Quilindschy Hartman: His key role within Arne Slot’s fantastic Feyenoord

The Dutch Eredivisie continues to be a true rollercoaster of emotions. While the titans of old, like Ajax, are still on a downward spiral, Feyenoord and PSV are battling it out for the top of the mountain for the second season in a row. Having won the 2022/23 title, Feyenoord are now trailing seven points behind their direct rivals after 12 matches played at the moment of writing. But not all is lost; far from it.

They are still alive in both the domestic league and the Champions League, where they will look to outperform one of Lazio or Atlético Madrid in the final fixtures of the group stage. And they aim to do all that with a great core of players and young talent such as Quilindschy Hartman, the 21-year-old left-back who’s slowly but surely becoming a vital piece of the Feyenoord tactics.

So, in this tactical analysis, we will give you a full scout report on Hartman, showing why he’s been so crucial to their success. The analysis will touch upon his profile, strengths and weaknesses, and exact role in Feyenoord’s tactics.

Player overview

Quilindschy Hartman is currently in his second entire season with the Feyenoord senior team, and he’s starting to really put a stamp on the squad and their 2023/24 campaign. Back in 2022, he was still playing for their youth teams, and now, he’s an essential piece for an Eredivisie-winning group of players. All of that at the tender age of just 21. The first graph of our analysis shows his data profile for the current season.

Hartman is 183cm tall (6’0’’) and weighs 72kg (158 lbs), so he’s already well-built and boasts a highly technical and attacking nature. The statistics confirm this, as the 21-year-old tops many of our possession metrics and is also good in the attacking category as well. Defensively, however, the data may not show a highly proficient player, but that is also partly due to Feyenoord’s heavy possession style, which puts an enormous onus on the young talent’s on-the-ball ability.

In terms of profiling, Hartman is an underlapping full-back who likes to start deep, often as part of a back three, and then advances either with or without the ball into the left half-space. It’s from there he can attack the box from deep or deploy deadly crosses into the feet of his teammates, as we’ll see further along in this tactical analysis.

The heatmap and touchmap give us a reasonably accurate picture of his in-possession tendencies; Hartman is a focal point across all the phases as he participates in the build-up, progression, retention and attacking within Feyenoord’s tactics. For a 21-year-old emerging talent to be an all-rounder like that is highly impressive.

Without further ado, let’s take a closer look at how exactly he impacts the team.

Build-up phase

The youngster is a player with a versatile skill set, and his abilities are excellent in the first phase of Feyenoord’s build-up tactics. As a possession-heavy side and a side that generally resides around the top of the league in many passing metrics, their players need to be comfortable with the ball at their feet. Hartman is no exception. He is the player with the third-most passes in the team and ranks seventh in total passes when compared to the rest of Eredivisie.

But it’s a burden the young left-back gladly shoulders due to his high technical quality. Hartman often starts as the third centre-back or simply a deeper full-back when Feyenoord tries to build up from the back virtually all the time.

This is important for Feyenoord because they can achieve overloads more easily with an extra man in defence, which forces most of the defensive setups in the Dutch league to commit an extra man into their first line of press or adjust their structure accordingly. Sometimes, however, teams will decide to stay in a compact mid-block rather than risk getting exposed in a higher press once they commit additional resources to combat Feyenoord’s three-in-the-back system, and that’s where Hartman’s understanding of the game comes into play.

Since he boasts decent pace and can be an outlet and especially a tool for the goalie to bypass the press, he will aim to start deep but then rush forward, which often results in one of two things: either he becomes a target for long balls into space or simply drags a marker with him, creating more space deeper for his team to exploit. We can see the latter scenario unfold in the following example.

This is an excellent demonstration of both individual and collective tactical prowess: individual because Hartman knows how to move to create and exploit space and collective because the move seems very well choreographed as if it were constructed on the training ground. Hartman once again starts the sequence fairly deep but then adjusts to drag the marker and create space for his teammate to move into.

The ball goes from the goalie to the centre-back and then into Hartman once he drops from his higher position. As soon as the pass reaches him, he lays it off to the midfielder, who’s now free, and Feyenoord can continue their attack. Interestingly enough, Hartman is often a recycling tool rather than a highly progressive passer from the back when he’s on the ball. His line-breaking sequences and creative actions come in much higher areas, and we’ll discuss that in the next section of this scout report.

Next, we can see the 21-year-old’s progression graph, showing us his carries and passes.

We can deduce a couple of things from this data. Firstly, Hartman likes to carry the ball to progress from deeper areas, and secondly, despite the team’s tendency to stay away from long passes, the young left-back isn’t afraid to look for runners, switch play or try a riskier pass-down the central channels of the pitch. This, alongside his creative tendency in attack, is why he has the most ball losses in the team in 2023/24. Of course, losing the ball is never good, but there is still a good balance between (overly) risky attempts and safe recycling from Hartman.

In the build-up phase, in particular, the 21-year-old is cautious and will mostly recycle play if there is no way to progress. However, the way Feyenoord build from the back is that they create and then access the free man. And often, that can be Hartman himself. In such scenarios, one of which you can see in the following image, the goalie goes for the ball out wide to bypass the first line of the opposition’s press.

Once that happens, Hartman’s task is to quickly access the next free man as the opposition scrambles to readjust quickly.

In general, these types of switches are relatively straightforward but require decent ball-striking to execute; Hartman sometimes struggles to apply enough power and precision in those scenarios, which could be another area of improvement for the youngster to look into. That being said, however, he is competent enough to execute these types of passes regularly.

Creativity & defending

We’ve decided to put creativity and defending in the same section even though they seem like polar opposites because both are often used for the same thing: chance creation. Hartman’s defending is quite aggressive at times, and despite the below-average numbers we saw in our data analysis, it’s still an effective tool in his arsenal. Often, we will see the young left-back push up aggressively and apply pressure on the opposition’s second line to try and recover the ball in an advantageous position.

This type of defending is effective because Feyenoord are quick to transition from defence to attack, and Hartman himself can start those actions upon recovering possession. After all, he is the player with the team’s second-most defensive duels and fourth-most interceptions. As such, he is good at identifying when and how to jump up and engage into a duel or simply cut out a passing lane the opposition was looking to exploit.

However, at the moment of writing, he is also the player with the second-most fouls in the team, showing that aggression is often not dosed properly. So far, it hasn’t hindered Feyenoord’s tactics too much, as the pressing is still a valuable asset to the team. But perhaps learning how to minimise the fouls while maximising the recoveries would be the next step in his development as a player.

Moving further up the pitch, however, we get into the more exciting part of Hartman’s profile. The 21-year-old has the most through balls in the team and the third-most in the entire league at the moment of writing this tactical analysis. He also has the third-most key passes at Feyenoord and even cracks the top 20 compared to the rest of Eredivisie. His 1.86 expected assists (xA) also put him at 25th in the league, too.

All of that combined tells us there is a highly creative player in there who is also far from a finished product. We’ll see more in the following graph.

While the sheer numbers don’t scream elite potential just yet, there are a couple of things worth noting here. First of all, the area of delivery: Hartman is an inverted full-back and will assume a position in the half-space once he enters the final third. He can be an overlapping left-back, too, but he prefers the inside. From there, we’ll often see his signature cross into the box and into the bodies in dangerous positions.

So far in 2023/24, he’s only got two assists to his name, but there is potential for that number to increase as time goes on. Hartman also has the second-most crosses in the team, and even though Feyenoord don’t necessarily rely on those types of deliveries as much, it is a potent weapon to have.

All of the sequences you can see here show Hartman’s preferred delivery area, and all broadly follow the same blueprint: invert into half-space and deploy a left-footed pass. Interestingly, despite preferring to cross the ball and use these high deliveries into the penalty area, Hartman’s assists so far have come from a different angle, much higher in the box. If we look at the previous graph showing his assists and shot assists, we’ll see the two pink ones (assists) come from inside the box and from an eerily similar position.

And this is no coincidence either. If we consider only left-backs in the Eredivisie, Hartman ranks in the 89.6th percentile for touches in the opposition’s box. Generally, upon entering the final third, the inverted left-back will assume a position on the outer ring of Feyenoord’s attacking unit; this is where the deployers stay and execute their deliveries into the box. However, from that position, Hartman can make a deep run into the box and then becomes the receiver in advanced positions on the pitch.

So far, those advanced positions have resulted in two assists and no goals to his name yet. Still, considering he is also in the 80.7th percentile for shots among left-backs in the league, it seems he’s trying to be a more direct threat in attack himself instead of just providing the chance creation tools. If we consult the data again, which we’ll do in the following graph, we can see a pattern emerging slowly but surely.

Unsurprisingly, many of his attacking actions and movements into the box start in that left half-space he loves so much. And once he’s inside the box, we can see in the following graph that shots from the left side are his most successful ones. Yes, once he inevitably cuts onto his left foot either from or towards the left half-space, Hartman will often try a shot from distance, but so far, those have been relatively ineffective and represent another potential area of development for the youngster.

That said, his shots and even deliveries into the box are very effective when paired up with the threatening runs he makes from the deep while on the ball. We saw in the previous graphs how Hartman loves progressive carries into the penalty area, but they don’t necessarily have to end that high to be effective.

The last example in this scout report shows the 21-year-old running with the ball from a deep area and then attempting a shot at goal. It’s a great combination of his deep runs/carries and then ball-striking, despite the action not resulting in a goal.

And the best thing about this sequence is that it can be a run followed by a shot, just like it was in the example we used, or a cross can follow it; both provide value and an attacking threat. The latter, however, is proving to be the better option for Hartman.

Conclusion

Feyenoord are still alive in the race to reclaim their throne in Eredivisie, and Quilindschy Hartman could prove to be a key cog in the machine that gets them there. Despite his tender age, the left-back has already become a valuable squad member. Every player has faults, of course, so there are still areas the 21-year-old needs to work on.

But as things currently stand, his importance and ability could improve significantly in the near future. Are they going to? Only time will tell. But the ingredients are (almost) all there.