Katie Bowen has just moved to Inter Milan Women from Melbourne City. This will be her first ever European and Italian experience. Bowen is a New Zealand international who played with Kansas City in 2016 before joining Utah Royals and then moving back to Kansas City Current in the NWSL.
She also had a brief experience at North Carolina Courage, during which she only played two games before heading to Melbourne City for one season. After this diversified footballing journey, Bowen moved to Serie A to help the Nerazzurre achieve their seasonal targets.
This tactical analysis scout report will focus on Bowen’s main traits, her possible positions and roles at Inter, what she can add to the team’s midfield and defence in terms of tactics, and what differentiates her from regular defenders. The analysis of her strengths and weaknesses will be carried out by exploring her statistics and heatmap while relying on footage of her key actions as well.
Positions and roles at Inter
Bowen will definitely represent a solid addition to Inter, especially as a defender, since they don’t really have a tonne of convincing centre-back options within the squad. Inter’s available options at the moment are Beatrice Merlo, who is mainly a full-back, Beatrix Fördős, and Andrine Tomter, who is also new to the team.
Bowen has the advantage over Fördős and Merlo mainly thanks to her experience in the centre-back role and football in general, knowing that Fördős is 21 years old and is not as mature as Bowen at the moment especially in terms of passing and playmaking from the back. Tomter, however, seems to have the coaching staff’s confidence as she has already started playing the first few games of the season despite arriving during this latest transfer window too, which confirms the fact that Tomter is going to be a regular starter if she convinces during the first part of the season.
In this regard, having Bowen in the starting line-up would always guarantee further experience and guidance, whether in defence or midfield, as her tactical and incredibly defensive awareness would allow her to notice issues and/or cover for her teammates whenever needed.
Head coach Rita Guarino has already started using both Bowen and Tomter alongside each other. She believes this would be the team’s regular defensive duo if they succeed in finding the required chemistry and complementing one another.
Bowen can surely guarantee a strong physical presence inside her team’s own third, especially inside the box, as she is used to playing against physically strong players in the NWSL and to that league’s consistent physical duels. With 1.73 metres, Bowen will have a strong possibility to win a high percentage of aerial duels with the strikers in Serie A Women, knowing that most of them are below or equal to 1.73 (Valentina Giacinti is 1.7, for instance), with only a few strikers being taller than her (such as Juventus‘ Cristiana Girelli, 1.76).
In addition, being physically aggressive and able to disturb quick forwards and win duels is a quality that Bowen can guarantee, especially when she is physically and mentally ready. Bowen can sometimes lose duels and be slow in her defensive reactions. Yet, this aspect will undoubtedly be improved at Inter Milan and working on it by the coaching staff and the player herself would guarantee more defensive security for the team overall.
For that reason, opting for Bowen as a defender can indeed represent an upgrade for Inter Milan and help them be more solid at the back, especially when facing teams like Juventus, Milan, Roma, and Sassuolo.
At the same time, Bowen can be an excellent alternative option in midfield as she has played on numerous occasions as a midfielder and proved that she can perform well in this position, too. Bowen can form a perfect midfielder duo with someone like Ghoutia Karchouni, who is an all-round midfielder, as she can also provide the needed balance when the team use the 4-2-3-1 formation, with Bowen and Sofie Junge Pedersen as defensive midfielders and Karchouni as an advanced playmaker as this line-up would be instrumental in games against teams with powerful midfield and attacking players such as Juventus and Milan. Using a strong defensive midfielder like Bowen and giving her extensive defensive and covering duties with a bit of freedom to advance and help in the build-up whenever necessary can make Bowen even more impactful in both phases.
The following heatmap shows that Bowen is used to this defensive midfield position, whether on the right or the left. Indeed, she advances less often based on this heatmap. Nevertheless, she is able to provide excellent key passes when she advances beyond her team’s own half.
Rita Guarino will definitely need to try playing Bowen as a midfielder, especially when having a reliable defender to replace her in the defensive line. This change of Bowen’s position can make the team more balanced as it would provide more security to defence and support to midfielders and forwards, especially considering that Bowen can pass from first touch and has reasonably good tactical awareness in midfield.
Playmaking and long passes
Bowen’s passing abilities shouldn’t be underestimated; she can be considered an excellent passer. She has historically been deployed in midfield on occasion due to her passing abilities and exceptional vision, while this experience has also enabled her to sharpen these tools.
This was especially common for her when she was playing in the NWSL and helped her become more direct regarding passes, as she often opts for vertical rather than horizontal plays.
Her 79.1% average passing accuracy is a high rate, especially for a defender. Using this excellent passing ability in Inter’s favour and instructing Bowen to attempt more passes whenever possible can make her new team’s attacks more direct and dangerous if the attacking players understand Bowen’s intentions quickly and provide her with inviting runs — especially if the players work together on specific movements and actions.
In the following example, we can see Bowen attempting a long pass into space while she is playing as a defender, breaking the opponent’s defensive line and providing a critical long pass toward her teammate, who quickly understood the intention and ran in the needed direction to meet the ball at the back of her direct marker.
Such actions can always be appreciated and make things easier for the team, especially if the opposing team applies strict pressure on the team’s midfielders to block the build-up. In these cases, such long passes towards the wings are valuable.
Bowen is exceptionally talented when it comes to long passes. Although she averages 42.9% of accurate long passes per game and might need to work on this aspect even further, her long passing techniques can be considered top-notch.
The good thing is that she is aware of this capacity and, therefore, uses long passes so often, especially when playing as a defender. Regarding the crossing techniques, Bowen has already proven that she can cross well using her right or left foot and from long and short distances.
Moreover, being able to scan the pitch quickly before receiving the ball is another advantage that Bowen can use in her favour to win a few seconds and make her actions unpredictable.
The following picture highlights this ability to surprise opponents with a first-time long pass that surprised the opponents and gave them no time to catch Bowen’s teammate, who received an accurate cross near the box.
Playing in midfield gives Bowen much more freedom regarding short passes and allows her to be more dangerous and impactful attacking-wise. This is mainly because she tries to use her vision best, whether when playing as a defender or as a midfielder.
Since playing as a defender allows her to create dangerous opportunities with long passes only, being used as a midfielder represents a chance for her to contribute more in the playmaking process with short key passes and penetrations, at times, as well.
This example shows one of Bowen’s previous assists when playing for Melbourne City. It was a through pass into space provided with a first-time touch, as in the previous example, surprising the defence and giving her teammate the chance to face the goalkeeper without much disturbance.
Defensive traits
From a defensive perspective, Bowen is a good but not a perfect defender yet. Why? She can be slightly slow in her reactions during some duels, especially against quick and physically powerful forwards.
In fact, Bowen’s numbers indicate 64.8% as a defensive duels average and 38.8% in aerial duels, which means that some work will be needed to improve her abilities and statistics in the air and in terms of defensive duels too. Winning 64.8% in these duels is a good number; however, consistency in winning these averages would make Bowen an even more fundamental centre-back for Inter Milan. Bowen’s height is 1.73 metres, as stated above, which should allow her to win more aerial duels, especially when she is physically strong too. Therefore, Bowen will need to work on her jumping abilities and timing of her jumps, as this would make her more crucial in these aerial duels and eventually improve her numbers. In addition, some improvements will be required in one-on-one situations since Bowen often lacks the fluidity to catch the forward and rarely uses sliding tackles.
To succeed in Serie A Women, a tactical but physically demanding league, Bowen must be more aggressive and crucial regarding her defensive interventions, clearances and interceptions. Indecision can never be the best solution when being a defender, and opting for the reasonably best decision with determination and aggressivity is the recipe for becoming a successful defender in Italy and many other leagues.
We are tackling this topic mainly because Bowen has the necessary physical strength to be decisive in dangerous defensive situations. However, she gives the impression that she hesitates at times and lacks the required determination to clear the ball away while being aggressive on the ball.
This situation resumes what we are discussing above, as Bowen had the opportunity to clear the ball away with all power here and could even opt for a sliding tackle to give them no chance. But, what really happened is that Bowen tried to clear the ball away but without enough conviction and using her left foot, which helped the opposing player win the ball efficiently and continue the counterattack.
This non-usage of aggressivity and physical strength is frustrating because we often see that Bowen can be intelligently aggressive when she wants to and master defensive skills such as tackling. However, this mastery doesn’t appear consistently, and we see it mainly when Bowen gets triggered or provoked with a dribbling attempt, like in the following example. This lack of decisive defending might be related to psychological reasons.
If that is the case, then the coaching staff would have to work with Bowen on this aspect to make the player more decisive and crucial in her interventions consistently. Also, playing in a competitive and complex league like Serie A Women can help Bowen be more consistent in this regard and more motivated to defend convincingly by resorting to sliding tackles, clearances, and aggressiveness more often.
Also, revising how she deals with one-on-one situations, especially during counterattacks, would be fruitful as Bowen can defend better in such cases and be more crucial when facing an opponent. She tends to retreat gradually when the striker is coming to challenge her and rarely anticipates her movement or dribbling attempt. She prefers to wait, but the problem is that she doesn’t find the necessary reactivity to respond to the striker’s dribble since her backward movement doesn’t allow her to quickly change the direction of her body.
Retreating and giving some space for forwards can be done in specific situations but not always because providing space for dangerous players can always end with conceding goals, like what happened in this example where Bowen failed to stop her direct opponent and kept on retreating until the striker found a way to dribble towards the left and aim for a powerful shot since she had a clear vision of the goal and a lot of time to shoot well.
Conclusion
To answer the title question, what Bowen can add to Inter Milan is stability and more security in the defensive line thanks to her ability to win defensive and aerial duels and her excellent and dangerous long passes from the defence that can make the difference attacking-wise. Her short key passes between the lines can be very useful, as Bowen can be a valuable option for midfield.
Nevertheless, working on her defensive decisions and anticipation/aggressivity would be vital to making Bowen a more valuable player for Inter Milan, as this would enable her to deal better with complex one-on-one situations.
