Aussie midfielder, Antonis Martis, has spent the last four years learning his craft in Denmark with FC Midtjylland. He started in their U17s team and has worked his way up from there. FC Midtjylland are one of the biggest clubs in Denmark and have a good track record for producing talent.
Born in Cyprus, he and his family moved to Australia when he was three years old. He then grew up in Sydney’s south-west, where he also started playing football.
With the Danish club, Martis has been able to test himself against some of the best young talent in Europe. He has gone up against European giants such as Manchester United, Roma, Porto and Ajax in the UEFA Youth League.
He’s a defensive midfielder with clean distribution (88% passing accuracy) and an impressive passing range (56% long passes, 77% forward passes, and 73% final third). Defensively, he’s strong in the challenge (60% defensive duel success) and reads the play well (almost 5 interceptions a game).
His shooting could be better (4/22 on target) , but as a defensive player, it’s not a major issue. Aerially, he’s not too bad for his size. More in the mould of an N’golo Kante than a Patrick Vieria, he still wins around 44% of his aerial challenges. Like Vieiria, he can sometimes end up on the wrong side of the referee, picking up 18 yellows and 1 red in his time with the Wolves.
We can see with his ATT & DEF VPM (his stats were run through the algorithm calibrated to England’s League One) that he has a good balance. If we look at Australian Aleague players such as Josh Brillante (ATT 15 & DEF 22) and Keanu Baccus (10 & 14), we can see their splits are not too dissimilar.
Defensive midfielders generally don’t attempt high scoring actions so it’s harder to accumulate high scores unless they have an extremely high success rate and volume. With a WR of 0.77 (0.77 actions per minute), Martis isn’t overly involved in the action but more the average amount for a midfield player. Brillante (0.83) and Baccus (0.89) were more involved in the play than Martis so had more opportunities to raise their VPM scores.
The OVRL VPM is when things such as discipline are taken into account. As already mentioned, Martis’ all-action approach can sometimes see cards produced but more often than not, he wins what he contests.
He’s represented both, Cyprus and Australia, at international youth level and remains eligible for both.
He’s now training with the first team but it’s believed a loan move could be on the cards. Having just turned 20, it’s an ideal time for him to get first team senior football under his belt.
