The Olympic Games is a quadrennial event and will be held this summer, 2020, in Tokyo, Japan. The creation of the Olympic games was inspired by the ancient Olympic Games which were held in Olympia, Greece from 8th century BC to the 4th century AD. The first modern-day Olympic games were held in Athens, Greece in 1896. Tokyo 2020 will feature 339 events in 33 different sports, of which women’s soccer (association football) will be one of those contested.
Whilst the participating men’s teams are restricted to U-23 players (with three over-age players), the women’s event has no age restrictions. 12 total women’s soccer teams will compete at the Olympic Games, including Great Britain, who qualified for the event via England’s final finishing position (4th) at the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in France.
The Great Britain women’s soccer team roster at the Tokyo Olympics has the potential to include 18 total players from England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. This provides an interesting focus for a tactical analysis and scout report using data.
By utilising player assessment metrics, myself and Abdullah Abdullah will perform a data analysis utilising data of specific positional players. This will assist in the initial identification of a potential roster for Phil Neville’s Great Britain team. Each article will be split by position and eventually an analysis for the starting 11 players created. In this first article of the scout report series, I will be focusing on Team GBs options at the wide forward position.
Head Coach Phil Neville and principles of play
Phil Neville was selected to lead Team GB on 30th June 2019 following England’s performance at the 2019 Women’s World Cup in France. To begin this scout report series, it will be beneficial to first analyse Phil Neville’s principles of play, system and how he utilises positional players.
Phil Neville implements two main system variations. These being 1-4-3-3 (1-4-1-4-1) and 1-4-4-2 (1-4-4-1-1), as you can see within the following two average position diagrams from England’s recent ‘She Believes’ competitive matches against the USA (left) and Japan (right).
When facing USA (left), England adopted a 1-4-4-2 system, however, evident is one central midfield (#4 Kiera Walsh) occupying a deeper role and one central midfielder (#8 Jill Scott) moving into more advanced positions. Also evident within the forward line is that one central forward remains higher (#18 Ellen White), whilst the other drops deeper to link play through the midfield (#16 Georgia Stanway). Lastly, two wide players can be seen occupying the wider and inside half-space channels (#20 Lauren Hemp and #7 Nikita Parris).
In comparison, when facing Japan (right), England adopted a 1-4-3-3 system, however, this became very similar to the system and average player positions as against the USA. This included the high forward (#9 Bethany England), two attacking central midfielders (#16 Georgia Stanway and #10 Jordan Nobbs), one deeper central midfielder (#4 Kiera Walsh) and two wide attacking players (#20 Lauren Hemp and #22 Chloe Kelly). Variations in the average positions of the wide forwards that seem to occupy a more central position can occur if players switch sides during games.
