Every World Cup, quality players stand out, shine in front of the whole world, and receive new opportunities afterwards. As the World Cup 2023 closed its curtain, 23-year-old centre-back Laia Codina, who was part of Spain’s champion squad, contributing significantly with her world-class defence skills, moved to FAWSL side Arsenal.
Codina started her senior career by playing for Barcelona B at the age of 16. She played for Barcelona’s first team in Liga F from 2018 to 2023 (except for her one-year loan to AC Milan), the Champions League and other tournaments.
During her time at Barcelona, she won three La Liga titles, two Champions Leagues, one Spanish Cup and one Spanish Super Cup. After a knee injury in 2020, she underwent four months of recovery. Shortly after she returned, she signed a one-year loan deal with AC Milan, thus playing in Serie A and the Champions League for the 2021/2022 season.
She had been a regular in Spain’s youth national team and competed in multiple international championships. The World Cup 2023 was her debut on that particular illustrious international stage. After leaving as a champion, she departed Barcelona and embarked on her new journey with the Gunners.
During the World Cup, Laia Codina was among the starting XI for all of Spain’s knockout stage games. She contributed 72 minutes of top-class defence in the final against England. This young defender’s unwavering commitment to her team’s backline, which compensated for the unfortunate absence of legendary Mapi Leon for La Roja, convinced the Gunners she was the one for them.
Our tactical analysis and scout report shares analysis of her game and how we anticipate she’ll contribute to Jonas Eidevall‘s tactics and strategy on arrival at Arsenal.
Player Style
Codina plays both left and right centre-back positions. Her heatmap is relatively condensed (see plot below) compared to defenders like Leah Williamson, whose heatmap shows more highlights beyond the halfway line.
As Barcelona and Spain both rely heavily on the full-backs to assist their offence, Codina occasionally shifts to the sides to cover for space behind the full-backs during her Barca games and international games.
In Spain’s World Cup final against England, both centre-backs had defended near the sidelines. Olga Carmona, the left-back on the same side as Codina, constantly moved and stayed up high on the pitch. When England delivered the ball to Spain’s left-back side, Carmona occasionally stayed up and trusted the centre-backs to handle the situation.
Therefore, Carmona was free to run up towards the end line in the offence. Eventually, one of her speedy runs delivered the all-important goal, making Spain the Champion.
As a player who had played with Barcelona since she was young, Codina has excellent footwork and outstanding passing accuracy, as expected. Those skills ensured her core influence in the defensive third, including controlling the game rhythm and maintaining possession.
Her considerate planning and accurate execution generated line-breaking build-ups in the midfield. Plots below are demonstrations of how she served as a pivot and initiated line-breaking offence sequences.
Despite being young and a loan player while playing for Milan, Codina showed great confidence in leading and organising their backline. This capability made her an outstanding contribution to the team. It was a prevalent scene in which she served as a primary distributor, communicating vocally with clear body language and initiating the build-up from the back. Undoubtedly, being able to showcase leadership at this level at her age is one of the most impressive and invaluable sparks people have seen in her.
While playing for Spain in the World Cup, Codina followed a pattern similar to when she played for Barcelona. Still, she was much more conservative — her tendency to step back instead of tackling was higher than when she played in Liga F and Serie A, especially in their defensive third.
During the build-up, she often initiated the distribution (usually a ground pass to the sides without pressure and a long aerial pass under pressure) and then stayed to provide a safe option for her teammates. On the defence side, she would either hold a deeper space as a sweeper while her teammates battle the opponents or engage in tight physical contact to disrupt the opposition striker’s movement.
Although in Spain’s games during this World Cup, it’s been uncommon to see her sending long through balls from the back, there were standout moments where she demonstrated her vision and precision. For instance, in the knockout match against the Netherlands, Codina’s 25-yard-long through ball to Ona Batlle nearly resulted in a goal (cancelled for offside after VAR). Moreover, in the final match against England, her 35-yard-long through ball bypassed six opponents and reached No. 9 Mariona Caldentey, who was in an open space and could comfortably turn to make the next move.
Strength, Weakness, and Expectation
Codina’s ability to keep top-level stamina and concentration in highly competitive matches is one of the things that makes her a world-class defender.
Although her height of 165cm (5’5″) couldn’t give her a reliable advantage in aerial duels, she has been compensating it with her strength in anticipation and game-reading. She has shown exceptional acumen in anticipating the trajectory of either a pass or a loose ball and promptly takes action to intercept.
Compared to her new centre-back peers — Arsenal’s Lotte Wubben-Moy and Amanda Ilestedt, Codina has lower stats on aerials but higher stats on interceptions. Her exceptional anticipation skills proved invaluable in addressing one of Milan’s season-long challenges: defending set-pieces. Meanwhile, as this strength of hers has come in handy, she has a higher tendency to step back to hold a defence zone than to get close and tackle. This pattern can become her weakness if the opponents exploit them efficiently.
Assumbly, she partially developed this pattern because winning a tackle solely relying on agility is not her strongest skill set. Her 1 on 1 challenge occasionally ended one step behind a top-level forward who surpassed her by agility advantage. She had a higher success rate of winning the duel when she initiated her tackling from the opponent’s blind spot. Going against a much bigger opponent physically can also be a challenge for her.
In the foreseeable future, Codina’s experience and confidence as a player who has lifted the World Cup trophy will be a valuable asset for Arsenal. On one hand, Arsenal have shown a pattern of building from the back, similar to Barcelona. Codina’s coordination on the back line will provide the frontline time and space to initiate Arsenal’s swift offence sequence. Her chemistry to be built with the Swiss captain Lia Walti and newly signed (January 2023) Dutch national Victoria Pelove is something for the fans to be excited about.
On the other hand, as we are aware, Arsenal have been suffering from injury harshly this year. This is partially why they got knocked out of the UEFA Champions League so early. With Leah Williamson’s ACL injury and Rafaelle Souza sailing to NWSL, Jonas Eidevall urgently needs new strength for the backline. The arrival of Codina and another World Cup star, Amanda Ilestedt, will bring some assurance and shed light on this gloomy moment.
Meanwhile, Eidevall is known to be able to see players play in different positions as one of his solutions to deal with the injury issue in the past season. Therefore, we are curious whether Codina will be assigned to explore extended responsibilities.
Conclusion
Laia Codina is young yet has gained invaluable experience on the grandest stage and has demonstrated wisdom and maturity. She will arrive the instant her new team needs her the most. It’s exciting to anticipate her infusion of new leadership strength and gameplay genius into Arsenal’s battlements.
