The Wonderkid Files: Ilias Akhomach - the skilful Spaniard who could be on his way to Leeds United

Welcome to another edition of The Wonderkid Files. Every week we run the rule over one of football’s most exciting young talents and provide a detailed scouting report to set you up with everything you need to know about a potential star of the future. This time out, we take a look at the 19 year-old Barcelona starlet who’s reportedly agreed to join Leeds United this summer – Ilias Akhomach.

A product of Barcelona’s legendary La Masia academy, Akhomach is a quick and tricksy inside forward who typically plays on the right-hand side but has been used both wide left and through the middle. He’s had a strange, up-and-down career so far with his boyhood club that has seen him released and re-signed, vaunted as one of Barcelona’s top prospects and criticsed as overly predictable, and start for the senior side before falling down the pecking order in the reserves.

Akhomach joined La Masia as a boy but was released in his early teens – only to be brought back after his performances for Gimnàstic Manresa sparked rumoured interest from Real Madrid. He made his debut for the Barcelona B team in 2020 and impressed sufficiently to be handed his first-team debut as a starter in Xavi’s first game in charge of the club against Espanyol in November 2021.

Two more senior appearances followed but his stock slowly fell, and he’s lost his starting berth in the reserve side over the last few months, last getting a full 90 minutes in early January – a situation not helped by a four-match suspension for a red card. Since January he has, at least, been a regular from the bench – and it may be that the knowledge that Akhomach was moving on at the end of his contract in June has restricted the minutes Barcelona wanted to give him in their development squads.

Leeds fans may fear, then, that this is the tale of a player who has struggled to build on a promising start, but that isn’t necessarily the case. Arsenal, AC Milan and Sevilla were rumoured to be among the clubs seeking his signature this summer, and he’s a mainstay of the Spanish Under-19 squad, starting every game of their Under-19 European Championship campaign so far, picking up an assist in a 4-0 win over Luxembourg.

Watching Akhomach play, you can understand both sides of the coin. He’s a superb dribbler with exceptionally quick feet and a low centre of gravity, able to wriggle through tight spaces and beat opposing defenders on both sides. He’s blessed with impressive acceleration, balance and has a good passing range, equally happy playing balls long and short. He’s also a hard-worker, willing to press and track back, and has said that he models his game on Lionel Messi, Riyad Mahrez and Hakim Ziyech. There are certainly similarities.

On the other hand, he is very one-footed and this can make his play on the wide right of attack somewhat predictable – like Arjen Robben, he almost invariably looks to cut inside the full-back. Unlike Arjen Robben, he isn’t a prolific goalscorer, nor is his dribbling quite at the level where he can beat his man even when they know what’s about to happen.

To flourish at the top level, Akhomach needs to develop a plan B when up against his man so he can keep them guessing. His weak right foot means that he may end up better used in the centre of the park, where he has occasionally been played by both club and country, or as a more traditional winger on the left-hand side where his quick dribbling and strong left foot can be more easily used. If he can be coached to get more use out of his right boot, he could become a serious threat across the attacking line.

He could also do with becoming more of a goal threat – he’s scored just once for Barcelona B this season, in the opening match of the campaign against Castellón, having found the back of the net three times in 19 reserve matches last year - and has notched up just one goal for Spain Under-19s in his seven caps to date, against Austria in March 2022. The bottom line is that his output has yet to match his obvious ability.

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Akhomach is ultimately something of a rough diamond – there’s polishing to be done and he needs to become more versatile to reach his true potential. That potential was still enough to impress Arsenal, Milan and Sevilla, so Leeds signing him on a free transfer may be something of a coup, and is certainly a very low-risk move for a player with an extremely high ceiling – and even if he doesn’t end up reaching that ceiling, he’s still a hugely entertaining and energetic player with the capacity to thrill the crowd.

Assuming reports from Spain that the deal is done are correct - and neither club nor player have yet confirmed the transfer - this has the potential to be a great move for Leeds, and potentially a great landing place for the player given the Whites’ proven faith in young prospects.

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