Evelyne Viens: The goal queen of Roma’s 2023/24 title winners – scout report

Évelyne Viens is a 27-year-old international Canadian player who has been doing extremely well this season and was therefore credited for her excellent efforts as she finished the season as the top goalscorer of the Serie A Women’s champions, Roma. What is even more impressive regarding this achievement is that Viens came to Roma last summer. This was her first season in Italy, highlighting the player’s remarkable ability to adapt quickly, have a strong personality, and have outstanding finishing traits.

Viens started her career in 2017 at Dynamo de Quebec before moving to the United States to play in the NWSL at Gotham FC for two seasons, during which she had loan periods at Paris FC and Kristianstad. Afterwards, she joined Kristianstad permanently and stayed until 2023, when she got an offer from Roma with a contract of three years.

Viens also got her first national team call-up for the 2021 SheBelieves Cup, was present in the 2020 Summer Olympics with Canada, and later in the 2023 World Cup. Viens certainly still has a lot to offer the national team, as she is actually during her peak years. She has the potential to develop even further and improve numerous aspects of her game to become a more complete attacking player.

In this tactical analysis and scout report, we will explore Viens’ attacking and playmaking traits and try to answer how she was able to finish the season as the top goalscorer in Serie A Women despite being in a very competitive league with very strong teams like Juventus, Inter Milan, Sassuolo, Fiorentina, and Milan.

The analysis will also shed light on Viens’ roles on the pitch within Roma’s tactics and identify what differentiates her from other strikers.

Position and attacking roles 

As you can notice in the following heatmap, Viens covers almost the entirety of the opponent’s half in terms of positioning and movements with and without the ball. She can play as a main striker (which is her main position), a left-winger, or a right-winger. Viens has already played in these positions according to her teams’ needs, whether at Roma, Paris FC, Kristianstad, Gotham FC, or Canada.

Her ability to always be dangerous in the final third makes her very useful for any team, especially for Roma, who always need such a crucial attacking weapon.

Roma’s goalscoring machine proved that she could also be a very good assist-maker. She often helps with accurate crosses whenever she plays on the wings, as he can time these crosses well and provide key passes to her teammates inside the box.

Of course, being able to score using the right or left foot and in various situations makes Viens not just a useful player but one that will surely be requested by many big teams each season, given the impact she can make on her team from an attacking perspective.

When the opportunity comes, it is believed that Viens can also play alongside a second striker and perform extremely well with another striker, as she has remarkable tactical awareness and flexibility and can form an excellent attacking duo with that second striker. The fact that Viens is quick and agile enough, in addition to her ability to always move without the ball, can make such attacking duos easier and much more efficient with the presence of Viens.

Roma have already started trying this experiment with the use of Valentina Giacinti alongside Viens at times, and things went well for the team as the two strikers were complementary inside the box.

Goalscoring traits

Achieving a personal objective like finishing as the top goalscorer in a competitive league with very good strikers and aggressive defenders is a milestone that should not be underestimated, especially when considering that this was Viens’ first season at Roma.

With an overall average of 0.63 goals per game and 49.5% shots on target per match, Viens has been proving that she is one of the most clinical actual finishers in Europe. She has scored goals in various ways, using different techniques and from numerous positions.