Giorgia Spinelli at A.C. Milan

Coming from Stade de Reims as a defensive reinforcement to Milan, Giorgia Spinelli has the potential that allows her to help her new team on all levels. She is a 25-year old Italian player who started her career in Serie A Women at Atalanta before joining Mozzanica for four years that were not really lucky for her since they were full of injuries that kept her out of the field for periods of time.

In 2015, she joined Inter Milan on loan and played 36 games in two seasons, scoring 10 goals before she got the opportunity at Stade de Reims. Her three years at this club enabled her to gain more experience, develop her skills and have more responsibility since she was the captain of this team and contributed hugely in Reims’ promotion to Division 1 Féminine.

Following her successful time at Reims, Spinelli decided to return to Italy to help Milan reach their objectives and attempt at keeping and improving her recent run of form by raising the bar of challenges.

In this tactical analysis in the form of scout report, we will be delving deeper into Spinelli’s possible roles and positions at Milan. Well look into her defensive abilities, tactical awareness and also her build-up performance and passing accuracy to ultimately provide an analysis of her skills.

Roles and possible positions

In fact, choosing a team like Milan seems to be the right choice for Spinelli since she will be playing alongside players with experience in defence and midfield who will surely make life easier for her. This would also fasten her adaptation process and build good chemistry and team play between her and the other players which is extremely important especially in defence.

The benefit also goes to Milan, because by signing a player like Spinelli, with the experience she acquired in France and previously in Italy, she is not only capable of being central to this team through her individual performances but also could act as a second captain on the field and a leader in defence to help in organising the defensive line and guiding the whole team when out of possession.

Being a left-footed player makes her naturally more adapted to play as a left centre-back. Even though it won’t be easy to have a fixed spot in the lineup with the existence of powerful players like Laura Agard, who has just arrived from Fiorentina, and Laura Fusetti, Spinelli can still be a regular player for Milan since she has the needed requirements for convincing her coach and replacing Stine Hovland who left the team lately.

She can also be used on the left flank especially when bearing in mind that Linda Tuccerri is the team’s only left-back, and therefore, Spinelli can replace her when needed because the latter played as a left-back and even as a left-winger during her teenage years at Atalanta and she is familiar with that role.

Moreover, when looking at Milan’s tactics, and given the new arrivals to the team, Milan can possibly switch to playing with three defenders in a 3-5-2 formation in some matches since they have the players needed for such formation. A possibility that would also suit Spinelli who will more likely form a defensive trio with Agard and Fusetti in this case.

Defensive prowess

Spinelli is a strong, intelligent and tough defender for all strikers since she has some outstanding physical performance and agility that allow her to do very well especially in 1 vs 1 duels and marking.

She knows when and how to push the opposition out of the penalty area without necessarily committing fouls, preventing their possible passes or individual penetrations in that dangerous zone and obliging her opponents to retreat. Like in this example against Olympique Lyonnais, where Spinelli disturbs her direct opponent and goes forward to oblige her to either pass the ball or move backwards.