Leeds United centre-forward Mateo Joseph is a good example of how difficult it is to translate regular goalscoring from academy level to the first team.
The 21-year-old ace, who joined from Espanyol at the start of 2022, scored an eye-catching 19 goals in 33 games for the Whites at U21 level.
However, the Spain U21 international has only found the back of the net five times in 47 appearances for the club since his rise to the first-team, with two goals in 15 Championship games this season.
He has made the step to the senior team, though, and has time on his hands to fulfil his potential, which was not the case for one former Leeds youngster who initially arrived with plenty of hype around him.
Leeds’ mini Luis Suarez
Leeds swooped to sign a teenage centre-forward from Barcelona in the summer of 2017 after he had scored 30 goals in 30 league games for the Spanish giants at academy level in the 2016/17 campaign.
If you haven’t guessed already, that player was none other than Kun Temenuzhkov.
The Guardian named him as one of the 60 best young talents in world football in 2017 and wrote that the striker had ‘the same predator’s instinct’ as former Barcelona and Liverpool sensation Luis Suarez, who was idolised by the youngster and scored 195 goals in 283 games for the LaLiga outfit.
It is not hard to understand why that comparison was made after such an incredible year of goalscoring for the Spanish side in the previous season.
After playing for the Leeds’ U18 side for 18 months, Temenuzhkov made his first-team debut for Leeds against Queens Park Rangers in the FA Cup in January 2019, with an 11-minute cameo off the bench under Marcelo Bielsa.
Given his extraordinary goal record for Barcelona’s youth teams, his comparison to Suarez, and his senior bow under Bielsa, you could forgive the Whites for thinking that they had their own version of the Uruguayan hero on their hands.
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Unfortunately, though, after loan spells with CF La NucÃa and Real Union during the 2020/21 and 2021/22 campaigns, the Bulgarian centre-forward was released by the Whites in the summer of 2022, having failed to live up to the hype.
The young marksman made the move to join Navalcarnero in the fourth tier of Spanish football and scored eight goals in 29 league games during the 2023/24 campaign.
He then spent six months with Zamora CF, scoring just one goal in ten games, before moving to Lincoln FC in Gibraltar at the start of 2023.
Temenuzhkov produced six goals and three assists in 15 appearances for Lincoln during the second half of last season, before a free transfer to Moscardó in the summer transfer window earlier this year.
It was the fourth free transfer since the start of 2022 for the 24-year-old attacker, who has been unable to enjoy more than one season with a club since his exit from Leeds.
Moscardó currently play in the fourth tier of Spanish football and the ex-Whites and Barcelona man has had a difficult start to the campaign, with zero goals and one assist in eight league matches.
Temenuzhkov is yet to replicate his sensational goalscoring output at academy level in his first-team career and Leeds will now be hoping that Joseph, who has already played 46 more times for Leeds than the Bulgarian forward did, fares better in his development over the coming years.
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