BACK STORY
Messias’ back story is common knowledge among Milan fans. For somebody who came to Italy with his family seeking financial security to working as a delivery boy to achieving his dream of playing for Milan, Messias’ tale is quite a Cindrealla story.
A non-league player, the Italian rules for registering non-EU plaeyers in lower divisions of Italy (Serie B, Serie C, Serie D) is quite bizzare. Serie B and Serie C teams are not allowed to register Non- EU players. They are only allowed to sign professional contracts when they win Serie D with their team. Junior Messias played with Gozzano in Serie D and won the division which prompted Crotone who was then in Serie B to offer him a professional contract.
PLAYING STYLE
At 179 cm tall, Junior Messias has a very stocky build and is mostly left footed. Messias can be considered more of a ball-carrier and a dribbler rather than a passer.
Playing as a Mezzala or a support striker in a 3-5-2 system, Messias has more attacking instinct than defensive instinct and likes to occupy the wide areas or the right half space and look to lead counter attack.
Messias prefers to dribble with his left foot taking a lot of soft outside touches with his feet. This allows him to keep close control of the ball and not concede possession. He is an excellent dribbler and this makes him an extremely tricky customer in terms of 1v1’s for Serie A teams.
While not being an explosive player in terms of PACE, Messias has an excellent ability to accelerate with the ball at his feet making him all that difficult to dispossess with the ball at his feet.
He always makes himself available to team-mates whenever they are being pressed. He keeps his passing shot unless there is an opportunity to switch play. His deft touches makes it easy to flick balls on all the more catching opponents out by surprise.
However he is not one footed and can play with both his feet while his crossing with his left foot is really good making him the set piece taker of Crotone
And finally as a forward player his positioning and finishing can be considered really good. He is always in station in between 2 defenders in space while on the end of crosses and is a good finisher as it can be seen with his outrageous chipped goal vs Parma.
Where he lacks is in terms of his defensive output. While Crotone as a whole do not press as aggressively as Pioli asks of Milan, Messias whether it is a tactical instruction or he lacks pressing, does not press well when stationed as a mezzala. Often when played as a CM behind Ounas in the 3-5-2 both Ounas and Messias occupy the same spaces. However when played as a second striker, messias presses better unsettling Center-backs with pace.
Messias is also not aerially dominant like Brahim Diaz. With his short stature, Messias can easily get over-powered while competing with tall center backs. This however does not make him shy away from challenges and always looks to open up defences with flicks on position himself in between defenders for unchallenged headers.
STATS
CONCLUSION
Like Messias mentioned in his interview he was sorry for the fans that he did not turn out to be the signing fans expected but what seems to be seen is whether Messias would be a system player rather than the famous signing. A big famous example would be Josip Illicic to Atalanta who was not a big signing but he gave Atalanta a different dimension for their system.
The number certainly seem to suggest Messias can fit into Milan but the big question is can Messias handle that jump in quality and big expectations that come with this move. Make no mistake, this could be a Zero to Hero move from Milan’s leaders.
TRANSFER RATING 6.5/10
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