jaminton Campaz. More about this story, you can find out here. Now, please meet Marcelo Allende.

Marcelo Allende

Age: 21

Club: Montevideo City Torque (Uruguay)

Position: Attacking Midfielder

Nationality: Chilean

Market Value: 600.000 € (Transfermarkt)


Marcelo Allende started his career in the Chilean lower divisions, but he was considered a talented player and showed excellent skills in the 2015 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Chile. He was the youngest in the squad but drew more attention than most. About a year ago City Football Group signed him for their Uruguayan club, as he yet made a breakthrough in his career, where he is doing well so far.

Allende has excellent technical skills, quick feet and sharp movement with the ball, getting out of tight spaces and keeping possession under pressure. He is a joy to watch, trying smart and unorthodox tricks, and can play in a deeper role, carrying the ball forward, wide or between the lines as a more attacking midfielder. When receiving the ball near the box, he can do amazing things to set up teammates or himself, as he did a couple of months ago facing Cerro. 

Allende has a quite obvious shortcoming; he is 5’5” tall and not very strong. He does work well without the ball when defending and can be aggressive to some degree, but there is a limit to how effective he can be. Another problem, one he can work on and improve, is his decision making and tendency to have too many touches on the ball. He is very effective in some games, but lacks consistency and fails to impact on others.

I think the possibility of Allende making it into top levels is low. But he is a delightful player to watch, and with some improvement can do well in a better league and maybe even dream about having another go with the national team. He is not there yet, but only last week Yeferson Soteldo proved that it is not all about size again.