Ivana Andrés at Real Madrid and Spain 2023/24 scout report: What makes her one of Europe’s best defenders?

Ivana Andrés has been one of the most impactful Spanish players on an international level with the Spanish team during the recent competitions as well as on the club level with Real Madrid in the last few seasons. This season, Andrés has been proving her abilities even further and more remarkably, not just from a defensive perspective but also from a playmaking and a goalscoring perspective, showing that she can be considered a more complete player now with various tactical contributions to her teams.

In this tactical analysis and scout report on Andrés, we will also explore her key abilities in defence and attack. The analysis will also shed light on the importance of Andrés within Real Madrid’s tactics, especially when considering that she is the team’s captain, pointing out her positions and roles.

Andrés is a 29-year-old defender who started her footballing career back in 2009 with Valencia, where she spent numerous seasons and led the team as a captain to reach the final of the 2015 Copa de la Reina and finish in the third spot at the end of the 2016/17 Liga F season, the team’s best ever result in Liga F.

Afterwards, she moved to the rivals Levante from 2018 to 2020, finishing both seasons in the third spot behind Barcelona and Atlético Madrid. Then, she started her journey with Real Madrid, where she is becoming one of their leaders in terms of captaincy, defensive contributions, and goalscoring efficiency on big occasions such as in the UEFA Women’s Champions League.

Positions and roles

Andrés usually plays as a right centre-back or left centre-back, and at times, she is used as a right-back, too, when needed, especially at Real Madrid. She offers excellent security at the back since she positions herself well in the various defensive situations and often moves well without the ball and when needing to mark attacking players tightly.

In terms of formations, she has already played according to the 3-4-1-2 formation previously, meaning she is used to playing in a defensive trio. Nevertheless, the formations that suit her the most are those with four defenders, knowing that both Real Madrid and Spain usually play with four defenders at the back.

Concerning roles, Andrés can be considered as one of the best defenders in terms of defensive duties: marking, one vs one duels, tackling, build-up from the back, clearances and physical strength. She certainly commits mistakes at times, especially in terms of timing her interventions. Nevertheless, she is often very impactful defensive-wise and rarely commits big mistakes inside the penalty box.

She can interpret all defensive roles with excellent efficiency as she marks strikers well in open play and during set-pieces and usually applies heavy pressure on strikers who retreat a little bit to receive passes. When applying this kind of pressure, she often makes tackling anticipations to intercept the passes coming to strikers and usually succeeds in doing so.

At the same time, she is good enough for passing. However, it is believed that she can be much more useful in playmaking and providing assists since she has a passing accuracy rate that equals 89.4% in general and 71.3% for passes to the final third.

Another role that Andrés interprets very well concerns her way of dealing with one-on-one defensive duels during counter-attacks or in dangerous situations. She often times her actions well and follows attacking players using her excellent pace before picking the most adequate timing for interventions. Her decision-making in such defensive situations is usually excellent, saving Real Madrid from much trouble per match.

In this heatmap, Andrés is a purely defensive player who does not advance frequently to help with playmaking or goalscoring. Both Alberto Toril and Montserrat Tomé need to address this point in order to exploit Andrés’ passing and shooting abilities a little bit further, knowing that her quality is good enough to help both teams in this regard.

Anticipation  Interceptions and defensive positioning

When it comes to Andrés’ defensive attributes, her numbers already tell that she is very powerful in duels, with 71.7% average defensive duels won and a little bit less for aerial duels with 50.3%. Andrés’ main defensive talents include her great concentration throughout games and her ability to mark attacking players in a very close and disturbing way, which gives her the advantage on most occasions.

Moreover, her ability to use her physical strength very positively adds to her defensive efficiency and makes her teammates more confident upfront. In the above example, we see how she moves intelligently without the ball to close the angle for the opponent, who was able to get the ball from a teammate, predicting,, therefore,, Mathilde Bourdieu’s shooting trajectory and deflecting it with her body.