One of the revelations of the Canadian Premier League’s inaugural season was Tyler Attardo, who played for his hometown club of Valour FC. He has impressed for his club despite them being rather inconsistent and showed he has a bright future ahead of him.

Here is a scout report on the Winnipegger forward.

Background

Tyler Attardo was born in 2001, meaning he’s 18 and debuted in professional football at 17 when Valour took a punt on him. He developed at a local academy but also has an interesting youth career. He spent some time at Chievo Verona helped by his Italian passport and also for a Chilean side in Rangers de Talca.

This is odd because Rangers are not one of the big sides in Chile and not many Canadians that are not from South America play for South American sides. This move happened because of Tyler’s agent who is from Chile and got him a 2 week trial at the club.

Now he’s at Valour FC and while he’s mostly rotated, he’s become an important player that is loved by the fans and was seen as a revelation in the first season.

Style

Tyler Attardo is best as a striker, but his natural position is actually a winger. He has played there for Valour at times during the season and mostly spent his youth days out wide. While he did it well there, he hasn’t been able to adapt in the Canadian Premier League. Instead, they’ve experimented with him as a striker and he’s been excellent.

Here you can see his positions played in the last few games. He’s certainly rotated a lot but you can see he played as a centre forward and a winger.

While in his youth career, he was an agile player with lots of pace, he hasn’t shown any of these attributes with Valour.

He also isn’t a great passer of the ball, but up front he has shown plenty of poacher qualities. His pace still withstands and is able to surprise his opponents with his unpredictable off the ball movement and beating the offside trap.

Finally, he has the finishing and heading ability to get the job done. He’s overall an excellent goalscorer and not the agile holding forward he was at youth level.

He scored 6 goals in 980 minutes. For a 17/18 year old in 2019, this is a very good total. Especially given he was given minutes in pockets and would lose rhythm. His xG is at 0.38 which is quite a good total. In comparison, Terran Campbell who won the silver boot with 11 goals has only a 0.22 xG while Rodrigo Gattas has 0.44 with 9 goals. These two players played more than 1000 minutes.

Tyler Attardo (2001) – Scout Report

Here is a prime example of his off the ball movement and attacking positioning. As Marcos Bustos (22) sees open space in between the left back and the left centre back, he loses his marker quite easily and makes a run up top.

In this second image, you can see how much space there was in between York 9’s two defenders, which Marcos clearly saw a chance to exploit. Meanwhile, Tyler was barely straying onside moving in towards the box to search for a pass at a good finishing angle.

This was partially bad marking by York 9’s number 3, Morey Doner. However, Marcos Bustos was able to disrupt the tactical stability in the opposition easing Tyler a way in. He took full advantage and this shows his efficiency. As two defenders mark Bustos, it makes space for Attardo to receive the ball and make a tap in unmarked.

Finally, you can see where he ended up before he first timed Bustos’ pass into the back of the net. He didn’t stop until he received the ball, and allowed no time for Doner to catch up.

Another example here shows that Attardo is fishing in pockets of space all by himself. When he receives the pass, he’s able to first time it and shoot at goal.

Here you can see his attempts to first time the ball. This one didn’t result in a goal but it was straight at goal and saved by the keeper.

Strengths

This was briefly mentioned above, but to go a bit more in depth, Attardo’s strengths lies in his scoring capabilities. His heading is superb. He is 1.85 metres (6 foot 1) so he is quite tall. This does support his aerial ability but his heading technique is what is being mentioned. He is able to head the ball superbly and put power into the ball.

His off the ball movement for his age and league is impeccable. He always seems to find himself in an opportune position to find the back of the net.

He is quite pacey as mentioned and can beat the offside trap or lose his marker to compliment his off the ball ability.

Finally, his finishing is very good which is defined by his xG being at a decently high amount for having less than 1000 minutes. His quality of shot is excellent and he has a decent total given the amount of time he’s been given.

Whats Next?

When it comes to CanMNT, the chances of making it as it stands are slim due to Canada excelling in the forward position with the likes of Larin, Cavallini and now David. However, he can certainly rise to overtake at least one of those. He’s still young and he could do well in a feeder league before making the jump to a bigger league.

Attardo can definitely make it to the national team at some point. It is unlikely he’ll ever be better than what David is projected to become, but he can certainly overtake Larin or Cavallini.

What Tyler needs to do now is score plenty more goals in the Canadian Premier League when gifted more minutes, which is likely. He needs to further prove himself at home before taking a leap to a tougher league and that’s what he is likely going to do.

Conclusion

Attardo had a wonderful first season given the circumstances, and he is likely to continue improving as a player. The Canadian Premier League is a good starting point as he feels at home and can prove to others he can do it there first.

His EU passport will also aid him in a potential move to a European league but his most important step to take is to further cement his name as a goalscorer and performer before making the jump.