Adnane Bensaad: The Moroccan gem expected to shine for Atletico Madrid by Lions Talk
The start of the journey in Murcia:
Adnane Bensaad is a product of CF Rafal, a club from his boyhood city, where he started playing football at the age of 4. Currently, the young Moroccan winger is living the dream in one of the world’s best clubs – Atletico Madrid, after a great season with Real Murcia where he already got a chance to play for the first team at just 15 years old and even managed to provide an assist in the Tercera División.
Los Rojiblancos signed him in the summer of 2022.
Adnane didn’t need much time to show his quality. He scored his first goal for Atleti U17s at Torneo Internacional de Fuerzas Básicas.
A goal which helped Atletico to win this prestigious tournament.
During his first season in Atleti’s academy, he scored 10 goals and provided 11 assists, being directly involved in a goal every 87 minutes.
A very successful season with his new teammates in which they managed to break Atlético Madrileño’s historical record of points in their Spanish U-19 Championship group.
Adnane also made the Team of the Season created by an important page dedicated to Spanish youth football.
Style of play:
When asked about his style of play, Adnane said that he is a left winger who feels best in 4-3-3.
He’s a player who loves to dribble, loves to have the ball at his feet and enjoy it. Even though he’s more of a creator, he could also do a good job as a striker in 4-4-2 thanks to his decent finishing skills.
“ I’m 97% a left winger, but I’m also good at finding and attacking spaces, so I can also play as a striker but that only happens like 3% of the time”, says Adnane.
This is a quality that will be important for him this season as 4-4-2 is the favourite formation of his new coach Fernando Torres. What’s interesting is the fact that he will probably replace his fellow countryman Salim El Jebari, who also enjoyed playing on the left wing or as a second striker last season.
Adnane is the type of player that you simply love to watch. He’s a very skillful dribbler with a good first touch, who likes to use feints and tricks. He can cause havoc with his supreme dribbling skills and make a difference in the final third at any time by creating chances or scoring goals himself.
A stat to prove my point here – he averaged 4.4 dribbles per game División de Honor Juvenil last season.
“He is unstoppable in 1v1”
“When I saw him the first time, I saw something different, something special. So I decided to take him directly to the Elite. He’s a bit the style of Carrasco but with more dribbling. A little bit Neymar too. He has everything to become a top winger”
This is how Bensaad’s first coach in CF Rafal Jorge Guillen describes him.
Adnane in action against IRT’s first team – intercepts the ball and cuts inside by dribbling past three opponents with ease.
Adnane shows his superb footwork and provides an assist with a great cross.
National team:
In September 2022, despite being only 16, he was called up to Morocco’s U20 national team for a tournament in Murcia. Skipping the U16 and the U17 directly to the U20 was a really big step in his young career, even though he wasn’t given many minutes.
He had to wait a few months to score his first goal. It happened against Venezuela U23s at the prestigious Maurice Revello Tournament.
With the likes of Abde Raihani, Salim El Jebari and Ilyes Ziani becoming too old for this age category, Adnane is expected to lead the attack of the newly built U20 national team.
Player Matrix:
Ball control: 8/10
Finishing: 8/10
Dribbling: 10/10
Crossing: 8/10
Short passing: 7/10
Long passing: 7/10
Vision: 8/10
Off the ball: 7/10
Decision making: 8/10
Bravery: 9/10
Heading: 7/10
Defensive work rate: 7/10
Defensive reliability: 5/10
Leadership skills: 6/10
Talent rating:
8,5/10
An extremely interesting prospect who has the potential to become a top-class player.