Dominik Szoboszlai Scout Report At RB Leipzig 2023/2024: Is He Ready For The Next Big Move?

Dominik Szoboszlai is currently the most valuable player in the Austrian Bundesliga with a market value of £13.5million at the age of 19.

The Hungarian was one of the great stars of the 2018/19 season, but he has not played that often this season under the new coach, Jesse Marsch.

In this campaign’s opening 20 league games, he was part of the starting eleven just seven times.

Of course, he’s still one of the best RB Salzburg and Austrian Bundesliga players, and because of that, he’s already been a target of several big clubs in Europe for some time.

The big question is whether he is ready for the next big step in his career, which is to join a bigger club outside of Austria.

In this tactical analysis, which is a scout report, we’ll examine his abilities and tactics in more detail and discuss whether he is ready to leave Salzburg in the summer of 2020.

Dominik Szoboszlai Positioning and movement

Marsch mainly used either a 3-4-1-2/3-1-4-2 or a 4-4-2 this season.

In which the two wingers cut inside and occupy the half-spaces.

Szoboszlai can play as a winger, but also as an offensive midfielder.

Due to that, he was either in the centre behind the strikers when they used a formation with a back three or played as a winger when the American coach lined his team up in a 4-4-2.

Since then, the wingers have cut in to play more centrally, and Szoboszlai is mostly in the half-spaces when his team is in possession of the ball.

The young Hungarian usually permanently looks for free spaces in the left half-space to provide vertical passing options for his teammates.

This can also be seen in the heatmap for his appearances in the Austrian Bundesliga during the season 2019/20 which is shown below.

Salzburg dominates their opponents in almost every game in the Austrian Bundesliga.

They have more possession while the opponents sit back and defend in a low block.

As soon as Marsch’s team gets near zone 14, they try to use a combination of short passes, deep runs, and through passes to get in the space behind the last line of the opposing defence.

In these situations, Szoboszlai is important for his team as he is already mostly positioned in the half-space. Additionally, his technique is outstanding, as we will see later in this tactical analysis.

The 19-years-old Hungarian understands that it’s sometimes not useful to position inside the oppositions block, as there he can’t receive many passes and rarely gets on the ball.

Due to that, one of his typical positions is outside of the formation of the opposition on the left side, as we can see in the shot below.

In these situations, he creates space to pick up speed as soon as he receives the ball.

Also, it has to be mentioned that Szoboszlai is a young player who loves to have the ball at his feet and gets frustrated when he rarely is on the ball.

Due to that, he loves to drop a bit deeper on such occasions.

Then, he is an easier option for his teammates and receives the ball more frequently.

As we will see in the next paragraph of this tactical analysis, Szoboszlai has a great vision, which is usual for an offensive midfielder.

However, he doesn’t just use that quality when he is on the ball but also exploits his abilities during his off-ball movements.

The 19-year-old has a good sense of when to start a sprint to get into a free space and when to stop his movement.

In the example below, Salzburg are currently on a counter-attack.

During the first stage, Szoboszlai didn’t sprint at full speed to avoid his opponents tracking his run, but he was still fast enough to keep up with the player on the ball.

As Takumi Minamino was almost in position for a cross, Szoboszlai started his sprint to get in the right position, received a great cross, and scored the goal with a volley with his first touch.

Dominik Szoboszlai Vision and understanding of the game

Vision and a feeling when to play which pass are probably two of the most underrated abilities in football.

Even though Szoboszlai’s decision-making is sometimes not the best, as we will see later, in other moments, he sees a passing lane that probably nobody else saw at that moment.

In some situations, you wonder how he was able to track the movement of his teammate and play the pass in such a short time, while just a few moments later, you wonder why he hasn’t played that logical pass, but we’ll get at this when we talk about his weaknesses.

The Hungarian’s vision and creativity are undoubtedly two of the biggest reasons why Arsenal and Serie A champions Juventus reportedly wanted to sign him during the summer transfer window of 2019.

In his usual position, which we already looked at earlier, Szoboszlai has several passing options. He can go short with a pass to the left wide area, which is usually occupied by Andreas Ulmer, or try to find a teammate in the centre with a vertical or diagonal pass.

The third option which the 19-years-old chooses quite regularly is the long ball to the other wing as there is mostly a lot of free space since the opponents want to stay horizontally compact against Salzburg.

So, they shift over as a team so as not to give away any space in the centre, but this creates space on the far side, which Szoboszlai looks to exploit with a long ball.

In the image below, we see a typical example as he receives a short pass and switches sides with his first contact.

He’s able to do so as he scanned the pitch before he has received the ball and tracked the deep run of his teammate Rasmus Kristensen.

RB Salzburg are a team which has enormous strength in the moments of transition (offensive and defensive).

They have fast players who are perfect for utilising the free space during a counterattack or the opposition’s unorganised formation after a successful counter-pressing.

However, you don’t only need players in your squad who are fast enough but also ones who can play the necessary passes to make use of their pace.

Szoboszlai is exactly such a player. He identifies free spaces, opponents’ movements, and teammates’ runs to then select the correct pass.

In the image below, Salzburg just won back the ball with counter-pressing, and the ball went to the 19-year-old.

As St Pölten won the ball just moments before, they weren’t in their usual defensive shape, and Szoboszlai, as well as Hee-chan Hwang, are completely free.

The Hungarian finds his South-Korean teammate with a first time through pass over the top of the defenders.

In this situation, he once more demonstrated his vision and understanding of the game.

Dominik Szoboszlai Abilities on the ball

Now, we’ll look at the moments in the game where the Hungarian is probably the most dangerous: when he is on the ball.

The young offensive midfielder loves to be on the ball to create something dangerous then.

Of course, his vision and understanding of the game are great and help him to get in the moments where he can utilise his technical abilities, but the important aspect about his style of play is how strong he is on the ball.

Szoboszlai stands at 185 cm which is quite tall for an offensive midfielder and winger.

Even though he’s not a player with outstanding physical strength, he still knows when and how to make use of his body to protect the ball and get himself between the opponent and the ball.

As we can see in the example below, he shields his opponent off to stay on the ball and get into the free space ahead of him.

The following aspect of his game is probably the one that stands out the most when you watch a game in which the Hungarian plays: He often shows tricks to get past his opponents.

If a one-on-one situation arises, Szoboszlai tries to take on his opponent and get past him with a dribble.

Sometimes, this can be a bit dangerous as he often also wants to do it in his own half.

In general, his technique is so good that he can take on any opponent who wants to dribble past him, but we’ll see in the next section of this tactical analysis that this can sometimes cause problems.

The 19-year-old is already quite important for building up and creating goalscoring chances during Salzburg’s periods of possession, as he plays an average of 46.84 passes per game.

Of which 6.02 are to the final third.

As we saw earlier in this scout report, the Hungarian has decent vision and can detect the movements of his teammates, finding them with good through balls or switching sides.

All this mental and technical abilities combined make him a modern offensive-minded player who can create dangerous situations against almost every defence in the world, even against the best one as we can see below.

In the UEFA Champions League group stage fixture against Liverpool, who were then in outstanding form, Szoboszlai still managed to put his teammates in good positions with through passes, as shown in the following example.

Dominik Szoboszlai Weaknesses

When you consider all these aspects above and note that the Hungarian is still just 19 years old but has already shown great performances in the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League, then you could easily answer the question in the headline yourself: Yes, Szoboszlai is ready for the next big move to join a club outside of Austria.

However, there is still another side to the coin. Szoboszlai is not always able to show off his talent and has performed poorly in some games this season.

That’s totally understandable since it’s almost impossible for a player at his age to perform every single game on the same high level.

Let’s take a look at two of his biggest weaknesses.

First of all, he needs to work on his sloppiness, which sometimes puts him and his team in bad situations, as it easily allows the opposition to gain possession.

In several situations, it seems that the young Hungarian cares more about his style of play and how his actions look than about their efficiency.

We can see this in an example below as he plays a lobbed short ball to his teammate Zlatko Junuzović who instantly is surrounded by several Liverpool players who can start the counter-pressing since just moments ago Soboszlai won back the ball for RB Salzburg.

As the pass is lobbed and not very clean or easy to control, Junuzović has problems with it, and Jürgen Klopp’s team can retain possession.

In this situation, the lobbed ball isn’t necessary at all, but it puts his teammate in an extremely difficult situation.

His second big problem is that he often misses the right moment to release the ball.

Of course, he is a great dribbler and extremely strong on the ball, but in some situations, it would be more effective to play the ball to a teammate.

Instead, he stays on the ball to take on several opponents and loses it or cannot continue the attack at the same pace.

This is also the main reason why his success rate for dribbles is 49.1% ,which is okay but could be much  better if he wouldn’t stay that long on the ball in several situations, as in the example below.

In this situation, Erling Haaland and Sékou Koïta support him and provide him with pass options, but Szoboszlai stays on the ball and is then alone against four opponents and has to pass the ball back.

Conclusion

Considering all the aspects which were described in this tactical analysis, Szoboszlai is definitely ready for the next step in his promising career and should join a bigger club.

However, he clearly needs to work on his sloppiness and decision-making as he often stays too long on the ball.

However, he’s one of the most promising players in the Salzburg squad and has already attracted the attention of bigger clubs in Europe.

The Hungarian has the potential to be one of the best players his country has seen in the last few years but must continue to improve his mental and technical qualities.

As he’s ready for a summer transfer, it will be interesting to see where he goes and how he performs at his new club (if Salzburg lets him go).