Norway has become a gold mine for Europe’s top teams. The recent moves for players like Casper Tengstedt or David Datro Fofana to top teams like Benfica and Chelsea, respectively, demonstrate the watchful eye Europe’s elite clubs are keeping on the talent coming out of the country. The nation where names like Erling Haaland or Martin Ødegaard first emerged continues to produce exciting talents.
One of them is the Vålerenga midfielder, Odin Thiago Holm, 20 years old last January, who earned a place among the ‘Next 50’ published by The Guardian in 2020. A ball-playing and progressive midfielder who has shone in his league via his elegant dribbling technique to make him effective in various phases of his team’s possessions.
In addition to how impressive his appearance in the ranks of the Norwegian team has been, he has a curious story, having registered his second name ‘Thiago’ in 2017 due to his role model, Thiago Alcântara, whose football style he greatly identifies with.
We will be analysing, in detail, one of the most interesting gems of the Eliteserien championship who has already caught the eye of teams all over Europe. This will be a tactical analysis, carried out in the form of a scout report, on Odin Thiago Holm, his functionality in Vålerenga’s tactics and an analysis of different phases of the game.
Organizing build-up and breaking lines
Odin acts as a distributor for Vålerenga. His technique and maturity help him to carry his team’s possessions in the way he wants to dictate them. He is a player who displays speed in his decision-making. He is quick-minded also thanks to his scanning; before receiving, he already knows what action he will take. He is fast to release a pass within his first touch or after controlling the ball, which makes him play in a simple but productive way for Vålerenga’s game-creation phase.
He recognises which positions to take up depending on which sector he is responsible for on the pitch. He normally occupies the right-sided midfield position and feels much more comfortable in a three-man midfield, where he has more freedom of movement to both get closer to taking the ball and drive forward, break lines with his passes, and support in attack, something which he contributes to positively.
His dynamism is quite favourable and he offers a lot to his team in different possession scenarios. He can surprise with his between-the-line passes as well as pausing and restarting build-up when necessary.
He detects what the game needs at that moment. If he does not find a passing option, and if they do not exist, he will release the ball to try to create one himself later with dismarking movements.
He has quite impressive decision-making. He draws the pressure well, creating the right space that he wants to throw a pass into, but what is remarkable is that it all happens so fast. He soaks up the tight marking and executes well, often resulting in beneficial progressive passes for his team.
His contributions in the first phase of the creation of Vålerenga are clear and solid in each of his searches. He offers them a way to escape the pressure or break deep blocks. With his technique and quick footwork, combined with his mental agility, it is a path that gets cleaner and cleaner to achieve progressions from the first line.
But what he offers later in the second phase of build-up is also key to his team. He is capable of driving at high speed after a dribble, which normally ends with executions into space. He acts as an organizer in the early stages of the attack, but later is deadly and threatening with his long passes into space, making him a more aggressive passer in these moments of the game.
He has impressive close control, both when static and while running. In addition, his body postures prior to receiving are top: he opens his body and outlines the drive towards the sector he wants, such as sideways postures to release and continue moving, seeking to detect other spaces without the ball.
Without a doubt, his inside-out passes and chemistry with the wide player are significant in this phase of the game. When his team is in the middle third of the field, Odin uses tools and different technical resources to find the winger/full-back who is always pointing out deep movements, which he understands perfectly and his through-passes are highly effective, which allows his team to advance more dangerously and quickly.
He can make passes with the outside of his foot and the ball travels extremely quickly from his foot after the first touch of the ball. But this synergy with the wide man is not only generated through his passes, but it is also dynamic to exchange roles and channels on the pitch.
Coming more to the attack section, Thiago Holm shows a lot of intensity in his movements after releasing the pass, especially advancing towards the final third, where he regularly swaps the inside lane for the outside, where he seeks to send crosses and surprise with powerful and fast deliveries in the run. There, with little time to think and act, he looks to confuse markings and act quickly to fracture the rival block.
He is a dangerous player on the edge of the area due to his fine striking of the ball that takes a combination of finesse, power and the necessary curve, in case he has to require it. His ball-striking is high calibre, which can be seen in the variety of passes he can take and generate.
He has dynamic movements looking to enter the penalty box, due to how elusive he tends to be, breaking lines and pushing the last line with his movements inside looking to receive. Although normally, the long-distance shot is more used within their principles of play when it approaches said area.
Odin Thiago Holm has, within his marvellous technique and vast resources, elite potential as a distributor. Not only because of how elegant he usually is and how disciplined he is to play collectively, with his intelligence to restart or progress at the right moment, but also because he possesses dynamism and courage.
Holm is a player who dares to break lines not only from the pass but with dribbling and smart dismarking movements. Probably the weight of the passes at certain times needs to decrease a bit, but it is something that is noticeable due to his age and the impulsiveness that he sometimes shows to find a pass, which makes him add more power.
Ball-retention
It’s hard to pick which of Holm’s on-the-ball attributes is the best, but certainly, the pressure retention and ability to overcome opponents who seek to close spaces are extremely useful and brilliant on the part of the Norwegian midfielder. Normally we can find this type of situation in his own third, where he is even pressured by two or more players and has shown to be a calm and composed player to carry out his actions.
He uses a lot of body feints without even touching the ball in his dribbles. He applies spins and locks postures to absorb pressure even playing with his back. He is not the most physical player but he knows how to use his technique and footwork to control the ball and not let the ball be stolen. It is very difficult to dispossess him since he manages his touches with good timing and shields the ball with good body posture.
What he offers as well after absorbing the pressure is tremendous. From his very elegant dribbling with soft and simple touches to driving at high speed, leaving behind up to 2-3 players who have sought to lock him up so that he makes mistakes in his executions. As he releases the pass, he is very active to solve pressure moments, although in this he takes more time, since he usually makes between 2-3 turns/cuts before driving.
In many spaces on the field, he is a player who hides and shields the ball well. He can take it on to the wing, play very close to the line, and pass through small spots where no one had seen and thought he could do it. That is what is surprising about his style of play: the types of actions that probably require more experience on the pitch, but he still pulls off at a high level.
He can play in extremely small spaces and not feel intimidated. He displays a style of elusion quite similar to that of Thiago Alcántara, his idol. With changes of speed and direction, taking the body as a key point to feint.
Pressure retention is something that happens constantly within Holm’s game. And he even has fun with it. Since he demonstrates his rebelliousness, his ball retention, his youth, and his individual technique with which he uses tools that not everyone in the game has, in order to position his team faster in the final third, with his creative and own ideas.
Defensive issues and high-pressing
Odin Thiago Holm shows a defensive profile which is based on a fairly high pressing, good intensity to pursue and activate triggers, but also little tactical discipline when he needs to be more orderly and close the lines on his team, which generates situations where he steps off his line and usually creates undesirable space.
He is not a player with a lot of ground coverage, which makes him somewhat lost on certain occasions when his pressure breaks in a few seconds.
Accepting that, these types of players are much more orientable than the others who do not seek to apply intense pressure or be aggressive in their duels, which is just the opposite of the 20-year-old Norwegian.
For his part, he is a player who usually enters duels very prepared and uses a good technique in his tackles, despite being very careful with them so as not to make fouls. His energy to defend very high and steal from behind is something that characterizes him, especially when he plays into a man-marking system.
With details to solve in this discipline, ordering where, when and who to jump to try to steal or direct the pressure towards a certain required area, Holm is a defender who shows support for his team.
In fact, one of the ways he shows his defensive support the most is inside the penalty area. As Vålerenga are a team that is often forced to go back so far, he is smart to anticipate crosses with his positioning inside the area, as well as directing clearances to areas where turnovers do not create danger.
He intercepts movements well at the near post and is proactive in going after a poorly executed pass and making a subsequent counter-attack.
Conclusion
Barely 20 years old, Holm has already recorded 58 Eliteserien games, scoring six goals and providing three assists. He has become a very interesting player in the eyes of those teams that are looking in their midfield, a player capable of being the metronome of their offensive structure, offering pause, dynamism, progression between the lines and even aggressiveness reaching the area if required.
As he also has an intense defensive profile, which of course needs to be polished in certain respects, with decisive energy that can enhance significantly in the coming years.
Holm wouldn’t be out of place under a coach that professes positional play, seeking to attack with long possessions, but he even adapts to contexts with less possession of the ball, being more direct, thanks to his excellent vision to find players attacking space and his simplicity to play with quick-passes.
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