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When Axel Tuanzebe was given a 10-minute runout against Wigan Athletic in Manchester United's pre-season, Jose Mourinho was full of praise. He said, per Simon Bajkowski of the Manchester Evening News:

You can play 90 minutes or 1 minute. Sometimes 1 minute is enough. With Axel, ten minutes is enough! The potential is there, you see it immediately. You know him better than me because you know him for a few years but if anyone sees him for the first time, ten minutes is enough to see the potential.

The player reacted positively to this praise. In an interview with MUTV (h/t the club's website), he said, "To have your manager backing you so strongly is a positive sign and my aim now is just to keep impressing and striving towards my goals."

The 18-year-old academy player causing this stir was born in Democratic Republic of Congo and grew up in Rochdale. He has attracted a great deal of attention in United's youth ranks.

Doron Salomon, regular watcher of the United youngsters, said of him: "First and foremost, leadership seems to come very naturally to him." Indeed, Tuanzebe was given the captaincy of the under-18s in his first year, an unusual honour.

Paul McGuinness, former academy coach, said, per Samuel Luckhurst of the Manchester Evening News, "It was the first time I'd picked a first-year scholar as captain. I don't think that has happened since Gary Neville was youth-team skipper. Axel did a very good job—on and off the field."

On the field, his leadership is obvious, both in terms of vocal encouragement and his personal determination. That can be seen in the following clip of Tuanzebe in action against Wolfsburg last season. Here, he is upfield for a corner that leads to a Wolfsburg breakaway.

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He reacts immediately to the breakdown in play. He slows down for half a step, showing his defensive intelligence as he makes the decision to avoid getting drawn in to the player on the ball, instead breaking back to cover the intended recipient of the first pass of the counter-attack.

He beats the Wolfsburg player to the pass, but a slight lapse in positioning—or perhaps concentration—sees him outmuscled. He does not give up, though, and immediately harasses the next attacker on the ball, making sure not to allow him time and space to pick his next move.

Apart from the slight mistake when he is first to the ball, that passage of play is all you could ask from a young defender.

It is no surprise given how highly Tuanzebe is thought of in that regard. He is a fine exponent of the defensive arts, though, of course being a 21st-century elite academy product, he is obviously comfortable on the ball.

Salomon again: "As a defender, he excels in most areas—he reads the game well, is strong, quick enough and forceful when he needs to make a tackle. His passing and distribution are improving all the time and are now at a really high level, too: so much so that he’s not looked out of place on the few occasions he’s played as a holding midfielder."

His defensive intelligence is on display again in the next clip, too.

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Playing Leicester City's youth team last season, he loses out in a tussle halfway into his own half. There is no panic, though. RoShaun Williams takes over tracking the man on the ball, and Tuanzebe immediately drops back to cover the space behind him in the box.

A Leicester runner breaks from midfield, darting in behind him, but Tuanzebe reads the situation and calmly tidies up from the underhit cross. It is textbook centre-half work.

That calm temperament is typical. Salomon says, "There are no problems whatsoever with his temperament and he would have certainly made his first-team debut last year if it weren’t for injury. It’s testament to his quality that when he returned from injury he didn’t look rusty at all and continued his promising partnership with RoShaun Williams."

In a season that saw almost unprecedented numbers of young players given a debut, Tuanzebe was unlucky to miss out. That first-team debut did get close, though.

Indeed, as Luckhurst wrote in July: "A week before Cameron Borthwick-Jackson debuted and four months prior to Marcus Rashford's breakthrough, Tuanzebe became the first academy graduate to be promoted to the first-team squad in Louis van Gaal's final season."

He got onto the bench against Crystal Palace before the injury that scuppered his route to the first XI hit. Had it not happened, he would almost certainly have seen first-team action over the winter months when United's thin squad got close to the bone.

Mourinho's praise of Tuanzebe's pre-season efforts was heartening, but the next step has to be action. The new boss will, of course, primarily be judged on success, but the secondary criteria he has to meet for his tenure to be considered all it could have been is the stewardship of the career of the club's youngsters.

Rashford and Timothy Fosu-Mensah might be closer to the first team for now, but Tuanzebe's talent means he needs a route through at some point.

For now, United's senior centre-halves are Chris Smalling, Eric Bailly, Phil Jones, Marcos Rojo and Daley Blind. It would take a pretty serious injury crisis for him to make the team.

And rumours would suggest Mourinho is not happy with his current options. Portugal and Southampton defender Jose Fonte has been linked with the club, although Saints manager Claude Puel said, per Olawale Kuponipe for the Independent:

There is no problem with Jose [Fonte], it is just strange that this rumour comes just before the game at United. There is a possibility that he may travel with us to Old Trafford. But he is a very good professional and he has played well in training sessions this week and it is important to have Jose with us, I hope, for the United game.

Fonte's arrival might be good news for the experience levels and stability of United's back four, but it would be bad news for Tuanzebe.

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If United offload Rojo—who has even been mooted as part of a swap deal for Fonte, per Alex Crook of the Mirror—then the number of players he has to get past to get in the side would remain steady.

But if Mourinho believed Tuanzebe was ready for the big time, there would be no need to bring in an additional centre-back. And in truth, while a route to the first team is needed, at just 18, Tuanzebe could probably do with a few more years' development before being thrust into centre-stage at the centre of United's defence.

He looks to have all the tools to make it. He seems to have what it takes mentally in terms of his leadership, composure and attitude. Physically, he has the right assets for his position. And technically he is outstanding for his level, in terms of positional awareness, tackling and distribution.

But he also has plenty of time to develop, and while the Van Gaal approach of throwing every young prospect into the first team to see what sticks did wonders for Rashford, it is far from the only approach.

A League Cup or Europa League appearance would be a big achievement for now. It might be a little difficult for him to stay patient when witnessing Rashford's instant success, but that is the exception not the rule. He needs careful nurturing and the right kind of attention, because there is just so much promise in his young career.

Tuanzebe could be a star of the future, but that future is a little way off yet.

Quotations obtained firsthand where not otherwise stated.