Daniela Sabatino at Fiorentina

One of the best goalscorers in European football history is called Filippo Inzaghi and nicknamed Super Pippo. And to find a female striker who is quite similar to him and has the same hunger and passion for goals is something really beautiful for those who love these type of players. Daniela Sabatino is just that. Not only is she quick but also a very technical player who can do more than just scoring goals, which is not a simple thing in itself.

This player has been remarkably influential whenever she played during almost all the seasons of her career and contributed with a large number of goals for each club she played at. Her career started at the age of 15 at Autolelli Picenum, then AC Bojano and Sporting Casalnuovo before heading to Switzerland to play for Rapid Lugano and coming back to Italy after one season and scoring 61 goals in 88 matches with Reggiana.

The peak of Sabatino was in 2011 when she was playing for Brescia since she was selected as the leading goalscorer that year and reached 162 goals in 198 played games with Brescia in total. In 2018, Sabatino left Brescia to play for Milan and helped the team play in their first season in Serie A.

Last year, Sabatino played with Sassuolo and at the end of the season moved to Fiorentina, a team that will participate in the 2020/2021 Champions League and will surely compete for the first spots in Serie A Women. This opportunity was exploited in the best possible way by Sabatino who was able to score five goals in just two matches of 2020/21 Serie A Women.

Therefore, this tactical analysis article in the form of a scout report will aim to analyse Sabatinos attacking and defensive abilities while looking at how she can improve Fiorentinas attacking performance and how she fits in the squad. Moreover, an analysis of her movements with and without the ball will be provided while taking the tactics of the team into consideration.

Role at Fiorentina

Playing for a team that competes for the Serie A title and for the Champions League as well, is not the easiest of tasks for players. But at the same times, talented and passionate players like Sabatino find more motivation when playing with extra pressure to win.

Antonio Cincotta, Fiorentina’s coach, preferred to use Sabatini alongside another powerful striker like Tatiana Bonetti in a 4-3-1-2, making use of the two experienced strikers existing in his team while also backing them with a trequartista to link between them and the midfield. In this regard, Sabatino plays a very noticeable role since she drops a lot to midfield to contribute in the build-up and provide additional options when the team is being pressured.

Her accurate passing abilities and creative decision-making allow her to execute this important role successfully most of the times and she has already done it multiple times during her first two appearances with the team against Inter and Napoli.

Also, playing with another striker allows Sabatino to have more freedom in movement as she drops a lot to receive the ball in midfield, acting like an advanced playmaker or a midfielder and leaving her teammate up front as a striker.

This switch of positions can be very effective in matches where there are few ways-out of marking since these movements can easily confuse defenders and create spaces in their back once performed accurately.

Nevertheless, Sabatino can be extremely dangerous even when she doesn’t change her position. Her shooting capacities, accelerations and movements in the box can create problems for any defence, and with the existence of another striker just beside her, a lot of tactical combinations can be created between the two to break down the opposing defence and Antonio Cincotta will surely be working on creating some to enhance the team’s attacking solutions.

Movements in the final third and in midfield

As mentioned above, Sabatino is not a static striker who plays just to score goals or moves just in the penalty area. She is a player who moves to the right and the left wings to provide passing options, and drops to midfield in order to destabilise opposition’s defence by either winning fouls or serving the other striker of the team who would be having more free space since Sabatino always keeps one or two defenders marking her.

During her first game with Fiorentina, she started directly to play this important role by dropping to midfield and making the right decision according to her teammates’ positions and to the number of defenders/midfielders marking her. In this case in which she dropped to the center against Inter, she knew that she was surrounded by three defenders who were able to intercept her pass, and therefore she intelligently kept possession of the ball and protected it with her body to win a free-kick for her team.