Hellas Verona have turned out a fair few notable players over the years. They are no Ajax or Monaco for churning out talent, but they punch above their weight and have never been a soft touch. In the 2019/20 season, Ivan Juric's side could boast a real prospect in Marash Kumbulla. He was Verona's brightest young talent that year, and he was just 19.
Player profile | Marash Kumbulla
Date of Birth: 8 February 2000
Place of Birth: Peschiera del Garda, Italy
Nationality: Albania (also Italy)
Height: 185cm
Position: Centre back
Preferred Foot: Right
Who was Marash Kumbulla back then
The Italian-born Albanian was having a breakthrough in Serie A. Across youth and senior football he had made 66 appearances, scoring 5 with an assist, which is a healthy return for a defender. It is rare to find a centre back who can chip in at one end while shutting things down at the other. By the time I wrote him up he had started around 11 games for Verona and had already earned a call to the senior Albania side. He was clearly one to watch.
His style back then
Kumbulla had the tools a centre back needs. At 185cm he was physically strong and a genuine set-piece threat, and his ability to launch attack from the back with long passes was the standout for me. He won his aerial duels, read the movement of the attackers in front of him, and defended with real aggression in his man-marking and tackling. Watching him step out and start play from the back, I would not have been surprised to see bigger clubs come calling, and I said as much at the time.
Strengths and gaps
What makes a defender stand out is the ability to overshadow the attacker in front of him and win the challenge more often than not, and Kumbulla had that. His height, positioning and brute strength made him a force in both boxes, and he bossed his duels with a high aggression rate and plenty of stamina to see out a game. He was not always level-headed, which came with that aggression, but for a teenager that is a fair trade. The other side of it was pace, since tall defenders with a high centre of gravity often lack a yard, and his technical work in possession beyond that long ball was still raw. He could deliver a switch but found it harder to knit passes together in build-up. Solid work rate, plenty to polish, all fixable with the right people around him.
How he got there
Kumbulla came up entirely through Verona. He climbed from the youth setup through the U17s and U19s, banking roughly 68 appearances across those age groups, 22 with the U17s and 46 with the U19s. He signed his senior contract in 2018/19 and played only 3 matches that year. Then 2019/20 flipped the switch and he became a first-team fixture, good enough to earn that senior Albania cap at 19. He did not bounce between clubs. He simply climbed the Verona ladder quickly, which usually tells you a club rates a kid highly. Given the names Verona have produced over the years, from Juan Iturbe to Alberto Gilardino, Adrian Mutu and even a World Cup winner in Mauro Camoranesi, another gem coming through was no shock at all.
The call I half got right
This is a fun one to revisit. In December 2019 I valued him around 6 million and laid out his next step by scenario. A quiet season kept him at Verona. A good one had him at Valencia, Villarreal, Sevilla, Napoli or Genoa. A very good one, and I had him moving to Juventus or Inter, then heading straight out on loan, most likely to Sassuolo. My actual prediction was Sassuolo on loan from Juventus. I got the direction of travel right. He did leave that summer, and a Sassuolo loan really did happen. I just had the parent club wrong. He is a decent reminder that you can read a player's trajectory well and still miss the details.
Where is he now
The big move landed at AS Roma rather than Juventus, and from there his path ran through that Sassuolo loan and on into Spain. Here is the career our data holds:
| Season | Club | Apps | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020/21 | AS Roma | 21 | 1 |
| 2022/23 | AS Roma | 26 | 0 |
| 2023/24 | Sassuolo | 7 | 0 |
| 2024/25 | Espanyol | 35 | 3 |
| 2025/26 | Mallorca | 8 | 0 |
For the current ratings and the full season log, see our Marash Kumbulla scout report. He never quite became the world-class name I got carried away calling him, but a move to Roma, a full season in La Liga with Espanyol and a long career at the top level is exactly the trajectory I flagged. This is one of the calls I am mostly happy to stand behind.
