Mason Melia: The Irish Alexander Isak snapped up by Spurs for a record fee

Melia was born on September 22, 2007, in the tiny district of Newtownmountkennedy (yes, that's how it's spelled, it's a real place) in County Wicklow on the east coast of the Republic of Ireland. Taking a liking to football, he quickly caught the eye of local sides Newtown Juniors and St Joseph's Boys, before joining a professional club in Bray Wanderers in 2022. However, he was then snapped up by St Patrick's that same year and hasn't looked back since.

According to Rory Hackett, his former coach and a good friend of his father, Melia stood out from day one. "I used to watch the way he'd strike the ball, it was almost perfect, inside and outside of the foot, free-kicks too, he just had that knack," Hackett said to the Irish Independent earlier in 2025.

"When he was nine, one day I saw him score a volley from the halfway line here. Mason caught it sweet and hit the roof of the net. Everyone went wild but I remember thinking, 'Yeah, but do it again.' And sure enough he did it again a few weeks later! He had power in his strike that no nine-year-old should have had. He used to score hat-tricks every single game and I used to have to take him off sometimes! 

"I saw many goals where he would dribble it the length of the pitch and score. I used to get hassle on the sideline and they'd tell Mason, 'Whatever you do, don't score a hat-trick because Rory will take you off!' But I had to. At that age, you have to give everyone a chance. He was very humble, though, and loved the craic with the other kids."

Hackett wasn't the only coach who foresaw Melia's rise, as Newtown Juniors' Hughie Nolan told BBC Sport: "I saw at an early age that Mason would go straight to the top through his sheer love of football. I knew he would be good, people always talk about the next Roy Keane or Robbie Keane and usually I don't see it, but I knew he would be good - but maybe not this good. Every time he has stepped up a level, he has taken it in his stride and nothing has fazed him."

Before venturing into the world of club football, Melia made his name in Ireland by helping the Under-16s win the 2022 Victory Shield, popping up with a goal in the final against Scotland and kick-starting a prolific career at international youth level.

After a matter of months in the St Pat's youth setup, Melia was promoted into first-team action well before his 16th birthday. In fact, he became the club's youngest player and goal-scorer aged 15 years and 132 days old when he came off the bench to find the net in a 3-1 Leinster Senior Cup loss to Wexford in February 2023. Picking the ball up on the edge of the opposition penalty area, he took a couple of delicate touches before rifling into the top corner.

Melia was then sent back to the youth ranks for a few months before returning to the senior fold in May of that year, becoming the youngest league debutant in the history of St Pat's. Even though this occasion wasn't marked with a goal, interim manager Jon Daly was full of praise: "He's been exceptional at U19s. When you are thinking 'I need a goal', I saw him score numerous goals for the U19s, I saw him score against Wexford in the Leinster Senior Cup, so I know he can finish and I know his movement is good."

That first league goal eventually arrived the following month during a 7-0 drubbing of UCD, with the national press crowning Melia as 'magic'. Within weeks, he was on trial at Manchester City and was tipped to join Liverpool, becoming more of a known quantity to teams on the other side of the Irish Sea.

The milestones kept on tumbling for Melia, who signed his first pro contract in November 2023, three days before his ascension took its sharpest climb yet. St Pat's had reached the 2023 FAI Cup final, setting up a clash with Dublin rivals Bohemians. There was international interest in the fixture, and it broke the attendance record for an Irish cup game which had stood since 1945, with 43,881 packing out the Aviva Stadium. With his side leading 2-1, Daly threw Melia on as a 57th-minute substitute to become the youngest player in FAI Cup final history. St Pat's would go on to win 3-1 and Melia had his first taste of silverware at a time where domestic football in Ireland was turning into a hot-topic again.

The 2024 season was Melia's first as an established member of the St Pat's squad from start to finish. Where he made 13 appearances and scored three goals in 2023, the striker featured in a whopping 41 games across all competitions the following year, this time netting on seven occasions. Along the way, Melia made his European debut as St Patrick's reached the league phase of the Conference League, which was eventually won by Chelsea. To cap off a memorable campaign, Melia was voted by his peers as the PFAI Young Player of the Year, becoming - you guessed it - the youngest-ever recipient of the award.

All the while, Melia was enjoying almost unprecedented success with the Ireland U17s, scoring 10 goals in 22 games at that age group either side of the 2023 Euros. He has since made his mark at U21 level, becoming Ireland's youngest scorer in that age category, obviously.

The 2025 season has been whirlwind in more ways than one for Melia. Towards its start, it was announced St Pat's had agreed to sell him to Tottenham for an Irish-record sum of €2 million (£1.75m), which could eventually rise to €4m (£3.5m). Citing the aforementioned Bervall after he snubbed Barca for Spurs, Melia, who was supposedly also courted by Arsenal, said to the Irish Examiner: "You have to think about all that stuff before you even sign for a club. There's obviously reasons why I'm going to Tottenham. It's where I feel most comfortable. Tottenham is a big club but I have to work hard to get to his (Bergvall's) level."

Fired up by that news, Melia has enjoyed a career-best season in terms of goals. At the time of writing, he is second in the League of Ireland's Golden Boot rankings, with his tally of 12 only bettered by Waterford's Padraig Amond, and he has caught the eye of Manchester United legend Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. The Norwegian was in charge of Besiktas when they faced St Pat's in a Conference League qualifier, and though the Turkish giants prevailed 7-3 on aggregate, the former striker was impressed by the talent Melia possessed beyond his years.

"I think Tottenham have made a good signing," Solskjaer said. "You see a mature finisher. I don't want to put too much pressure on him. I always follow the young players when I see them early in their careers. There are a few decent players I played with from Ireland, so I have a fond eye for Irish players." Solskjaer added: "Melia has a bright future ahead of him, keeps getting runs and getting in the good areas. One of the things I like most about him is his attitude towards pressing: he does his defensive job as well. In the second half, he was tasked with sitting on one of our midfielders and he did the job."

To celebrate his 18th birthday earlier this month, Melia scored a brace as St Pat's thrashed Cork City 4-0. There are worse ways to mark becoming a legal adult. A senior Ireland call-up isn't far away as the Boys in Green look to secure an unlikely place at next summer's World Cup.

As an up-and-coming striker, one who has made the St Pat's No.9 shirt his own, it's important to recognise Melia's ability as a scorer and finisher first. He's able to sniff out danger in and around the box, proving a chance magnet that is learning it's not about what you've done before but what you do next.

St Pat's boss Stephen Kenny said after Melia's double on his 18th birthday: "I have been drilling it home to him, he can get frustrated and you have to say, 'Listen, all of the best strikers miss chances - it's how you handle it.' You can't let it overtake your emotional state. It's important you eliminate that from your mindset and go again, score the next one. And he did that."

This is bread and butter for a striker, however. You have to score goals to make ends meet. What has set Melia apart at his tender age is everything else that he brings to the game, with his infectious energy and aggressive pressing standing out. "When he made his debut for St Pat's, he put senior centre-backs under serious pressure while only 15 years old. His energy levels are unbelievable and his work off the ball was nearly better than what he did on the ball," said Melia's former Bray Wanderers coach, Conor Canavan.

Melia has spent time playing on the wing at senior level, which has helped him remain disciplined and taught him the value of defending wherever you are on the pitch. St Pat's captain Joe Redmond told the Irish Mirror: "He is a handful. His power, his speed and his finishing is incredible. I think maybe we've only seen half of it. Like I said a few times, he is going to go up another level and it's exciting to see. He has a bit of everything. He can hold it up, he can go in behind, he can finish, he has got good control, and his maturity and knowledge of the game is really good as well."

Recently, Melia has also sought to become a more selfless team-mate in possession as well as out of it, registering four assists in addition to his 12 goals in the League of Ireland already this season. 

On his part, is well aware of his own mental strength and the experience he has already accrued. "I've played over 80 games in senior football now,” he said after facing Besiktas this summer. "I think everything has worked out the way I would like it to work out. I've grown into more of a man. I'm feeling more physical and ready for a bigger challenge... I kind of like attention. If you've had attention, you're doing something right. I've dealt with it since I was young, I have a good family behind me. Everyone keeps me humble."

It's hard to knock on what Melia has done so far in his career, especially considering Brexit rules prevented him from moving to Tottenham or any other interested English team until after he turned 18. But if we were being picky, then these are the areas for him to grow.

At youth level with Ireland, Melia is far more dominant in the air and a confident dribbler, but those attributes become subdued when returning to the adult game. The hope will be that as he develops physically in accordance with his age, Melia will flesh out those parts of his weaponry. On a similar note, his height has been listed anywhere between 6 foot and 6ft 2ins over the last couple of years, and he may still have an extra inch to put on just yet.

The main question mark hanging over Melia is how will his form translate to the Premier League. He's not expected to compete for senior minutes at Spurs right away, but he can't risk becoming just another forgotten prospect in north London. Melia only has to look as far as compatriot Troy Parrott to recognise being highly rated in Ireland doesn't necessarily mean you'll thrive across the Irish Sea.

Ultimately, there's a reason why Melia commanded a record fee for Irish football, even with the league growing more and more in popularity. Short of singlehandedly winning the title himself, there isn't anything left for him to prove in his homeland and he has bigger fish to fry.

Any Tottenham fans interested in getting up to speed with Melia's game will probably have been hoping for comparisons for Harry Kane, but that would have been selling them a false dream (even despite the teenager admitting to looking up to the England captain). Instead, the League of Ireland's most expensive player ever bears a much closer resemblance to the striker who broke the British transfer record this summer, an international team-mate of role model Bergvall's to boot.

Melia and Alexander Isak share so many similar traits, just on different levels and stages. Both are tall, explosive over a short distance and lethal from anywhere within 20 yards of goal. Their lanky nature ought to make dribbling tougher to master, yet both adopt a technique of trapping the ball with softer touches and flicks in order to keep it under control at speed, making up for their higher centre of gravity. In that sense, there's something of a slightly slower Fernando Torres about Melia too.

Isak spent some of his more formative years playing on the wing, where his all-round game went to another level and set him up to become more of a complete forward. As already mentioned, Melia too has followed this path to his own benefit. What would really come in handy now is if Melia somehow became even quicker or, more likely, put his aerial advantage to better use.

Before Melia gets to Tottenham, he still has at least seven games left to play with St Pat's, who are fighting for a Conference League spot heading into the five remaining rounds of the 2025 League of Ireland season. There is also the possibility of playing in two finals having reached the semis of both the Leinster Senior Cup and FAI Cup. "It's going to be a full circle moment for me if we make it," Melia said of his last game potentially coming in another FAI Cup final.

Spurs have always been in the background, though. They have a plan for Melia and he's been happy to go along with it. He added: "I have people looking after me. There are people from Tottenham and Pat's working on [off-field decisions]. Both clubs just want me to concentrate on football. It's too early for me to think about Tottenham really. Because there's a possibility of playing in a cup final now and really ending [my] Pat's days with as high a level as you possibly can in Ireland."

In the long term, there is a vacancy to be had as Spurs' starting striker. Melia may just be the man to fill that void, even despite talk of a Kane return.