Aston Villa’s £10m ‘big old boy’ is a star in the making – but still has a long road ahead of him

When 17-year-old Brian Madjo unleashed a bellowing roar in celebration of his goal against PSG in Wednesday’s UEFA Super Cup, it wasn’t just simple joy that was pouring out of him, but relief too.

For months on end, the teenager had been barred from playing at a crucial point in his development. He has spent almost the entirety of 2026 so far stuck in the middle of a legal wrangle when he should have been gaining experience and honing his skills – but now his spell in purgatory is over, and his career at Aston Villa can finally begin in earnest. It hasn’t taken long for him to become a new hero to their fans.

Villa’s pre-season campaign has ended up being the ultimate advertisement for Madjo’s talents, and high hopes are now being pinned on him before he’s old enough to buy a glass of wine. So will he live up to them, and how much of an impact might he have on the coming season?

The sudden rise of Aston Villa starlet Brian Madjo

Aston Villa’s nascent star had been unable to play for eight months after FIFA ruled that the London-born Luxembourg international wasn’t eligible to move between countries – international transfers are banned for players under the age of 18.

Villa, who had agreed a transfer worth up to €12m (£10.3m) with his former club Metz, argued that while he had made three senior appearances for his adopted country, the fact that he was born in England should ensure that he counted as a domestic player. At the beginning of August, their appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport was successful, and Madjo was able to pull on the claret and blue shirt at last.

Madjo, the son of journeyman striker Guy Madjo whose career took him from Aldershot to Albania, moved to Luxembourg at a young age and began his youth career there before moving to Metz in 2023. A few Luxembourg caps followed in friendly games, but he has since switched allegiance to England and has already made nine appearances for the Under-17s, scoring four goals.

Now that FIFA have been compelled to accept his Englishness from an administrative standpoint, he’s finally been able to resume playing for the first time since he made his fifth and final senior appearance for Metz last December. The results have been spectacular.

He scored twice against Walsall and once each against Real Sociedad and an Indonesian XI on Aston Villa’s tour of East Asia – Chelsea’s João Pedro is the only Premier League player to have scored more in warm-up games this year – and then capped it with that memorable finish against PSG and the emotive celebration that followed.

The absence of Ollie Watkins, rested during pre-season as he recovers from his long World Cup run with England, gave Madjo an opportunity which he grasped with both of his massive hands. In the blink of an eye, he’s gone from being a developmental prospect who wasn’t even permitted to play to a striker that Villa supporters are starting to believe could make an immediate impact in the Premier League. The question now is how far ahead of themselves they can be justified in getting.

How far can Aston Villa’s ‘big old boy’ go this year?

Madjo’s team-mates have been gushing with their praise of the towering forward. John McGinn told the media in Salzburg that Madjo has “the potential to be an unbelievable striker.” Tyrone Mings described the 6’4” teenager as a “big old boy” with a “very high ceiling,” adding that he had found Madjo “very, very difficult to play against” in training.

PSG’s William Pacho certainly found him pretty hard to handle on Wednesday evening. The Ecuadorian, a defender scarcely noted for any lack of strength, was comprehensively outmuscled by Madjo at the far post before the instinctive finish that set the recent hype train in motion.

Madjo’s sheer enormity has drawn early comparisons with Romelu Lukaku, and the Belgian makes an understandable point of reference – a similar hulking frame, the same seemingly lumbering gait which belies a surprising turn of pace.

Lukaku, of course, also had a sense of poise and balance which allowed him to use his physicality to better effect, and also had greatly underappreciated technique which allowed him to manoeuvre his way past defenders with either grit or guile according to the circumstances. Madjo still has work to do on that front, but he’s heading in the right direction.

Footage of Madjo in his youth career often reveals a cumbersome first touch and a slow turning circle – but although we have only the most limited sample size to draw from in his senior career, his work against PSG made it plain that he’s already refined his technique quite considerably. A younger Madjo sometimes looked clumsy. Now he looks confident with the ball at his feet.

There’s still a great deal that’s unproven. He hasn’t yet dribbled past a single opposing player in senior football, for instance, and ultimately won just one of his nine one-on-one duels against PSG. He has shown us that he can finish and that he has confidence, but not yet that he can consistently put himself in goalscoring positions or that he can link play up in the manner that may be expected of him as a natural target man.

While Madjo started the Super Cup against PSG ahead of Tammy Abraham, it’s likely that he’ll be relegated to third choice when the new season gets underway in earnest and Watkins returns to the squad. His form and rapid development suggest that Unai Emery may well give him chances to prove himself as the season rolls on, however. Villa have an awful lot of games ahead of them, after all.

Madjo remains a largely unknown entity, but the speed at which he has improved in the last couple of years suggests that McGinn, Mings and all the Villa fans who are praying for him to become a star may not be disappointed. The challenge now is continuing to refine his technique and decision-making such that he forces his way past his man more often, and gives himself more chances to show of that potent finishing.

Asking for a full-blown breakthrough season over the coming year might, perhaps, but a little bit too much – but Madjo’s future looks very bright indeed. Keep improving at his current rate, and maybe those comparisons to Lukaku will end up extending beyond his frame and towards the Belgian’s goalscoring record too.

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