Exploring what made Benfica’s Cloé Lacasse attract Arsenal Women’s interest – scout report

Cloé Lacasse is a Canadian international player who is actually playing for Benfica Women in the Campeonato Nacional Feminino as well as in the UWCL. She has been an international player since 2021 and has been progressing in a considerable fashion within the last few years, despite the fact that she was called up a late compared to her age.

Nevertheless, Lacasse has got a lot to offer yet and might have some excellent seasons very soon since she has been attracting a lot of interest from some big European teams such as Arsenal, while other WSL, Serie A or NWSL top teams might battle the Gunners to get the services of the Canadian international.

In fact, Lacasse has been having one of her best seasons at Benfica since she was very recently awarded as the “Best Player of Liga BPI in 2022-23, after notching 21 goals and 13 assists in a title-winning season. This achievement counts a lot for the 29-year-old international as it would open new paths for her and allow her to gain even more visibility in Europe, and therefore attract more interest.

Afterwards, picking the most suitable choice for her would be key to defining the rest of her career because it will be very important to pick a team with ambitions and especially a team that needs Lacasse.

In this tactical analysis scout report, we will be exploring Lacasse’s goalscoring and playmaking skills and their importance within Benfica’s tactics while reserving a section in the analysis for identifying how she can fit in at Arsenal if the negotiations go well between the parties.

Goalscoring attributes

In terms of goalscoring and shooting, Lacasse can be considered a very efficient player in both. She is a player who masters different shooting skills and plays with both feet. Therefore, it is never too complicated for her to find a shooting possibility when having the ball.

Another trait that Lacasse has that helps her be a very dangerous forward is her great agility and acceleration abilities. This quickness of movements and runs combined with the ability to play with both feet make Lacasse a very dangerous player inside the box, especially when coming from behind since she is always able to surpass direct opponents to reach the ball first, like she did in this example when she was moving without the ball to provide a passing option for her teammate. Her teammate provided the through pass at the back of the defence when Lacasse just started running. Yet, she was able to reach the ball before the three defenders who were closer to the ball. She was also able to get the ball away from the defender and the goalkeeper using her left foot before shooting with her right to score a magnificent goal.

In fact, Lacasse has been having a very successful season in terms of numbers as mentioned above, and the following graphic confirms this fact since her xG is very high and the number of goals scored so far is excellent, taking into consideration that she reached 25 goals this season in all competitions combined. Working even further on her goalscoring attributes, especially if she moves to a more challenging league, would be necessary and beneficial since it would help Lacasse conserve her success and her excellent goalscoring numbers.

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