Ilari Kangasniemi is a young CB from Inter Turku, who currently sit 2nd after 18 matches (and who finished 2nd last season as well). He is yet another promising teenager from one of the best leagues in the world at providing quality minutes to young players. In fact, Inter Turku have already reportedly turned down a near-record €1.5m bid for him earlier this summer.

Kangasniemi is a solid CB, versatile enough to play on the right or left despite being right-footed. He’s a high-volume and high-quality progressor of the ball both with his passing and carrying, although most of his passes are possession-enabling passes to another CB or a FB/CM who has come deep. He has the potential to be an asset on set pieces given his height, but needs to become more assertive in the air. He’s scored 1 goal from a Corner this season.

He’s still quite young and developing physically, but has a very good frame at 1.99m (6’5”). Kangasniemi will need to get stronger in physical duels before taking his next step. But he is already a very good defender and has good positioning despite being so young, although he has shortcomings natural of a player like him.

I believe he would be best as a wide CB in a back 3 who typically stays deeper, progressing play and shifting gears with his passes while anchoring the width’s rest defense.

This first image highlights just how good Kangasniemi is at moving the ball forward.

The top left section shows all times where Kangasniemi recovered the ball and it left at least 2 opponents that are further away from their own goal than where Kangasniemi recovered the ball.

The top right shows major line-breaking passes, or rather passes where at least 3 opponents were beaten/taken out of the game.

The bottom left shows passes and carries breaking the defensive line, or where at least 1 opposing defender was beaten. Impect calls a “defender” as one of the 5 furthest back players.

And the bottom right shows progressive carries, or carries where Kangasniemi carried past at least one opponent.

The image below splits Kangasniemi’s progression passes (at least 1 opponent bypassed) by phase of play.

Naturally, most of these come during sustained possession phases, which is where teams spend the vast majority of their time on the ball. But in transition and second ball phases are where a lot of danger comes from. Kangasniemi is pretty decent at progressing the ball here, usually after recovering the ball.

Now here’s Kangasniemi’s carries (Impect calls them “dribbles”) split into phases. We can really see his strong carrying here. He ranks #1 in the league among CBs for carry quality per 90, with over 8 bypassed opponents per game.

He’s usually only breaking the first line of pressure and not running past several lines. I think this helps back up my idea that he’s not a hybrid wide CB/FB like a Bastoni (fun fact, Kanggasniemi was with Inter’s youth team for 1.5 years), but more of a deep, possession-enabling wide CB. Someone who mainly passes, but is able to carry when the space presents itself.

Finally, here’s a deeper analysis trying to forecast Kangasniemi’s full-season data and how he may compare to a hypothetical world where every CB played the same full-season minutes. I made a LinkedIn post recently with a lot more info on this analysis.

Basically, Kangasniemi is already one of the top few CBs in the league, and estimated to remain as such at the end of the season. His data is already very valid which means we should be confident this is his true ability this season.

However, his game-by-game numbers are a bit more inconsistent than his peers, which isn’t too surprising given this is his first real season in Veikkausliiga… and it’s mainly that he has high rated games and extremely high rated games instead of high and low ratings.