Spanish media have recently argued that the Danish left-back, Sofie Svava is set to join Olympique Lyonnais and sign a long-term contract following the end of her contract with Real Madrid at the end of this season.
It is true that with Olga Carmona being the starter at Real Madrid, Svava was not getting her full chance with the Las Blancas as she was not getting the necessary playing time to improve in a remarkable way and showcase her excellent abilities in a regular fashion.
Svava started her career in 2017 at Brøndby IF, where she played two seasons and was able to win the cup in her first season and the league title in 2019.
Afterwards, she went to Sweden to play for a top team like Rosengård, who paid a club-record fee to Brøndby IF to get the services of the 17-year-old Svava.
This move represented a huge step for the Danish at that time, given that Rosengård were excelling in the Damallsvenskan and playing regularly in the UEFA Women’s Champions League as well.
It is worth mentioning that Svava won the Damallsvenskan with Rosengård that year and reached the quarter-finals with them, even though she was not a starter at that time.
Following an enriching short experience at Rosengård, Svava went to Wolfsburg and had some even more European experiences as she played against teams like Juventus and Servette while the club got knocked out in the semi-finals by Barcelona.
Although she was not a starter with Wolfsburg, especially on big occasions, reaching the semi-finals of the UWCL enabled Svava to acquire a lot of experience and use it later when she joined Real Madrid in early 2022.
Svava has been pivotal in Real Madrid’s line-up as she played more regularly with them and was able to show her talent more in the Primera División despite the challenge with Olga Carmona.
Nevertheless, a new change was needed as Svava still did not get her full chance yet.
The time has come for her to “explode” football-wise and potentially become Olympique Lyonnais’ first-choice left-back.
In this tactical analysis and scout report, we will explore the Danish international’s defensive, playmaking, and attacking abilities while considering how she fits into Olympique Lyonnais’ tactics and whether she can battle Selma Bacha for the regular spot.
The analysis will, however, begin by focusing on Svava’s possible roles and positions at Olympique Lyonnais.
Possible roles and positions at Olympique Lyonnais
Svava is a left-footed player who always plays on the left wing, whether as a left-back, left wing back or left winger.
Her main position, however, is the left-back one since that’s the position she occupied the most in Real Madrid’s 4-3-3.
Nevertheless, she was often used as a wing-back with Denmark in their 3-4-3 or even as a winger in their 4-4-2 as Andrée Jeglertz prefers to use her more in advanced positions, exploiting her attacking abilities in a more frequent and consistent way.
If she joins Lyon, Svava will undoubtedly be battling Selma Bacha for the left-back role, but she can also play as a winger when needed since she is used to this position and can be dangerous when occupying it.
Svava’s roles are often mixed; she is a pacy player with fairly good dribbling abilities, especially on the wing.
More importantly, she usually has a good vision of the pitch and provides a lot of key passes per game, making her very valuable for the teams she plays at.
Her ability to always find a passing solution in a quick and accurate way makes Svava a very efficient full-back, as she makes things look easy on that side whenever she plays.
Defensively speaking, Svava surely has to mark opposing wingers often and usually does so with success, although she can always improve in this regard.
Overall, Svava is a reliable defender who can mark well and use her pace to prevent counter-attacks or penetrations from the wing.
In addition, Svava can be a goalscorer and has shown some glimpses of what she can do when she gets goalscoring opportunities.
It is true that Svava did not score a lot of goals in her career so far, yet she proved on numerous occasions that she has the potential to score more goals per season especially using long-range shots.
With a bit more concentration and training on this type of shots, Svava is capable of increasing the number of her goals because we noticed that she gets a lot of shooting opportunities thanks to second-balls but does not always exploit them in the best possible way.
The following heatmap highlights Svava’s positioning and shows that he covers all the left flank and is comfortable playing in all positions on this side.
This, however, does not mean that she cannot be used as a right winger, for instance.
Playing her as an inverted winger can prove to be a useful experiment as Svava has the abilities to succeed in that role as well.
Goalscoring and Playmaking
In terms of goalscoring, Svava shoots 1.02 times per game with 36.8% shots on target, and that’s a bit low average.
However, we should take into consideration Svava’s defensive position and the fact that her main roles does not include shooting or goalscoring.
That being said, Svava needs to work more on her shooting accuracy, especially regarding her first-time shots from distance, because she needs this type of shots a lot when dealing with second-balls.
At the same time, Svava showed on several occasions that she could score goals and even free kicks.
This means that she needs to train and showcase her set-piece-taking abilities even more to get more chances to execute them, whether with Denmark or possibly Olympique Lyonnais.
The following picture shows a free kick Svava was able to score using her left foot in a powerful yet very accurate way.
Being able to curve the ball in the way she wants is already a positive sign, which means that Svava has the potential to score free kicks in different ways.
Yet, hard work and consistency are essential to potentially becoming the main set-piece taker for her team in addition to taking set-pieces with Denmark.
At the same time, succeeding in always positioning herself in key spots to win the ball during attacking situations can make Svava an even more important player in the attacking phase, as she already does this quite often.
We find her getting second balls during corners and trying to score using surprising shots.
At other times, she positions herself inside the box to surprise defenders and finish actions while being unmarked, like she did in the following example.
The fact that Svava does not fear nor hesitate when getting the opportunity to shoot from distance means that She has a strong character, which highlights her winning attitude.
Moreover, this picture shows that Svava scored this goal using her right foot even though she does not normally use it so often.
Keeping on improving her touch and accuracy using the right foot is essential to making her an even more complete left-back.
Regarding assists and playmaking, Svava has a 78.6% passing accuracy average, 42.9% in terms of long passing accuracy and 67.2% regarding passing towards the final third.
These numbers are good enough and reflect Svava’s consistent key passes and ability to consistently create danger when advancing on the left flank.
Svava can create various types of assists and key passes, especially destined towards the box.
The most frequent one being crosses to strikers.
This picture highlights her ability to cross the ball while being marked while still getting to make her cross accurate and enabling the receiver to score it with a first touch.
Svava can also vary her assists as she was able to provide assistance using corners, backward passes from the wing, early crosses, and more.
The following example highlights perfectly how Svava can be considered a true winger, as she was able to execute a pure winger action here.
As soon as she got the ball, she fixed her direct marker, dribbled past her in a very fluid manner and then provided a backward pass to her teammate without overthinking or losing time after dribbling.
Such actions make Svava a reliable winger and encourage head coaches to use her more often as a wing-back rather than a left-back.
Defensive and tackling abilities
On average, Svava wins 64.8% defensive duels, 47.3% in the air, makes 4.06 interceptions per game, and 20% successful sliding tackles.
These averages sound good enough overall but can surely be improved with more experience and more tactical maturity.
Svava’s physical abilities are also good enough, enabling her to battle any opponent on the ball and eventually win her duels.
Svava showed on numerous occasions that she can be defensively aggressive in a positive way, using tackles and disturbing opponents.
In fact, she is very tough to beat in one vs one and does not give up easily when opponents try to surpass her.
Like you can see in this example, she resorts to sliding tackles to intercept the ball and avoid losing it.
Nevertheless, Svava needs to pay more attention to her sliding tackles, especially regarding their timing, as she often makes late sliding tackles, which automatically result in fouls for the opponents.
The following sliding tackle against Germany and many similar ones were late and caused fouls and sometimes even yellow cards.
Therefore, Svava can work on improving her tacklings’ timing to eventually improve her defensive statistics, especially when she faces very quick wingers.
Conclusion
Overall, Sofie Svava is one of the best young left-backs in Europe at the moment and has the potential to become even more complete defensive and attacking-wise if she keeps working hard and improves certain aspects in both phases.
With only 23 years of age, Svava can become a first-choice left-back or winger for Olympique Lyonnais if the deal goes through, especially if Selma Bacha leaves the club.
If not, Svava will have to work harder to battle with Bacha, strive for playing chances, and (hopefully for her) impose herself on the head coach.
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