Christian Makoun plays beyond his years | Mind the Pitch

Christian Makoun had been a long time coming.

Charlotte FC’s scouting department had been keeping an eye on Makoun for a quite a while. In fact, before becoming Charlotte FC’s Director of Scouting, Thomas Schaling tried to bring him on trial to PSV Eindhoven after the 2017 U-17 Sudamericano in Chile.

In 2021, CLTFC traded their No. 1 Allocation Ranking Spot in order to bring the Venezuelan to Charlotte in a deal that epitomizes savvy business and great value.

The Allocation Process is a mechanism used to determine which club has first priority to acquire a player on the Allocation Ranking List, which consists of select U.S. National Team players, youth U.S. National Team players, and former valuable MLS players returning to the league.

However, a team’s Allocation Ranking is only valuable if you want to sign one of the players who is on the list. Charlotte had no interest in anyone on the Allocation Ranking list and therefore leveraged their No. 1 Spot to acquire a player they did want.

Makoun was practically acquired for free since CLTFC didn’t have to give up any valuable allocation money or pay a transfer fee. In return, the Club is getting an MLS-experienced center back with the potential to be starter at the ripe age of 21 years old.

Controlled Aggression

One of the most difficult challenges in playing the center back role is balancing aggression. When talking about aggression in soccer, it doesn’t necessarily mean knocking down players or being associated with violence in any way.

Defensively, it refers to putting pressure on players with or without the ball. Too much aggression can be exploited by better attackers which can lead goal scoring opportunities, yellow cards, or sometimes just a flat out red card. But being passive gives the opponent too much time to think and act on what to do with the ball next, which poses a threat.

Knowing when and how to be aggressive are crucial skills to being a good defender. Despite his young age, Makoun already has a strong grasp of keeping this balance.

“He plays with the right aggression, but he is also controlled,” said CLTFC Director of Scouting Thomas Schaling. “He has good timing with his challenges, waiting for situations to play out before he makes his decision whether to be aggressive.”

Makoun is patient in his defending, first assessing the situation before taking action. Once he analyzes the circumstances, he is decisive in his next action, whether that next action is stepping up to apply pressure, covering a passing lane, or waiting for teammates.

In those moments where he needs to step up to an attacker, he also has good timing with his tackles. He knows when to start his approach to arrive on time, as well as when to lunge in to make the tackle to win the ball back.

His timing allows him to defend against players that possess greater athleticism than him and makes it difficult to beat him in 1 v 1 scenarios.

On The Ball 

When he’s not defending and has possession of the ball, Makoun is equally as comfortable and composed as he is in defense. In his youth, Makoun spent time playing in the midfield where the foundation of his comfort on the ball could be attributed to. 

He’s capable of dribbling out of pressure, as well as making accurate passes, especially short ones, from the back. On top of this, Makoun is left footed, which helps in creating better passing angles when playing on the left side of the defense where he prefers to play.

Being good on the ball is especially important playing under Charlotte FC Head Coach Miguel Ramírez because his game model relies on center backs that are good in possession. In his game model, the central defenders are vital in the buildup to progress the ball forward. 

Charlotte FC now have two young, left-footed center backs in Christian Makoun and Jan Sobociński, which is a commodity that is rare even amongst teams outside of Major League Soccer. Alongside veteran leader Christian Fuchs, this depth will provide healthy competition that will in turn only help accelerate their development.