Jule Brand has been producing some excellent performances this season, having done the same in previous seasons, for her team Hoffenheim Frauen and for the German national team. She deserves to be in this Total Football Analysis 2022 magazine since she is now considered one of the most talented rising players in women’s football who will likely shine even further during this new year.

Therefore, this tactical analysis in the form of a scout report will include an extensive analysis of this player’s characteristics, positions and roles, as well as her main skills, strengths and technical abilities that have allowed her to perform exceptionally lately.

Positions and roles

Brand plays mainly as an attacking left-winger who masters different skills such as passing, shooting, dribbling and moving without the ball to provide options to her midfield and attacking teammates.

She usually exploits her height when surpassing opponents in one vs one duels, as she accompanies her physical strength with speed and quick dribbling. Such characteristics allow the German international to always have an advantage over her opponents when attacking and that can always be noted.

In addition, Brand was deployed as a left-back on several occasions too and therefore, she has no problems in applying defensive duties and being instructed to mark opposing wingers.

With her national team, Brand has also played on the right-wing and did well in interpreting that position too. In fact, Brand can easily play as a left or right winger, as a striker or as an advanced playmaker too. Having the individual skills, the physical abilities, and the tactical intelligence that she has at a young age means that this player can do extremely well at any of these mentioned positions.

When looking at this picture, one can notice that Brand is a dynamic player who can be found on any part of the pitch, whether in defence or in attack. This versatility is another characteristic that will serve Brand well in her career since being used to playing in different positions can only be fruitful in the long run. Head coaches always look for such players, especially if their quality doesn’t drop when changing positions or when having different roles.

Goalscoring

In terms of goalscoring, Brand has already scored 11 goals in 29 matches this season, making her a very useful player for her team in this regard since she moves extremely well without the ball to always put herself in a suitable scoring position, and that’s why we said earlier that she would have no problem playing as a striker.

Having the sense of the goal and moving regularly to participate in the action is something that the coaching staff should focus on and rely on even further since they have a player who can be crucial in such situations.

You can see in this example how Brand feels the possibility of an opportunity while following the action and positioning herself somewhere that allows her to score while making it easy for her teammates to pass the ball to her since they will have no better options. She scored this goal against Arsenal mainly thanks to her movement without the ball to provide a passing option for her teammate.

These types of movements and goal actions have occurred numerous times and Brand is always successful in spotting the free spaces before moving ahead of her opponents.

What makes this player special as well is that she is confident and cold-blooded in front of goal, which makes her scoring chances higher. Brand was able to score goals from different positions and with various techniques while always remaining calm before shooting and making her shooting decision. In the following example, she was able to score against Werder Bremen while using her weaker foot from a different angle and not coming from the left-wing as usual. This proves the player’s ability to adapt to the various situations she encounters and what is excellent is that she usually succeeds in getting what she plans to achieve on the pitch.

Playmaking

Being usually deployed on the left-wing allows Brand to make some excellent crosses from wide for her attacking teammates who usually wait for her crosses inside the penalty area. Brand has been able to provide 8 assists in 29 matches this season so far, and most of these assists were crucial for her team. Brand has become an irreplaceable player for her team given that she is a key attacking player for both Hoffenheim and Germany. Her passing abilities have improved a lot over the last two seasons and what is more important is that she’s also become outstanding in terms of dribbling.

As you can see below, this type of cross to the striker was recurrent as it was usually beneficial for the team and resulted in goals. Brand’s crossing accuracy has been improving with each game and now she reached a very good level. Nevertheless, she can work even further on her passing skills in order to provide more key passes and enhance her long passes even further.

Such assists were repeated regularly, especially this season and even against strong teams like this one against Arsenal. However, Brand should work on alternating between crossing from the wing and cutting inside to not become predictable in the near future. Also, improving her weaker foot’s passing accuracy would be extremely beneficial for the player, as that would enable her to confuse her direct markers easily given that she will have an additional weapon that they aren’t aware of. Alternating between crosses of the left and the right foot would serve Brand a lot if she continues playing as a winger in the future.

Brand can also be more clinical when inside the final third and especially in the middle of the final third where key passes can be provided. She is already exploiting every situation she gets in that area in order to try such passes. However, at times, she lacks a little bit of accuracy to reach a great result. All that is needed is a little bit more concentration and training to make the execution of such passes more natural and, therefore, precise.

In the following example, you can see how Brand was advancing with the ball in a dangerous position while acting as an advanced playmaker. She had an excellent idea to serve her teammate with a no-look pass in the free area behind the defender, yet, her pass was too powerful for her teammate who wasn’t able to reach it before the goalkeeper.

Conclusion

Brand has already shown that she can become one of the best players in the world very soon as she has already been excellent during the start of this season. With more work and consistency, she will be able to improve all the little tactical details that make the difference in order to shine even further and perhaps even propel her to a bigger European club next season. Teams like Bayern Munich, Wolfsburg, Barcelona and other FAWSL teams are always interested in such talents.