Zara Kramžar is an international Slovenian midfielder who is 17 years old and plays at Roma Women in Serie A Femminile. Kramžar joined the Giallorosse during the 2022–23 season and has become an instrumental and reliable backup player. Indeed, being a backup player is certainly not Kramžar’s ambition. Yet, playing quite regularly at a promising and rather powerful European team such as Roma can only be a very positive start to Kramžar’s career, knowing that Roma has a large squad of talented and experienced players, especially in terms of midfielders.
But despite the gap of experience existing between Kramžar and some of Roma’s regular midfielders, such as Manuela Giugliano, Emilie Haavi, Claudia Ciccotti, Giada Greggi and Laura Feiersinger, she has succeeded on several occasions in putting on some remarkable performances both from a defensive and an attacking perspective, showing that her age does not represent an obstacle to winning duels or to having more tactical awareness than the rest. In addition, she is aware of her excellent physical abilities and strength and usually exploits this characteristic in her favour in both phases.
Kramžar started her career at ŽNK Ljubljana in the Slovenian Women’s League and impressed a lot of European teams with her excellent performances in midfield. Teams like Benfica, PSG, and other German teams tried to win the services of the Slovenian player, but Roma were more direct and determined to sign the young midfielder only six months after she joined Ljubljana.
She was also the first player born in 2006 to play in Serie A Women with the senior teams and had already been clinical since match 1. In other words, Kramžar succeeded in scoring her first decisive goal only three minutes after she was subbed on by Alessandro Spugna, highlighting her determination to shine and finishing abilities way early.
In this tactical analysis scout report, we will aim at identifying Kramžar’s main traits and what makes her a remarkable midfielder at the age of 17 while suggesting the most suitable roles for her profile as well as the areas of improvement that would help her become a more complete midfielder. The analysis will however start by exploring her positions and possible roles within Roma’s tactics.
Positions and roles at Roma and Slovenia
Kramžar is mainly a midfielder who can play in various midfield positions, such as a central midfielder, a defensive one or even an advanced playmaker since she has all the characteristics needed to cope with the roles of each position. Kramžar has got fairly excellent attacking traits, mainly in terms of shooting from distance, key passing and ability to win numerous offensive and defensive duels per match.
Having these abilities mean that Spugna can exploit her more often in the attacking phase and instruct her to advance more often, even when she plays as a defensive midfielder. By advancing more frequently, she can add a lot to Roma’s attacking phase by providing key passes between the lines or trying to shoot from distance whenever possible.
Also, Kramžar’s attacking roles include joining the penalty box during set-pieces in order to benefit from her height and physical strength in that dangerous area. In fact, Kramžar was already crucial inside the box on numerous occasions and has helped Roma score goals by winning duels inside the box and finishing with success.
From a defensive perspective, this heatmap shows that Kramžar does not really retreat when out of possession, and not using a strong player like Kramžar inside the team’s own third can not be considered an intelligent choice. Kramžar has to help more in the defensive phase, be instructed to make more anticipations, strive for interceptions and cover for full-backs on the wings whenever needed.
Moreover, disturbing and stopping opposing attacking players should be one of Kramžar’s defensive responsibilities as well since she is forming the second line of defence alongside her midfield teammates.
Goalscoring and shooting abilities
With an average of 1.98 shots on target per game, Kramžar can do a lot more to become way more clinical in terms of shooting especially when it comes to second balls or set-pieces opportunities. This being said, Kramžar’s shooting and goalscoring potential should not be underestimated since she has already proved that she can finish actions well whenever getting a suitable opportunity near or inside the box.
The following example highlights Kramžar’s goalscoring talent and her ability to finish actions inside the box, resist defensive disturbance, and still kick the ball while she was falling on the ground. That’s precisely what she did against Sampdoria when she scored this decisive goal during the final minutes of the game, thanks to her impressive goalscoring instinct.
Moreover, Kramžar has already shown glimpses of powerful shooting abilities, especially when it comes to half-volleys. Working on this ability even further to use this trait, particularly in big games, can represent an intelligent solution that would make Kramžar even more useful for the team in general.
This powerful half-volley executed against Fiorentina confirms Kramžar’s excellent shooting mastery and, more importantly, power. Being able to kick the ball with such power without losing accuracy means that Kramžar knows exactly how to deal with such bouncing passes.
Nevertheless, Kramžar still needs to work on her shooting techniques and dealing with the various situations she can be put in. One of the recurrent situations that Kramžar will have to get used to and try not to miss is second balls. These second balls represent golden opportunities for midfielders with excellent shooting skills.
Therefore, a player like Kramžar, who already has what is needed to shoot with power and accuracy, should aim to become more accurate and clinical regarding second balls. This surely comes with extensive training on second balls. Becoming more consistent in situations like the one shown below against Milan can, therefore, make Kramžar a lot more useful inside the final third, especially in terms of goalscoring, knowing that she was not able to shoot on target on this occasion.
Playmaking and midfielder traits
Regarding playmaking, we can argue that Kramžar is already a creative passer and a player who can provide key passes with a high accuracy rate, especially when she is given the freedom to advance more often or when she is used as an advanced playmaker.
With a passing average of 68.1% and passing accuracy towards the penalty box of 52.2%, it is fair to say that Kramžar’s passes towards the box are usually dangerous and can be exploited with more frequency. She has also proved her ability to break defensive lines with key passes like the one shown below in this goal action against Fiorentina.
This assist was executed using the exterior part of her right foot to serve a teammate coming from behind. It was an unexpected through pass that surprised Fiorentina’s defensive line and created an excellent goalscoring opportunity for Manuela Giugliano, who finished it with success.
In addition, using her body intelligently to resist defensive disturbance and marking makes Kramžar a very difficult player to deal with or to steal the ball from. She usually covers the ball in a way that always gives her the advantage and obliges the direct marker to lose the duel. She does not only use her physical strength in midfield when resisting high pressing but also inside the final third when she advances.
The next example highlights this ability to cover the ball for so long while not letting the defenders intercept it before going for an accurate through pass with her weaker foot despite being heavily disturbed by more than one opposing defender.
This being said, working more on her final pass accuracy would be much more beneficial for her and her team since she sometimes fails to find the necessary body coordination and quick thinking to pass in the needed way during key situations such as the one shown below.
Doing that extra effort when being marked and succeeding to constantly resist the disturbance while providing an accurate pass represents one of Kramžar‘s challenges for the upcoming period; if she plans on becoming more reliable as a midfielder and convince Spugna to become a more regular midfielder for the team, she’ll have to make some progress there.
Defensively speaking, Kramžar is rather a very useful player, mainly when it comes to defensive duels and aerial ones. She wins 66.7% defensive duels per game and 44.8% of aerial duels. Although she can improve these numbers much more in the future, she already has some excellent interception abilities. She makes 4.84 interceptions per match, in addition to having an impressive tackle success rate of 71.4%.
Being a tall player certainly helps during interception attempts and when executing sliding tackles, as it gives the advantage to Kramžar to reach the ball quicker than her direct opponents. Exploiting this physical advantage in a much more frequent way would also help Kramžar become more decisive in defence.
Conclusion
Zara Kramžar’s move to Roma Women has undoubtedly opened new doors for the Slovenian international to shine very early in her career, and she should exploit this opportunity in her favour by working hard to achieve all possible objectives, whether individually or collectively with Roma and Slovenia.
Being a regular player for a team like Roma, participating regularly in the UWCL, and battling seriously for the Serie A title each season can only represent a boost for Kramžar to develop quicker than most other midfielders at her age, knowing that she is acquiring a lot more experience by training alongside experienced and very talented players and playing against some of the toughest European and Italian teams regularly.
Moreover, Spugna and Saša Kolman will have a critical role in coaching Kramžar and orienting her to improve what needs a lot more work, such as finishing, dealing with second balls, working on final passes’ accuracy, and exploiting her physical abilities in a lot more crucial and impactful way in the defensive phase.
