Como’s Nico Paz dominates Serie A’s next-gen playmaker showdown | Nicky Bandini

The pre-game buzz had this as a showdown between two of world football’s most intriguing young No 10s, Como’s Nico Paz v Juventus’s Kenan Yildiz. A 21-year-old Argentina international whose dazzling debut campaign in Serie A persuaded Tottenham to make an unsuccessful €70m bid to buy him in the summer, taking on the 20-year-old trequartista with 25 appearances already for Turkey’s national team.

Fabio Capello could not pick between them, ranking Paz and Yildiz alongside Roma’s Matías Soulé as the finest “fantasisti” – artistic playmakers – in Serie A today. The newspaper Il Giornale played on the players’ shirt number and young age as they billed it as a battle “da ‘10’ (e lode)”. In the Italian academic system, a grade of 110 e lode (with honours) is the highest one can achieve.

Was it all a little manufactured? There is acute awareness in Italy about how Serie A’s spending power has diminished, even its richest clubs no longer able to compete financially against European rivals with 2-3 times their annual income. The need to nurture and develop young talent has never been greater. It can be tempting, in that context, to get ahead of oneself any time a new prospect starts to emerge.

Still, these players were starting – and starring – for their teams. Yildiz had been Juventus’s most essential attacking player so far this season, with a goal and three assists in his first six league games, plus a further one of each in Europe. Capello noted how he was more two-footed than Paz. “The Argentinian [also] has more freedom of expression, Kenan has to deal with more pressure because of his club’s context.”

Francesco Totti offered a different perspective. Put on the spot with a question about young Italian talents during a promotional appearance for a betting company, the former Roma captain could not name even one he felt excited about. “Let’s say right now there aren’t many,” said Totti. “The only guy I’m watching right now, who isn’t Italian, is Nico Paz. He intrigues me a lot.”

How could he not? Paz opened this season with a spectacular free-kick goal against Lazio, and even that might not have been as memorable as the assist he made in the same game, spinning away from Nuno Tavares before releasing Tasos Douvikas with a through-ball that travelled half the length of the pitch without leaving the ground.

Few had even expected to see Paz return to Como this season. He joined from Real Madrid last summer, but the Spanish club hold a buy-back option that would have allowed them to sign him for just €9m. Pocket change, for a player named as Serie A’s best Under-23 performer after bagging a combined 14 goals and assists in 2024-25. With Luka Modric departing, Madrid had space for fresh creative talent.

They opted instead to prioritise the signing of the winger Franco Mastantuono, three years younger, from River Plate. With Arda Güler already primed for the No 10 role, Madrid could not guarantee Paz the playing opportunities he craved. Their buy-back option runs through to 2027, with only a gentle increase in price for each additional year they wait to exercise it, so it made sense to leave him at Como for this year.

Madrid are also entitled to half of any transfer fee should the player be sold to a different club instead. The fact Tottenham’s bid was rejected may speak as much to Xabi Alonso’s interest in eventually bringing Paz back to the Santiago Bernabéu as it does to Como’s strong financial position, owned as they are by the billionaire Hartono brothers.

The knowledge Paz was staying put may also have helped dissuade Cesc Fàbregas from seeking out new pastures himself. The Como manager had plenty of suitors, from Inter to Bayer Leverkusen, after leading his club to a top-half finish on their return to Serie A.

He has even better tools at his disposal this time around. Como spent more than €140m on transfers over the summer, with headline signings including the teenage wingers Jesús Rodríguez and Jayden Addai from Real Betis and AZ Alkmaar, as well as Martin Baturina and Nicolas Kühn, who delivered standout European performances for Dinamo Zagreb and Celtic last season.

Still, though, Paz has been the star, sitting just behind a lone striker in Fàbregas’s 4-2-3-1. From there he drops readily to either side, showing a slight preference to drift right and cut in from there on to his stronger left foot. From that side he provided the assist for Como’s opening goal against Juventus on Sunday.

Cesc Fàbregas has found a star in Nico Paz at the heart of Como’s 4-2-3-1. Photograph: Image Photo Agency/Getty Images

Moments after posing beside the pitch with his latest personal accolade, Serie A’s Rising Star of The Month award for September, Paz trotted back over to take a corner. He played the ball short to Lucas da Cunha, who returned it to him with a backheel. Paz then swung a cross with his left boot towards the far post, where Marc Oliver Kempf arrived to force it home.

This was only the fourth minute, but already Paz was on the way to ensuring that his duel with Yildiz would be less a shootout than an execution. Juventus’s No 10 did his best, carrying the ball forward where he could and delivering more threat than his teammates, but Como’s was a spectacle every time he touched the ball: teeing up Álvaro Morata here, running away from defenders there, dummying a touch one way only to execute a one-two with the heel of his weaker foot in-between.

Perhaps Totti was right. There are plenty of talented young players but even in elite football only a handful of special ones, and week by week Paz looks ever more like he belongs to the latter category. A terror in possession but also out of it, harassing opponents relentlessly with his 1.86 metres (6ft 1in) frame.

He sealed the points with a gorgeous 79th-minute winner. After receiving a pass from Máximo Perrone on the right flank close to halfway, he accelerated through the next 30 yards, jagged back inside Andrea Cambiaso and crashed the ball into the far corner. The thousand-yard stare on the Juventus full-back’s face said it all.

This was supposed to have been an opportunity for the Bianconeri to assert their title credentials. A win would have moved them level with Inter at the top, temporarily, ahead of Milan’s game on Sunday evening. Instead, Juventus were left to contemplate the prospect of a next match away to a Madrid team so overloaded with talent that it could consider a player like Paz – for this season at least – surplus to requirements.

Meanwhile, Como finished the weekend sixth in the Serie A table. Much of their success must be credited to Fàbregas, whose gathered his players on the pitch at full-time to share with them “only one word. Only one word. I’m so fucking proud of you.”

Still, it is hard to look past the contributions by Paz, who has either scored or assisted eight of Como’s nine goals this season. “He’s a champion,” said Fàbregas in a post-game interview. “I’m very calm about him and his future. With this humility, and this hunger, he can go wherever he wants to go.”