Fridolina Rolfö has just joined Barcelona Femení, prior to participating with the Swedish national team in the Olympic Games, and this move will be beneficial for both Rolfö and the Blaugranas.
We are talking about a player who has been consistently in form for numerous seasons, having played at Tölö, Jitex, and Linköping before joining Bayern Munich Frauen for two seasons, and subsequently playing for Wolfsburg, helping them reach the final of the UEFA Women’s Champions League.
The 27-year-old will be competing for a regular spot with Lieke Martens, while knowing that playing for such a big team can only make her a more complete player and help her achieve her goals.
In this Fridolina Rolfö scout report, we will explore the traits that attracted Barcelona to her profile and what she can add to the Spanish team in the near future and how she can be useful to the Barcelona Femení’s tactics especially when facing other big teams in UWCL, like Chelsea, Lyon, Bayern and Paris Saint Germain for instance.
Fridolina Rolfö Position And Roles
Rolfö naturally plays as a left-winger and masters her position perfectly, using both feet, even though her left foot is her stronger one.
At her previous teams, she has often participated in the defensive phase by helping the left-back when the team is out of possession.
Her defensive role was usually to press on the opposing right-back and help in marking the opposing right-wingers, and she was often useful in this regard, given that her physical abilities allow her to be strong in duels.
In fact, winning an average of 63.4% of defensive duels is certainly telling of how important Rolfö is from a defensive perspective, a side that is often overlooked about the Swedish player.
When in possession, the 27-year-old is required to move without the ball on the left wing, ask for the ball, retreat to take it if she’s being marked and then advance while relying on her excellent pace and dribbling skills.
Her average success rate for dribbles is 58.8% per match, which is one of her best characteristics.
In the final third, Rolfö often crosses to her teammates inside the box, advances with the ball towards the box, and shoots by herself if she finds some free space.
Alternatively, she moves inside the box without the ball and waits for a pass or cross from her teammates, acting like a striker.
Fridolina Rolfö Heat Map
You can see in this heat map how she primarily moves on the left wing, while also retreating at times and advancing towards the box at other times.
Fridolina Rolfö Playmaking
Rolfö’s attacking skills are undeniable and distinguish her from other wingers, as she not only puts on excellent performances but is also a hard-working player whose efforts are always visible on the pitch.
In reality, being consistent in form especially at the high level is not an easy task when playing in a position that requires a lot of physical effort and speed in every game.
So by succeeding in being consistent in almost every match, Rolfö’s hard work pays off and that can be noticeable.
Moreover, it is clear that she is a player who doesn’t find problems in adapting to her attacking teammates, as she is an intelligent player who knows and predicts the striker’s movements.
It is clear she also knows when to wait for midfielders to join the attack in order to pass to one of them.
Rolfö’s crosses have often created goals since they are usually executed with accuracy and with a clear intention in mind – not just for the sake of it.
Being able to direct her crosses in the way she wanted and with great precision allows her to be more focused on serving strikers, right-wingers who join the box and even midfielders.
This enables the Swedish international to be a source of goals, and she has increased the number of assists in each season she has played.
In the following example, the 27-year-old saw who the unmarked player was who could get on the end of the cross and delivered quickly – resulting in a goal – and this illustrates the point that we mentioned above.
In addition to crossing and using long passes towards the far post, the near post and to midfielders who come from behind, Rolfö also excels at providing key passes, especially when she penetrates near or inside the box.
By moving inside the penalty area, she attracts more defenders around her, allowing the striker to be less marked.
As soon as she notices this, she directly gives through passes to that player.
The 27-year-old often uses this plan and it works for her in most times since defenders can’t adopt a more effective counter-strategy to stop such movements except committing fouls or leaving Rolfö just with her marker, which will cause problems as well since they know that the Sweden international can dribble past the defender and find herself in front of the goal.
Another way Fridolina Rolfö can execute her crosses successfully is to keep track of the right-winger’s movements to see if she escapes marking, especially when the striker is being closely marked.
At that point, Rolfö provides key crosses to wingers as well, and this could occur a lot at Barcelona since the regular right winger, Caroline Hansen ,is also a smart player who knows how to escape from marking and be clinical when getting close to the box.
Fridolina Rolfö Goalscoring Abilities
As well as dribbling and playmaking, the 27-year-old can also be fundamental in certain games by scoring goals and threatening the opponents’ goal.
She has already scored a lot of goals for the teams she played for, yet she could still improve in this regard, since her shots do not always include the necessary amount of power and precision, even though she does not lack shooting abilities.
In reality, Rolfö’s only error when shooting is her decision-making at times – and that’s what makes her shots lack the clinical touch needed.
Nevertheless, this is quite understandable given that the Swedish left-back is often marked and that she only makes such errors after concentrating on dribbling past opponents, which does not give her enough time to think about the way of shooting.
Moreover, what is reassuring is that she scores with ease whenever she gets the ball while being unmarked.
That’s exactly what happened in the following example, in which Rolfö advanced towards the box and acted like a striker while she waited for her teammate’s cross.
What is excellent in this action is Rolfö’s decision to move towards the near post after she was waiting near the far post, in order to escape from her marker and meet the ball before it gets intercepted.
In addition, the way she kicked the ball was quick and accurate, as it did not allow the goalkeeper time to react.
Apart from being excellent in exploiting crosses, Fridolina Rolfö is quite good at headers as well since she scored many goals in this way.
But more importantly, she has some impressive shooting abilities from distance, especially when shooting while running.
However, she does not use this skill so often and this can be due to playing most of the time on the wing and not being able to penetrate centrally.
With the Swedish national team, she had more freedom with her movement, and we saw her scoring goals while advancing from midfield, rather than from the wing, which resulted in goals like the one scored against Thailand in the 2019 Women’s FIFA World Cup (after dribbling past her opponent).
At Barcelona Femení, the staff can work with Rolfö on improving her decisions to make her an even more clinical player for the team, given that she does not lack technical skills.
And at the same time, getting to play alongside experienced players like Hansen and Jennifer Hermoso can only allow her to focus more on those small details and enhance what is left to improve in order to prove that she became a complete player.
Conclusion
Fridolina Rolfö is going to be a very useful signing for Barcelona as the Swedish winger has all that is needed to succeed at the Primera División and in the UEFA Women’s Champions League, like she did with VfL Wolfsburg and Bayern Munich previously.
However, securing a regular spot will be a bit more difficult this time since she will have to compete continuously with Lieke Martens for that spot.
