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.
The following picture of a crucial interception with Spain against Italy is an example that highlights Andrés’ excellent defensive concentration and her ability to spot potential opponents’ dribbling mistakes that can be anticipated.
This high level of concentration and attention to attacking players’ controlling or dribbling mistakes contributes a lot to making Andrés one of the most effective defenders in terms of interception averages per game, with 4.7 successful interceptions per game.
Moreover, Andrés is often intelligent in terms of movements and in knowing exactly when she has to advance and when it would be more beneficial to wait for opponents inside her team’s own half. This positioning awareness with and especially without the ball facilitates Andrés’ missions. It makes her a more valuable defender, as being in the right spot at the right time helps the team avoid dangerous counter-attacks or attacking actions.
This picture from the UEFA Women’s Champions League game against Häcken shows how Andrés can get very high on the pitch to anticipate a counter-attacking action and block the player launching it with a decisive interception that kept Real Madrid’s attack alive and helped avoid concrete danger.
Tackling abilities and possible improvements
Regarding tackles, Andrés is a defender who does not resort to sliding tackles a lot and prefers to use her physical strength in duels to disturb players and make them lose their balance before making her interceptions. But at times, she finds herself obliged to make sliding tackles to avoid being surpassed, especially when facing pacy-attacking players who succeed in dribbling past her.
On these occasions, Andrés often succeeds in executing successful and well-timed sliding tackles to stop the opponent’s advancement in a decisive way. This example highlights one of Andrés’ successful sliding tackles against Villarreal, even though this one was executed in the middle of the pitch, which proves Andrés’ reliance on aggressiveness when the opportunity allows it.
This aggressivity can be considered a double-edged sword, especially when it becomes excessive or is mistimed. Andrés falls into the trap of misjudging the situations at times. Therefore, she commits some avoidable fouls on some occasions, especially when she tries to anticipate attacking players’ controls of passes coming from midfield.
It is true that applying high pressing on strikers is very useful and helps eliminate a passing solution for the opposing team. However, conceding a free kick inside the team’s half is never a good idea, especially when such fouls can be avoided, and interceptions can be executed without sliding tackles.
This is one of many situations during which Andrés could have avoided a sliding tackle while resorting to anticipating the pass just by putting her body in front of the attacking player instead of falling into the trap of committing a foul and conceding a yellow card.
On other occasions, however, Andrés proved her ability to be decisive with tackles in one-on-one situations. She executes these sliding tackles with aggressivity and determination while spotting the adequate moment to intervene, making things simpler for her. The following picture shows how Andrés can be extremely difficult to beat in these defensive duels, whether inside the box or on the wings since she does not automatically opt for tackles but runs with the opponent and spots the best possible moment to intercept the ball.
Another aspect that needs to be addressed and improved is the reliance on Andrés regarding playmaking. It is believed that Andrés has the passing abilities and vision needed to be much more involved in the playmaking process and perhaps in making more assists per season, too, as she can achieve this target. With a high passing accuracy rate, Andrés’ passing qualities enable her to break defensive lines and make things easier for midfielders and attacking players.
This picture highlights Andrés’ ability to provide critical passes that can create a lot of danger since this pass breaks the opponent’s first defensive line and allows the receiver to dribble past one defender only to find herself in a one-on-one situation with the opposing goalkeeper. That’s precisely what happened in this action, turning Andrés’ pass into an assist.
Moreover, with a 59.8% accuracy rate in terms of long passes, Andrés can be much more useful in this regard, too, as providing more accurate long passes towards the wings and at the back of the defensive line when needed can help Real Madrid find much more attacking solutions and makes Andrés much more valuable in terms of playmaking, given that she has the abilities to help.
Conclusion
Ivana Andrés is having an excellent season on an individual level since she is not only playing well in defence but also contributing with goals using headers and trying to be much more involved in terms of playmaking. Apart from being the captain, Andrés is playing a substantial tactical role in making Real Madrid’s season a successful one since they are third in the Liga F standings but with the same number of points as Barcelona and Levante, the first and the second.
Her performances were also good in the UWCL, even though the team’s overall situation is becoming complicated in Group D, and their qualification seems very difficult to achieve.
Nevertheless, keeping the same level of concentration and efficiency in defence, avoiding committing unnecessary fouls and participating more in the playmaking process can make Andrés one of the best three defenders worldwide in the coming years.
