OL Reign Bound: Which three players could replace Dzsenifer Marozsán at Lyon

The end of the current season is still a few months away but that doesn’t stop the rumour mill from churning out player transfers based on a team’s current situation or contract stipulations. One move that is likely to take place and has come out in recent weeks is that of Dzsenifer Marozsan and Sarah Bouhaddi moving from Olympique Lyonnais Feminin to OL Reign in the NWSL. The German playmaker has been a crucial player for the French champions for years and will need to be replaced appropriately so Lyon do not feel her absence.

Through this data analysis, I plan to investigate potential replacements for Marozsán by looking at her best attributes and comparing them to players in different leagues.

Profile & parameters

To complete this analysis, we will set a few parameters to create a realistic sample size of players to choose from. Firstly, we’ve looked at Lyon’s transfer history across the last three seasons and most of their first team players have arrived from four leagues: NWSL, FAWSL, Division 1 Feminine, and Frauen-Bundesliga. Players including Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir, Nikita Parris, Ellie Carpenter, and Damaris Egurrola are players that arrived from these top leagues.

Marozsán is a creative attacking midfielder, so we’ll be looking at a certain set of statistics as a base for finding the replacement. If we look at the dashboard, we can see a number of strong attributes and what makes her such a vital player for Lyon. This sets the benchmark of the type of player we need to find. 

This will be broken down into three metrics: ball progression, creativity, and final third contribution. These three metrics cover Marozsán’s main strengths and what she adds to this Lyon team. We will look at players between the ages of 21 to 30 able to play in central and attacking midfield positions with a minimum of 400 minutes to give us enough data to work with and compare in the four aforementioned leagues. Lyon’s likely replacement will likely be someone in this bracket given their recent transfer history. The aim will be to shortlist three of the best players and understand why they might be the best replacement.

NWSL

Looking at the NWSL, Lyon haven’t bought extensively in recent years but have picked up some important players from the United States in recent years. In January 2021, they signed the highly-rated Catarina Macario from Stanford University whilst the likes of Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, and Morgan Brian have all made the move over. They also loaned in Jessica Fishlock and Jodie Taylor so the NWSL has been a regular spot for taking talent, especially on loan. The links with OL Reign means business between the league and club won’t end anytime soon, so it makes sense to take a closer look at players in the league.

Ball progression

As mentioned earlier, we’re looking at three major categories in ball progression, creativity, and contribution. Analysing the graphic above we can see who the best players are in each category.