The ultimate utility player: every manager’s dream | OneFootball

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.

Despite spring-like temperatures, the atmosphere was boiling at London’s Emirates Stadium. In April 2024, Arsenal and Bayern were battling for a spot in the Champions League semi-finals. Serge Gnabry responded in the first leg just minutes after Arsenal’s early lead with the equalizer. Harry Kane shone ten minutes before halftime in his specialty, converting a penalty to give Munich a 2-1 lead.

You could feel the hope of the roughly 60,000 Gunners fans for the Champions League trophy slipping away with every passing moment. But in the 66th minute, Arsenal coach Mikel Arteta finally played his ace: he brought on Leandro Trossard.

He needed barely ten minutes before scoring the equalizer, keeping Arsenal’s semi-final hopes alive with a low, unstoppable first-time finish. A goal that kept Arsenal in the race at the final whistle of the first leg, but ultimately wasn’t enough. In the second leg, Kimmich destroyed all of the Gunners’ trophy dreams—and Trossard’s as well—with his 1-0 goal for Bayern in the 63rd minute.

“Same old story,” you might say—about both Arsenal and Leandro Trossard, who has often scored important goals in his career that, in the end, still weren’t enough for greater success. By now it’s clear: after this season, he (once again) ends up empty-handed. In the FA Cup, the Londoners were knocked out in the third round by Man United, they couldn’t capitalize on Man City’s weakness in the league, and in the Champions League, they made it as far as the semi-finals this time, but once again, it ended prematurely.

Typical Arsenal, but somehow also typical Trossard. He’s one of those players who, despite their outstanding playing style and talent, have (so far) never managed to win a major title in their career.

He is, without a doubt, an exceptional player. Sometimes with his own goals at the perfect moment, but often as a provider or with the golden penultimate pass. His disciplined and anticipatory, yet creative and flexible style of play is something many coaches desire in their system—including Mikel Arteta at his current club, Arsenal FC. Trossard fits into his team like a glove.

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Arteta brought him in 2023 for 27 million euros from Brighton & Hove Albion, where he had scored 25 goals in 116 games. Trossard’s big breakthrough came in the 2018/2019 season at KRC Genk. There, he scored 14 league goals and played a key role in winning the Belgian championship before moving to the Seagulls in England.

But why did the attacker catch Arteta’s eye? Above all, because of his sense of space, pace, and timing, which often allows him to make the right decision in the final third, and because of his tactical flexibility. Whether on the left wing, as a false nine, additional number ten, or right winger—Trossard is worth his weight in gold in almost every attacking position.

He’s not a spectacular solo artist, but rather someone who is the key to many systems, where efficiency always comes before ego, who can read and understand games, and who seems irreplaceable even in pressing against the ball. With already six goals as a substitute for Arsenal, he is also the most effective super-sub in the Gunners’ Premier League history.

He is often the decisive man on the pitch without standing in the spotlight, and somehow it fits his character that—despite his outstanding quality—his trophy cabinet continues to gather dust.

In a way, he and his teams seem to have found each other. Arsenal have been waiting five years for their next major title, and haven’t celebrated a league championship in over 20 years. And how well his national team, Belgium—the “eternal dark horse”—does at major tournaments is also well known.

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Will the now 30-year-old ever get as close to a major title again as he did this season as runner-up and Champions League semi-finalist? Let’s put it this way: top super-subs like Trossard are known to strike late. Maybe that applies to his career as well? It’s certainly possible. He is reportedly close to extending his contract with the Gunners, who should continue to be in the running for the big trophies in the coming years.

If you keep getting so close, surely it has to work out with a major title at some point, right? You’d wish it for Trossard. So that not only his coach’s tactical dreams, but finally his own longing for success, can come true.

📸 THIBAUD MORITZ - AFP or licensors