Player Analysis: Yeremi Pino

As happens across the world, supply chains are determined by natural resources. And football, for as much as we may desire it to be anomalous from the forces that contour the outside world, follows the same pattern.

Hence why an army of scouts descend on the less-heralded pitches of South America and increasingly Africa year upon year. Sent out from their shiny, clinical, multi-nationals, they seek a close control of the ball that Europe struggles to furnish their own academies.

Above all, the fiendish dribbler from far-off lands has become a fetish that still captivates the giants of European football beyond all else.

The ability to dance with the ball, to move the opponent’s body at will and take the ball in the other direction is perhaps the most scarce resource in football today.