Onyi Echegini is a 22-year-old midfielder who has spent the last five seasons playing college soccer in the US.
She started off her footballing career in London with Arsenal. However, in 2019, she opted to continue her playing career in the US with Mississippi State, where she spent the next three seasons before transferring to collegiate powerhouse Florida State.
At Florida State, Echegini took her game to a whole other level. She finished the 2023 season as a first-team all-American, first-team all-conference, conference final MVP and capping that all off with a national title. Not too shabby.
At Florida State, she has received nine call-ups for the Nigerian national side, representing the Super Falcons at the 2023 World Cup.
Having spent the last five years in the US, she is about to graduate, and several top sides are looking to pick her up, such as Juventus. In this tactical analysis, we look at her standout performances, key strengths and weaknesses and role within her team’s tactics to pinpoint the primary reasons Echegini is such an intriguing prospect.
Carrying ability
Perhaps Echegini’s most devastating quality is her ability to drive forward on the ball at pace. She is particularly dangerous in broken field play, where she can use her dynamism to progress attacks nicely. She is so dangerous on the ball because she is not only fast but also strong and difficult to push off the ball, often able to ride challenges or even retain possession against physical tackles.
Throughout the 2023 College soccer season, she has averaged 2.1 completed dribbles per game at a success rate of 58%. This only tells half the story, though, as the graphic above shows. A number of those carries are for significant yardage. This makes her a real asset when carrying attacks forward, particularly coming out of the defence-attack transitions. With 59 penetrating carries throughout the season, many of which were into the box itself. She was able to drive forward on the ball from out wide and through the middle of the opposition, taking the opposition midfield out of the game.
In this example, Echegini picks up the ball following a loose pass intercepted by a teammate. She starts off with her back to goal in front of the midfield; however, by the end of it, she has run past the central midfielder and then got around the defensive line by attacking the space to the left of the central defender and getting a shot on goal which is saved by the goalkeeper.
In this example, the full-back receives the ball with her back to goal. Echegini is playing as the left inside forward. She identifies the space created as the right-back has stepped up towards her teammate. She attacks this space out wide; this is what we want to take note of, though, she picks up the ball around 30-40m out from goal, then carries at speed, never breaking stride for a loose touch on the ball. She is able to score to give her side a 2-0 lead.
In this example, Echegini receives the ball and demonstrates the ability to make a dynamic cut inside, leaving the defender in her wake. However, despite this, the opposition clogs up the middle, limiting her ability to use her to get an aggressive right-footed pass or shot away, and she is forced to play a sideways pass, which loses momentum. However, we’ll get to her chance creation later on.
As you can see, Echegini is a really dynamic player who can cause problems for all sorts of teams. However, she must be positioned at angles and parts of the pitch where she can take advantage of these situations. Her ability to be dynamic off the ball is an interesting one as well, particularly if you wanted to play her more centrally; you could have her making dynamic forward runs to support attacks out wide underlapping the winger or just to get in behind the opposition shape to give the opposition something else to consider.
Goalscoring
To add to Echegini’s ability to drive and take on opponents, she demonstrated some considerable quality in front of goal throughout the season. With her scoring 16 goals in 23 games and finishing as the top scorer in the division, she finished the season as the fifth top scorer in one of the most challenging conferences in college soccer.
Above is a good representation of the goals that Echegini is scoring in and around the penalty spot, where the quality of shots will naturally be high. With an average xG per game of 0.48, it’s no wonder she has scored so many goals this season. The other noteworthy part is that she is actually exceeding xG by 4.79, suggesting a high conversion rate. As you can see from her shot accuracy map, a number of her shots are going into the corners of the goal, where you would expect more goals to be scored.
If you get into these positions regularly, you will likely score several goals. The other side is that she has shown considerable quality to score from outside the box, particularly cutting in onto her right foot from the left side and then striking the ball with power.
In this above example, with the ball out wide with her teammate. Echegini makes a dynamic attacking run towards the box to get on the end of the ball and perform a first-time finish. The timing of the run here is superb, arriving at the six-yard line just as the ball is arriving, meaning that only she can get on the end of the cross.
In this example, you can see the fear that she puts into opposition defenders when she has the ball as the Syracuse defender starts to backpedal and flips her hips inwards, which invites Echegini to drive inside onto her favoured right foot. Nonetheless, when she has cut inside, she hits an excellent right-footed shot into the bottom corner of the goal. The ball hit with too much pace for the goalkeeper to be able to react in time to make a save.
In this example, she demonstrates the quality she possesses from range by picking up the ball on the edge of the box and then hitting a powerful right-footed shot, which is again too quick for the keeper to deal with.
Defending
Echegini’s abilities off the ball are clear for the eye to see. However, she is by no means absent on the defensive side of the ball, although she is given less responsibility. She has demonstrated a willingness to get back and win the ball off opponents and then launch dangerous counterattacks from there. With her averaging 4.70 ball recoveries per game throughout the season with the majority of these being in the opposition half of the field, 69%. This suggests how Echegini could be utilised in a high-energy system to get involved in a high press or add some more dynamism to a midfield.
Her strength and power make her able to win these duels with strong, powerful tackles. Winning 67% of all her defensive duels throughout the season. This could be a real asset, particularly in the midfield, looking to regain possession quickly and consistently for her side.
Below is an example of how Echegini can be used to win the ball back by sneaking behind midfielders and nicking the ball off of them. Then, she can use her previously mentioned speed to launch dangerous attacks for her side.
Chance Creation
Chance creation is undoubtedly an area that we would have expected more from a player like Echegini. On multiple occasions, she demonstrated high quality with her right foot to receive the ball in space between the defensive-midfield lines and progress attacks from these areas. Equally, she demonstrated the ability to create space to cross the ball from the left flank, where she was most often positioned. However, from these wide positions, she was very right-side dominant and, as such, was reluctant to take left-footed crosses down the line when they came and instead tried to cut in onto her right foot.
If we look at some numbers to support these observations, Echegini has an average xA per game of only 0.09 throughout the 2023 season, only achieving three assists through 23 games, completing an average of 0.2 crosses per game.
If you want more production regarding chance creation, you should play her in a more central role, as a number ten. She still has the space and gaps to run at defenders, but she still has the threat of a long, powerful, right-footed shot. However, now she would be in danger of being able to play a more positive penetrating pass to break that last line.
The two diagrams above illustrate my point nicely. On one side, you have her winger actions. You will notice how she is left-side dominant; this is the position she has played for most of her games this season. Within that, she has been able to play several crosses into the box throughout the season.
The first thing to notice is how few crosses have been played into the box, especially considering this is through a 23-game season.
The second thing to notice is where these crosses are coming from. A lot of these are from deeper positions or from tighter or even within the box, suggesting that she has been trying to cut in onto her right foot or use her right foot to cross down the left flank. Although it can be effective, it does make her more one-dimensional as a player.
Alternatively, let’s look at where she is playing most of her progressive passes. Particularly note how narrow many of these passes’ start positions are, suggesting a tendency to be in the midfield when playing these passes, as this suits her playing style slightly better.
In this example, you can see her effectiveness from midfield-based positions, receiving the ball with her back to goal in the half spaces from the centre-back. She can then turn and play an aggressive penetrating through ball for her teammate to run onto.
She demonstrates touch and feel in and around the box in this example. To play a well-weighted through ball for a teammate to attack the space and play a dangerous ball into the box.
This is an example of what we mean by her being slightly one-dimensional; with the ball being out wide, she plays a right-footed cross into the box, although this ball actually proves to create a good chance for the side. Against better, smarter defenders, they can just shut off the right side and force her down the line where she appears significantly less comfortable.
Conclusion
Echegini is an intriguing player partly due to her versatility and ability to play as a winger, forward or midfielder. Her dynamism is the first thing that immediately jumps off the screen, and would be an asset to any side looking to sign her up.
Having played the majority of her international appearances for the Nigerian national side at midfield, she could be best suited to playing in this position, with her qualities in ball progression with her ability to drive through a midfield and develop attacks in this way being a real asset.
She is a little raw at times and could develop a stronger, more confident left foot to add more dimensions to her game and take her to new heights. However, she would be an exciting signing for any top club looking to bring her in.
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