Anja Sønstevold is a 29-year-old Norwegian international who actually plays at Serie A Women’s Internazionale and who has been called-up to represent Norway Women in Euro 2022. Sønstevold started her career at Kolbotn since 2009 before going through a couple of experiences at LSK Kvinner and Fleury from 2015 to 2021. And since 2021, she joined Inter and played almost a full season with them, showing her skills and ensuring that she does well in order to get her participation ticket for the Euro 2022, and that’s exactly what happened.
In this tactical analysis scout report, we will delve deep into analysing the player’s characteristics both from a defensive and an attacking perspective while exploring how she can be impactful in the tactics of Norway in Euro 2022 and at Inter next season.
Position and roles
Sønstevold plays mainly as a right-back and that’s her natural role. But in addition to being an excellent right-back, she can also be used as a right centre-back at times especially when using a back-three formation. In addition to that, Sønstevold was also used as a left-back at times especially at Norway. She is a mainly defensive player who is responsible for marking opposing wingers, covering and helping her teammates inside the box whenever needed and especially during counter-attacks.
Moreover, Sønstevold is important in the build-phase as well as in the final third since she advances regularly to support the attack with crosses and through passes. In the following heatmap, you can see how Sønstevold covers most of the right-wing while balancing her movements between attack and defence while moving towards the middle as well both when helping defenders or when reaching the final third.
During the Euro 2022 however, her principal role would most probably be to secure her flank and make sure not to let players like Manchester City’s Hemp, Austria and Hoffenheim’s Katharina Naschenweng, Northern Ireland’s Lauren Wade or Marissa Callaghan, in addition to the players she could face if the team qualifies to the quarter-finals. In this case, Sønstevold would have to closely mark a German player: either Hoffenheim’s Jule Brand or Bayern Munich’s Klara Bühl, or a Spanish winger who would most likely be Barcelona’s Clàudia Pina or Mariona Caldentey.
Defensive skills
In terms of defending, Sønstevold’s actual statistics are good but they can be improved in the near future if the player focuses more on certain aspects and make use of her cumulative experience. She wins 66,5% defensive duels per match, 55,7% aerial duels. The success rate of her sliding tackles is 56,5% and the number of her interceptions reaches 5,44 per 90 minutes.
In order to achieve these numbers, Sønstevold uses her game intelligence to intercept passes and win in duels, knowing that she doesn’t rely too much on her physical strength. Therefore, she uses her tactical understanding to read games and opponents’ “next moves” before anticipating passes or making an accurate off the ball movement in order to close down an opponent or prevent her from advancing. In the following example, it is clear how she was aware of the direction of the pass even before the receiver knew it, and that’s what enabled her to anticipate her direct opponent’s movement and intercept the pass successfully.
Subscribe To TFA To Unlock All Posts - Free 7 Day Trial
Try TFA Free For 7 Days
Gain access to all of TFA's premium contents.More than 12,000+ articles.
