For many in the American women’s college system, the pathway in the game is clear, with young talents registering for the annual NWSL Draft and hoping that they are lucky enough to be picked by one of the league’s 14 (as of this season) franchises.
However, there are other ways to make the transition into professional life, and it has become increasingly common for players who emerge from the college system to explore those as they try to give themselves the best possible chance of achieving success. One of those is to forgo the Draft in favour of joining a team outside of the USA. Some of those who have done particularly well from doing just that in recent history include Chelsea Women striker Mia Fishel, who joined Liga MX Femenil giants Tigres Femenil in 2022, PSG Féminine midfielder Korbin Albert and Nigeria midfielder Onyi Echegini, the latter of whom secured a move to Juventus Femminile earlier this month after leaving Florida State Seminoles.
It is that latter option that Brown Bears forward Brittany Raphino has opted to take, and there have been reports suggesting that teams in England, Scotland, France and Italy are all keeping an eye on her situation, whilst some NWSL sides also harbour hopes of adding her to their squads too. With that level of interest, it does appear that she could be destined for a big future, and this tactical analysis will look at why she is attracting so much interest and how she could fit into the tactics of any team who decided to make a move for her services.
Attacking threat
Given that Brittany Raphino is an attacker by trade and is well-known for her goalscoring prowess (she found the net on 13 occasions in 2023 for the Bears), it is true to say that any side who signed her would be getting another offensive threat and the potential to convert more chances into goals.
This is because where Raphino has been most seen is on the shoulder of the opposing defensive line, using her speed and awareness to make well-timed movements into the open territory behind them and punishing any mistakes that they make at the back. In this case, Yale Bulldogs’ Finnish defender Nana Yang has made the cardinal error of not assessing her surroundings before connecting with the ball, putting her goalkeeper under pressure, and overhitting the ball to make it easy for Raphino to intercept.
On this occasion, the chance didn’t come to anything as Yale did manage to recover in time, but this is not the only occasion when Raphino has been given this amount of time and space to cause opposing sides problems, with the fact that she scored 31 times showing that, when she does get these opportunities, she rarely misses.
However, anyone who assumes that Raphino is solely a goal scorer would be mistaken because there is a lot more that she offers her side on the field whenever they are on the attack. One of her other key qualities is her tendency to bring teammates into advanced positions whilst acting as a pivot, as is happening here against Yale with Audrey Lam combining with Raphino to get into the final third.
The critical detail to mention here is that Raphino doesn’t once alter her own position whilst the ball is in transit; instead, she stays where she is and simply controls and passes the ball into the space ahead of her for Lam to run onto. However, that in itself gives the Bulldogs a conundrum, with them needing to decide whether to disregard her or to close her down anyway, and they decide on this occasion to do the latter as Yang moves out of line and towards the forward.
What saves Yale here is that they have a capable 1-v-1 dueller in left wing-back Ellie Rappole present here to manage the threat posed by Lam as soon as she makes her run ahead of Raphino, meaning that they are able to prevent the chance from being anything more than that. However, the fact that they were still forced to decide here shows how, even when Raphino is not involved in the shot, she still plays a vital role in creating the opportunity and in opening up gaps for her teammates to exploit.
Her ability to get behind opponents or sit in front of them in that manner makes her a very unpredictable player to face, again highlighting how difficult it can be for opponents to work out how to set up against her. In this case, she has her back to goal and it appears as though Harvard Crimson have managed to contain her, but this is all part of her ploy and she instead bides her time and then turns and shoots when Harvard were least expecting her to do so.
The fact that Harvard didn’t react or close the gap highlights that point, with those around Raphino believing that the tight space she was in and that she had her back to goal would limit her threat here. However, because she managed to test them, it is clear that she is not someone who can be underestimated in this way and that opponents have to remain focused whenever she has the ball inside the final third because not doing so could be extremely costly.
Creating space
However, it is not only inside the final third that Brittany Raphino has had a significant impact on Brown’s play, with it having also been common to see her dropping back to get on the ball in deeper areas too. This shows another side to her game and another reason that teams who are looking at her would be getting more than just a goal scorer.
For one thing, her spatial awareness is something that really stands out when watching her play, with her making plenty of positive runs to get on the ball and to try and make things happen for her team. In this case, she has read what her team are looking to do. She has identified a pocket of space she can move into between the Columbia Lions players, with her dropping back to occupy it and to ensure that the Bears maintain their momentum here.
At this point, the situation appears to be similar to the one in the previous section, with Columbia doing just as Yale did and following Raphino, meaning that space has been left unguarded behind them. The difference here comes in what Raphino does as soon as the ball is at her feet, with her this time not immediately passing it and instead turning to run forwards on her own, using her pace to eliminate her marker and to leave Columbia in a 3-v-3 situation, and one where they are on the back foot.
As with the chance that Lam had earlier in the analysis, the move didn’t lead to anything here, but this once again highlights how many different things Raphino can bring to her team’s play and how, whenever the ball is in open spaces. Her team are in transition, she will always look to get back to play her part in ensuring that a chance to test the opposing goalkeeper comes about.
However, it is not only in open play that she demonstrates this desire to help her team out and to create spaces for them to use to their advantage because she has also shown in tighter areas her ability to get on the ball and to enable her team to get shots away at goal.
In this case, Yale duo Laila Booker and Rebeka Róth have simultaneously closed her down in their attempts to regain the ball but have been unable to due to Raphino’s outstanding body strength, and that in itself gives the Bulldogs a problem which is then exacerbated as soon as Raphino feeds the ball into the path of Ava Seelenfreund, who has moved up to offer a passing option alongside her.
Once again, this move didn’t end in a goal as Seelenfreund squandered the opportunity, and she will have known that she could have done better with her effort, but it once again highlights how Raphino is not only a striker but is also someone who works hard in deeper areas and who will play the team game when she is needed to.
Her ability and desire to get involved regardless of where the ball is is shown clearly when examining her touch map for the entirety of her 2023 campaign, with it apparent just how much of the pitch she covered last year and, therefore, how situations like those identified in this section of the scout report are not isolated moments of quality and are in fact the norm whenever she is on the field.
Therefore, any team compiling a report on her on-field qualities will need to make a note of this, and it is precisely the sort of thing that could set her aside as a top target and is, therefore, one reason that there has been so much reported interest in securing her services.
Versatility
The other thing that any club will monitor closely is Brittany Raphino’s versatility because the demands of the modern game are such that players are expected to be capable of adapting to different shapes and systems and should not be too one-dimensional.
Where Raphino is concerned, this will never be an issue, though, and it is clear when watching her that she can play alternative roles if her team needs her to.
In this case, she has again dropped back but is now even further back than she was in any previous situations, with her only just inside the Princeton Tigers half and therefore acting more as a midfielder than as a forward. As a result, her role has altered to become more progressive rather than the creative playmaking that has been demonstrated previously, with her needing here to not focus on setting up a shot on goal but on simply finding a way to keep the ball moving up the field.
On this occasion, she manages to break through the Princeton line to find fellow forward Miya Grant-Clavijo, and even though the attack was swiftly halted due to the latter being offside, what is clear to see is that Raphino can contribute to other areas of her team’s play as well as the final pass or shot; a point that is further highlighted by her 60.9% overall passing accuracy and 50.4% accuracy specifically for passes into the final third.
The other position that she could be used in is on the wings, and this is something that Brown did on plenty of occasions as the 2023 campaign went on.
When in this role, her aforementioned essential qualities of running forward at speed and exploiting gaps in opposing lines once again came into their own, with her here getting almost up to the goal line before pulling the ball back under pressure from defender Charlie Pawli for a teammate inside the Albany Great Danes goal area to get on the end of.
Unfortunately, this cross doesn’t lead to anything due to her teammates not being on the same page as her and the ball was instead easily cleared by Albany substitute Devon Schmitt. However, that doesn’t detract from the fact that Raphino demonstrated here how she can create chances from wider areas and from deeper ones, adding additional layers to her game.
However, she is more than just someone who would make crosses from the wider channels, with this graphic indicating that she is just as capable of keeping the ball for extended periods of play and of dribbling it into dangerous areas if there is a need to do so.
As with her deliveries, there have been mixed results with this, with some dribbles failing to come off and not having the desired effect, and that could be seen by some as a reason not to sign her. However, it should be remembered that she is still young and at the beginning of her career, so areas like this can be put down as things to keep developing as her time in the professional game goes on in order to help her reach her true potential.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this tactical analysis has looked in detail at Brown Bears product Brittany Raphino, highlighting different areas of her game and showing why she is now rumoured to be on the shopping list of several clubs around Europe.
What has become clear throughout the analysis is that there is a lot more to Raphino than first meets the eye, with her goalscoring tallies impressive, but her overall gameplay and ability to affect the game in different ways, which is likely to attract glances from potential future employers.
At the moment, there have been no confirmed rumours linking her to specific sides. Still, any team that did move for her would be getting a well-rounded, versatile individual who would offer a lot in different thirds. It will be worth keeping an eye on her as her career progresses to see if she does indeed develop into the future star that so many believe that she is capable of being.
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