Hal Hershfelt is a 22-year-old midfielder who has just started playing with Washington Spirit in the NWSL this season after spending some excellent years at Clemson Tigers. Hershfelt was drafted by Washington Spirit on January 12th, after playing for Tigers from 2019 to 2023 and succeeding in earning numerous honours thanks to her impactful performances with the Tigers.
These honours include five All-ACC honours – one First Team All-ACC in 2023, two Second Team All-ACC (2021, 2022), one Third Team All-ACC (2020), and ACC All-Freshman Team (2019) in addition to making 97 starts in 99 appearances. She helped her team reach the NCAA Semifinal and was therefore selected in the 2023 NCAA All-Tournament team.
Such honours can only confirm Hershfelt’s talent and stress that she can become a very valuable player for Washington Spirit and eventually for the USWNT if she succeeds in consistently producing her excellent performances even at the highest level: the NWSL.
Since the start of the 2024 NWSL season, Hershfelt has made her presence felt in the Washington Spirit team. Her contributions extend beyond the midfield, with her ability to score crucial goals proving instrumental in the team’s success. This is evident in their current standing, with the team securing nine points and holding the third position in the standings.
Hershfelt can be best described as a dynamic and robust midfielder, known for her relentless work ethic and team spirit. Her physicality and athleticism are key assets, allowing her to excel in her role. What sets her apart is her ability to score game-winning goals, a trait not commonly associated with midfielders. This versatility and skill make her a valuable asset for the Washington Spirit and any team she joins in the future.
In this tactical analysis and scout report, we will explore the American midfielder’s abilities, positions, and mastered roles within Washington Spirit’s tactics, in addition to her attacking attributes. The analysis will also cover her tackling and defending traits and possible improvements.
Roles and positions
Hershfelt often plays as a central midfielder in Washington Spirit’s 4-2-3-1 and 4-4-2 formations, making a powerful midfield duo alongside Andi Sullivan, who has more experience and fits Hershfelt well since both players have been providing outstanding balance to Washington Spirit’s midfield so far. This being said, Hershfelt has also played on numerous occasions as a defensive midfielder with two central midfielders on her sides, especially when she was playing with Clemson Tigers.
This means that she masters the defensive midfielder position, too, and the roles that come with it. She mainly gets the ball directly from defenders and is responsible for distributing it successfully either to the wings, to her midfield teammates, or to a striker running in space and asking for the ball and dropping deep to build up from the back when the opposing team applies high pressing on defenders and the goalkeeper.
The following heatmap highlights Hershfelt’s ability to occupy various midfield positions, whether in her team’s half or the opposing team’s half. The heatmap also shows that Hershfelt is indeed an energetic midfielder who runs a lot per game and, therefore, helps the team a lot by doing the “dirty work”, as they call it in football: chasing opponents, intercepting passes, and marking players trying to penetrate towards the box.
At the same time, Hershfelt has already proved that her attacking contribution should not be underestimated since she has started scoring goals for Washington Spirit, in addition to her regular goalscoring contributions for Clemson Tigers.
Nevertheless, working with Hershfelt on increasing her number of forward passes per game would help the Washington Spirit a lot since she has some outstanding accuracy rates, whether in terms of passing in general or towards the final third. Additionally, Exploring her smart passing abilities even further would surely increase the number of her assists, knowing that her actual assists rate equals 0.03.
Goalscoring talent
Hershfelt has already confirmed her potential in terms of goalscoring and is expected to score numerous goals for Washington Spirit this season if she keeps the same level of performance and concentration, especially in attack. It is essential to know that Hershfelt shoots 1.3 times on goal per match, with 44.6% of her shots being on target. This means that Hershfelt can often shoot with excellent accuracy, even though she sometimes misses the target.
More importantly, Hershfelt proved that she can score from tight angles while giving the impression that she is not balanced when executing her shot. Her ability to shoot from different positions and use various techniques helps her succeed in scoring regularly, unlike numerous other midfielders who can only master one or two goalscoring types (headers, shots from distance, second-balls, etc).
The following goal action highlights Hershfelt’s ability to score using powerful shots that are often well-angled, making it complicated for goalkeepers to save such shots and, therefore, have more chances to score numerous goals per season. Interim head coach Adrián González can exploit this goalscoring talent by instructing Hershfelt to further opt for such shots and ask for the ball when positioning herself in critical areas like the one shown below in order to get more shooting opportunities per game.
However, this will need to be done in coordination with Sullivan to not attack with two central midfielders and leave the defensive line without someone to cover in case of counter-attacks.
In addition to shooting after getting the ball inside the box, Hershfelt also masters shooting from distance and has proved on many occasions with Clemson Tigers that she can be extremely dangerous when having the ball inside the final third. In fact, her outstanding physical strength allows her to have great control of the ball and an impressive ability to make it fly with great power towards the net.
This goal against Furman showcases this concrete shooting talent that allowed her to score this beautiful goal despite the attempt of the goalkeeper to save it, but in vain since the speed of the shot made it almost impossible for her to catch it before it surpassed the goal line.
Since most NWSL teams are not yet aware of Hershfelt’s outstanding shots from distance qualities, Washington Spirit and Hershfelt herself should exploit this weapon as much as they can before defences tighten their marking on Hershfelt as soon as she reaches the final third. In that case, perhaps resorting to intensifying her smart passes would be the best possible solution to make this tight marking way less effective. Another solution would be to try exploiting her dribbling skills by penetrating towards the box when possible, knowing that Hershfelt makes 2.55 dribbles per games, with a 61.1% success rate.
Moreover, Hershfelt often scores by getting first to second-balls especially during set-pieces or when goalkeepers make wrong clearances. At the same time, she represents a valuable weapon for Washington Spirit in terms of headers during corners and free-kicks since she is a tall player who knows how to execute headers and orient them well towards the net.
As mentioned earlier, Hershfelt’s dribbling abilities and physical strength allow her to be tough to beat in duels, and therefore, she usually has the advantage when trying to penetrate towards the box. At times, she can cause a lot of trouble to opposing defences by dribbling past numerous opponents and using one-two combinations with her teammates at the same time to reach the box quicker.
This goal action shows Hershfelt succeeding in overcoming all the problems that she encountered when trying to penetrate towards the box despite having to dribble past numerous opponents. At the same time, succeeding in creating good chemistry between her and her attacking teammates will be very important since it would allow similar passing combinations to be possible and frequent.
Hershfelt used the one-two passing combination in this action when she had no other choices. And the fact that this teammate showed herself to Hershfelt, got the ball and gave it back to her in a critical spot highlights the importance and the crucial impact of teamplay and chemistry between attacking and midfield players, especially inside the final third.
Playmaking and defensive traits
Hershfelt is not just a midfielder with excellent attacking attributes but also one with great determination to intercept passes and help her team from a defensive perspective. She wins 64.3% defensive duels and 55% aerial duels per game and often makes extra efforts to save dangerous actions either by opting for sliding tackles or sometimes by clearing the ball near the goal line.
This type of midfielder who sacrifices a lot for the team is becoming rare nowadays, and even the ones who have the sense of sacrifice are not always the ones who are excellent from a physical and a tactical perspective. Hershfelt, however, has both features since she never gives up in defence and gives 150% in every game. At the same time, she has what is needed to battle in defensive duels and to keep up with attacking players’ accelerations.
For example, the following interception of the ball was crucial to saving Clemson Tigers from conceding a goal if not for Hershfelt’s excellent effort and her ability to surpass her direct opponent and resort to a sliding clearance at a decisive moment to prevent her from shooting.
With a 90% success rate in terms of sliding tackles, Hershfelt can be considered one of the best in this regard in the NWSL, given that she is a tall midfielder who times her interventions well and resorts to sliding tackles only when needed and when she knows that her tackle will be impactful for and not against her own team, which makes her sliding tackles’ success rate very high.
This sliding tackle example also shows that Hershfelt does not give up easily during defensive duels. Sometimes, she gives the impression that she has been surpassed, but she makes crucial tackles and gets the ball in the end, just like she did here when the opponent dribbled past her and was about to accelerate away from her before she executed this clean tackle and got the ball without committing a foul.
When she does not contribute with goalscoring, Hershfelt is still very impactful inside the final third thanks to her passing abilities, knowing that she also has one of the best accuracy rates in terms of passes: 95.3%. She also provides 7.87 passes to the final third with a 74.3% success rate, which can be very beneficial for Washington Spirit if they know how to use and deal with Hershfelt’s smart passes.
Another advantage that Hershfelt has is her ability to pass using both feet with ease while keeping almost the same accuracy. This example highlights this left foot usage to provide a key pass into space, creating a tangible goalscoring opportunity for her teammate. Washington Spirit will have to exploit the American’s excellent passing abilities and work with her and with the strikers to find the needed chemistry and work on passing combinations that can surprise opponents, which would eventually make Hershfelt provide more assists per season.
Conclusion
Hal Hershfelt can be considered Washington Spirit’s most valuable signing this season since this midfielder has already had a significant impact on the team and is already helping them win points while starting most games. Instructing her to intensify her key passes and shoot more on goal would benefit herself and Washington Spirit more since the player excels on both aspects. Suppose she succeeds in keeping her performance levels high. In that case, Hershfelt is expected to receive offers from numerous teams from the Serie A, WSL, Division 1 féminine leagues or from other European leagues as this would pave the way for her to participate in the UEFA Women’s Champions League as well.
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