Paris FC Women: Their road back to UWCL

Paris FC Women are a well-known football team in France with a lot of legacy and history in the Division 1 Féminine as well as in the UEFA Women’s Cup, the old name of the current UEFA Women’s Champions League.

In fact, Paris FC participated in five editions of this tournament: Two UEFA Women’s Cups and three UEFA Women’s Champions League. They also reached the semi-finals of the competition in 2013 — one of their most successful seasons before getting knocked out by Olympique Lyonnais.

With their current results in Division 1 Féminine, the team’s objective is to reach the UEFA Women’s Champions League for the sixth time in history since their actual third spot allows them to enter the European competition starting from the first round.

It must be said that Paris FC were able to qualify for the UWCL last season as well after finishing third in the league. Yet, their results in the competition were disappointing since they were not able to overcome Roma Women during penalty shoot-outs in the “League Path final”, which qualifies them for Round 2 prior to the group stage phase.

Therefore, Paris FC’s objective this time will be to reach the UWCL qualification at the end of the season and then aim for a better performance and results than this season in the UWCL.

Being able to reach the group stage would be a very good result for the team since it would also pave the way for the team to play more games at a European level. It will make their qualification chances higher as well since they will have to play six matches instead of just one or two in the initial phases of the tournament.

Being able to keep their good run of form going and remain consistent in terms of positive results in Division 1 Féminine will definitely decide Paris FC’s fate in next season’s UEFA Women’s Champions League, knowing that teams like Fleury, Montpellier and Reims are not too distant from Paris FC and can exploit Paris FC’s negative results at any time.

Furthermore, another key factor in determining Paris FC’s success in this endeavour is their readiness and ability to get positive results from their direct encounters against Lyon and Paris Saint-Germain, knowing that Paris FC failed to snatch a draw or a win from these two teams during the first half of the season.

In this tactical analysis scout report, we will try to explore the teams’ tactics from an attacking and a defensive perspective and examine just what made them hold this spot in the league as well as take a look at their key players and provide an analysis of their key traits.

Attacking tactics

From an attacking perspective, Paris FC shoot a lot per match but fail to convert their shots into goals very often. Scoring 31 goals from 268 shots this season is certainly a number that should be increased by improving the players’ finishing and working on the attacking systems.

Although this can be seen as a relatively negative point of view, being able to shoot 268 times so far this season means that the team is on the right track from an attacking perspective and that they reach the opponent’s final third a lot per match. This also means that the team don’t lack attacking ideas and do not have playmaking issues.

Paris FC rely a lot on counter-attacks and are usually efficient in this regard, thanks to their quick attacking players and their ability to play quick football in tight spaces. These players are mainly Mathilde Bourdieu, Louise Fleury and Clara Matéo — helped in transitions by Gaëtane Thiney, the team’s advanced playmaker who sometimes plays as a striker as well.

In fact, Sandrine Soubeyrand, the team’s head coach, always tries to switch positions from an attacking perspective and play Matéo as a winger at times or as an advanced playmaker at other times, with Thiney as an advanced playmaker at times and as a striker at other times, depending on the players’ form and on the opponent.

She mainly relies on the 4-2-3-1 formation but sometimes switches to the 4-4-2 in order to have two strikers upfront and two solid lines of defence on certain occasions such as against PSG in order to guarantee more security.

In terms of squad-building, the fact that all four attacking players are between 24 and 26 — except Thiney who is 37 but possesses the experience needed to provide key passes so often and be a great source of danger — is another positive for the team.

The following picture clearly shows how Matéo and Bourdieu complement each other, as both players are quick enough to succeed in 2v2 situations like the following one against Montpellier during which Matéo passed from her direct marker with her excellent dribbling and Bourdieu made the right movement without the ball towards the box with the adequate timing in order to receive the ball in a suitable shooting spot and finish the action with success.

Moreover, having a winger like Ouleymata Sarr has been extremely important for the team since she provides a lot of danger on the left wing with excellent physical strength and accurate crosses towards the box. Sarr is mainly used when Soubeyrand prefers to switch to the 4-4-2 formation, deploying both Matéo and Sarr as wingers while Bourdieu and Thiney become the two strikers.

The following example showcases Sarr’s excellent penetrations on the wing and Bourdieu’s continuous ability to position herself well inside the box and deal with crosses in the best possible way. She was able to convert this cross into a goal thanks to her quick and efficient decision-making.

Defensive tactics 

From a defensive perspective, we can’t say that Paris FC use a high defensive line but rather mostly a low defensive block. Nevertheless, this does not mean that the team plays passively in defence or prefers to concede chances. In fact, the opposite is true because Paris FC’s defence usually play aggressively and tend to disturb the strikers who try to receive the ball with ease inside the final third.

They tend to oblige strikers to play with their backs towards the goal and not be able to turn while obliging them to pass the ball backwards as well, as this example against Olympique Lyonnais shows.

Moreover, what is remarkable about Paris FC’s defence as well is the fact that they rarely commit fouls near or inside the box and always aim at intercepting the ball without errors in this dangerous area — this helps the team concede less and be in less danger throughout the game.

What Paris FC needs to improve in terms of defence is certainly the speed of their reactions and backward movements to fill the gaps left by defenders who are obliged to get out of their positions in order to anticipate passes or press high on strikers.

Covering for defenders is necessary in such situations and midfielders should be very reactive and attentive to not let opponents exploit gaps in the defensive line. In this picture, we see En Avant Guingamp advancing with the ball after one of the defenders got out of her position and tried to deviate a cross with her header.

Guingamp exploited the gap and quickly reached the box before Sarah Cambot found herself in front of goal due to the wrong organisation in Paris FC’s defensive line and thanks to her teammate’s pass.

One of Paris FC’s biggest defensive issues that contributes to the gap between them and PSG/OL is their weakness in defending set-pieces and especially corners. The team usually fails to mark players with the required aggression and lose the aerial duels a lot in key situations such as in the following example of a corner against Olympique Lyonnais, knowing that Paris FC win an average of 47.7% of aerial duels. Working on this aspect would surely make Paris FC concede less and therefore consolidate their third spot and be more solid during next season as well.

Key players 

Clara Matéo

Matéo has been a very fundamental piece in Paris FC’s season so far since she helps in providing the dynamism needed on the wings and often links between midfield and attack in addition to having good chemistry with the team’s striker, Bourdieu. Also, she is a player who does not only provide key passes or penetrate from the right wing, but she also scores goals regularly using both the right and the left foot, which makes her an even more valuable and impactful player in the team’s attack.

This goal highlights Matéo’s excellent abilities as she was able to score using her left foot in this example while being surrounded by opponents and not really being positioned in a suitable goalscoring situation. Yet, she was still able to shoot the ball towards the inverted angle with the necessary accuracy after dribbling past two players using some excellent footwork. This was the Division 1 Féminine season’s quickest goal since it was scored after only 29 seconds from the start of the match.

In fact, Matéo is a fundamental player for Paris FC and is exploited in the best of ways by Soubeyrand, mainly because she is given the needed freedom inside the final third whether when playing as a winger or as an advanced playmaker.

Mathilde Bourdieu

Bourdieu doesn’t lack importance to Matéo in this team because she is the team’s regular striker and she has been helping the team a lot this season in terms of goalscoring. She is capable of scoring from different situations and using various techniques including volleys, half-volleys, headers, shots from distance and more.

Moreover, she is a very dynamic player and not just a “fox in the box” type of player. She rather retreats and moves on the wings to receive the ball and penetrate from outside the box or help her teammates in reaching the box using passing combinations.

Also, she is a player who scores a lot from outside the box as you can see in this goal action from the right wing. Bourdieu was successful in confusing the opposing goalkeeper in this action thanks to her excellent, powerful and well-angled shot that went inside the net after touching the far post.

Conclusion

Paris FC is a very competitive team and they are actually considered the best team in France after Olympique Lyonnais and PSG. They will need to keep their good run of form going and consolidate their third spot if they plan on reaching the UWCL next season. Then, they will have the full summer to prepare for their UWCL campaign and try to avoid their last season’s mistakes in order to reach Round 2 and why not the group stage as well, knowing that the team does not lack the resources to achieve this result but should prepare very well in order to not suffer against teams like Juventus, Chelsea, Bayern Munich, Barcelona or other big teams that might encounter Paris FC in the UWCL