★ Moneyball Original · Scouting
Franco Mastantuono at 19: hype or the real thing? What the numbers say about his season
By Moneyball Editorial · published · updated
Franco Mastantuono is 19 and has carried the word "next" since he was 16. This season he has 880 league minutes for Fiorentina, which is the first thing a scout checks: before asking how good a young player is, ask whether a coach trusts him with real matches.
Expectation is not evidence. A big fee and a famous name only say what people hoped. This column looks at what happened on the pitch, per 90 minutes, against every player in his position.
This column does what Moneyball always does with a story like this: it puts the numbers under it. Twelve methods, the Stats Centre for the player and for his club, and the report from Scouting Players Research. Everything is explained in plain words, so you do not need to know what xG means before you start.
How to read this, in plain words. The Moneyball Score is a number from 0 to 100. It asks one question: compared with every player in the same position, how much does this player do of the things his position is there to do, for every 90 minutes he plays? Around 50 is an average regular. Above 70 is a starter for a club in European competition. Above 85 is among the best in the world. Potential is where the score is expected to go as he ages, from the way players in his position usually develop. Moneyball Value is a fair transfer fee worked out from his score, age, position, league and minutes. A young player with few minutes is deliberately scored with caution: the model would rather be late than fooled.
1. His season so far
| 2026/27 | Serie A | League and European cups |
|---|---|---|
| Minutes | 880 | 880 |
| Matches | 11 | 11 |
| Goals | 4 | 4 |
| Assists | 0 | 0 |
| Expected goals (xG) | 3.82 | 3.82 |
| Goals per 90 | 0.41 | 0.41 |
| xG per 90 | 0.39 | 0.39 |
| Shots per 90 | 4.5 | 4.5 |
| Key passes per 90 | 2.1 | 2.1 |
| Successful dribbles per 90 | 2.3 | 2.3 |
| Average match rating | 7.24 | 7.24 |
Franco Mastantuono has played 880 Serie A minutes for Fiorentina: 4 goals and 0 assists. Totals flatter players who play more, so scouts divide by minutes and multiply by 90: what would he do in one full match? Per 90 minutes he scores 0.41, which is 10th of the 123 midfielders in the league with 270 minutes or more.
2. Expected goals: were the goals deserved?
Expected goals (xG) gives every shot a value between 0 and 1: how often a shot like that goes in. A penalty is about 0.76. A shot from 30 metres is about 0.03. Add up a player's shots and you get the goals an average finisher would have scored from his chances.
His chances have been worth 3.82 xG and he has scored 4. The two numbers are close, which is the healthiest sign there is: he scores what his chances are worth, with no luck holding the total up. On xG per 90 (0.39) he is 1st of 123 midfielders in the league. He also creates: 2.1 key passes per 90, 24th of 123. A key pass is a pass that leads straight to a team-mate's shot. And he beats his man 2.3 times per 90, 4th of 123.
3. How much should we trust so few minutes?
This is where most hype goes wrong. 880 minutes is about 10 full matches. Moneyball treats a small sample the way a careful scout would: it believes it only in proportion to its size. He has 73% of the 1,200 minutes the model wants, so it pulls his score toward the average of his position by the missing 27%. If he keeps this level, his score rises by itself as the minutes come: about 4 more full matches and it is read at full strength. This is called Bayesian shrinkage, and it is the reason Moneyball does not crown a new star every weekend.
4. Scouting Players Research: the report
Franco Mastantuono, 19, plays as a winger for Fiorentina in Serie A. Strongest for his role in shots and expected goals. Weakest in dispossessed.
| Scouting Players Research | Franco Mastantuono |
|---|---|
| Role and type | Winger, inside forward |
| Moneyball Score (league and European cups, adjusted for strength) | 71 |
| Rank among the wingers of 16 leagues | 25th of 1385 |
| Rank among the wingers of his league | 4th of 50 |
| Moneyball Value (estimate) | €34.2M to €94.5M (mid €64.3M) |
| Age curve: score in 1, 2, 3, 4 years | 84 · 94 · 100 · 100 |
| What Scouting weighs for his role | Percentile among wingers |
|---|---|
| Successful dribbles | 87th |
| Expected goals | 92nd |
| Expected assists (est.) | 61st |
| Key passes | 89th |
| Shots | 99th |
| Big chances created | 17th |
| Accurate crosses | 57th |
| Fouls won | 83rd |
The players most like him
| Most like him in Scouting | Club | Similarity |
|---|---|---|
| Soriba Diaoune | LOSC Lille | 90% |
| Parfait Guiagon | Sporting Charleroi | 83% |
| Noah Edjouma | Brest | 81% |
| Khvicha Kvaratskhelia | Paris Saint Germain | 79% |
| Jérémie Boga | Juventus | 79% |
The table of percentiles is the heart of the report. Each line is one thing his position is there to do, and the percentile says how many players in the same position he beats at it, out of every 100. Green is elite, red is a weakness to work on. The "players most like him" are found by comparing the whole pattern, not one figure: they are the players whose strengths and weaknesses have the same shape as his.
14. The club around him: Fiorentina
| Measure | Fiorentina | Rank of 20 |
|---|---|---|
| League position (points) | 9 pts from 11 | 15th |
| Expected points (from xG) | 16.8 from 11 | 9th |
| Pi-rating (goal margin vs average) | −0.10 | 14th |
| Strength after shrinkage (xG margin per match) | +0.05 | 9th |
| Projected final points | 47 | 11th |
Fiorentina are 15th in the Serie A on 9 points from 11 matches. Expected points, the points their chances usually earn, rank them 9th. They have 7.8 points fewer than their football deserved, so the table undersells the side he plays in. A player's numbers depend on his team: a forward in a side that creates little gets few chances, however good he is, and a defender in a side that is always under pressure looks busier than he is. Fiorentina create 1.72 xG a match and allow 1.63.
15. What expectation does to a young player's numbers
Players who arrive with a big reputation are often judged twice as hard and half as fairly. One quiet month and the word "flop" appears. The numbers are useful exactly because they have no memory of the hype: they compare him with players of his position, not with the player people imagined.
On that fair comparison his Moneyball Score is 71, and the age curve takes him to about 100. Most of his value is still in front of him, which is normal at his age and not a criticism.
Adapting to a new league usually costs a young player a season. The second season is the one to judge.
For what it is worth in money: Moneyball Value puts a fair fee between €34.2M and €94.5M today, and the age curve says the number rises with him. It is an estimate from his figures, not a price anyone has quoted.
16. What the numbers cannot see
A fair column says where its method stops. The numbers do not see how he trains, how he lives, how he reacts to a bad month or what the coach asks of him in a given match. They do not see an injury coming. And they are only as good as the minutes behind them. What they do well is remove the two things that fool people most often: the highlight clip, which shows the best ten seconds of a player's month, and the reputation, which says more about his club's fame than about him. Use the score as a careful first opinion, then watch him play.
The Moneyball verdict
Judge him as a 19-year-old, not as a headline. A Moneyball Score of 71 already puts him at the level of a starter for a club in European competition. The talk is not ahead of the numbers; the numbers got there first. The second season in a league is the fair exam; this one is the entrance test.
- Per 90 minutes: every figure divided by minutes played, so a substitute and a starter can be compared fairly.
- League-strength adjustment: Moneyball Scout weighs a season in Ligue 1 at 0.90 of the same season in the Premier League (Serie A 0.95, La Liga 0.96, Bundesliga 0.94).
- Bayesian shrinkage: with few minutes a figure is pulled toward the average of his position, so three good matches are not mistaken for a great player.
- Last season at 70% weight: last season's figures are blended in, a little lighter than this season's.
- Percentiles within his position: a centre-back is ranked against centre-backs, a winger against wingers. The 90th percentile means better than 90 of every 100.
- Role templates: each position is judged on what it is there to do; a striker on chances and goals, a full-back on defending and crossing.
- Position familiarity: where else he could play, from where he has played.
- Win-rate impact: the points he adds to a club over a season, by replaying its matches with and without him through the Dixon-Coles model.
- Expected goals (xG): the quality of every chance, so a team is judged on what it created and allowed, not only on what went in.
- Expected points: each match's xG run through a Dixon-Coles score matrix (the Poisson model with the low-score correction the Match Board uses) to give the points a performance usually earns.
- Age curve: how players of his position usually develop year by year, used for his potential.
- Moneyball Value: a fair fee from his score, age, position, league and minutes.
Analysis by Moneyball Editorial. This column reports no transfer news: everything in it is measured from matches played. Every figure is read from the Sportmonks data at each update, and the sentences around it change with it.
Franco Mastantuono in the Stats Centre Franco Mastantuono in Scouting Players Research Fiorentina in the Stats Centre
Questions
- Who is Franco Mastantuono?
- Franco Mastantuono, 19, plays for Fiorentina in the Serie A. This season he has 4 goals and 0 assists in 880 league minutes.
- How good is Franco Mastantuono on the numbers?
- His Moneyball Score is 71 out of 100, 25th of 1385 players in his position across the leagues Moneyball follows. The age curve projects about 100 at his best in the next four years.
- What is Franco Mastantuono worth?
- Moneyball Value puts a fair fee between €34.2M and €94.5M. It is an estimate from his score, age, position, league and minutes, not a quoted price.