Who Is Korbin Albert?
Korbin Albert is a very promising American midfield player who started her footballing career at Eclipse Select Soccer Club throughout her youth career before joining Notre Dame Fighting Irish during her college journey from 2021 to 2022.
In 2023, she moved to Europe and to Division 1 Féminine’s PSG, in particular, to begin her European journey and try to put on convincing performances to succeed in building a solid European reputation while helping her team win trophies and challenge Olympique Lyonnais for the league title in particular.
In the meantime, playing at PSG represents a huge opportunity to participate in a huge competition like the UEFA Women’s Champions League and guarantee facing some of the toughest teams such as Barcelona, Chelsea, Bayern Munich, Lyon, Juventus, Wolfsburg, Roma, Arsenal, and more, and therefore getting a lot of experience at the highest level of the game.
Moreover, she’s earned a call-up for the USWNT — certainly something that attracts attention but also puts pressure on the player in terms of expectations.
However, this remains very positive news for Albert, who has to show that she deserves this call-up by putting on convincing performances with the USWNT, especially during the upcoming tournaments.
In this regard, this tactical analysis in the form of a scout report will explore and expose Albert’s main characteristics and what differentiates her from “average” midfielders while identifying her roles at PSG and her importance to their tactics.
The analysis will also try to highlight the possible roles that she can master with the USWNT.
Korbin Albert goalscoring skills
The 20-year-old Albert can be considered an unorthodox midfield player regarding movements, decisions, and characteristics.
She is a very dynamic midfielder with attacking traits that include excellent dribbling abilities, good passing skills and powerful shooting abilities, especially from distance.
Her powerful shots were especially noticeable when she used to play for Notre Dame Fighting Irish, where she succeeded in showing her goalscoring abilities with some very impressive shots from distance that were executed from different angles inside the final third and with both feet as well.
With an average of 40.5% in terms of shots on target, Albert is known for mastering shooting techniques in a way that allows her to score beautiful goals with elegance, even when she dribbles before shooting.
This example highlights this ability to score from distance with a lot of confidence and mastery of her shooting skills.
In fact, she usually puts an adequate amount of power into her shots while giving a lot of importance to accuracy, as she rarely misses target.
In this opportunity, Albert collects a wrong pass and dribbles past her direct opponent very quickly, paving the way for herself to shoot in a way that curves the ball while it is in the air.
This technique has often helped Albert confuse goalkeepers, especially when she successfully directs her shots towards the desired angle.
In addition to being completely unpredictable in terms of when and how she shoots, Albert uses her left foot in a remarkable way when she finds herself in situations that oblige her to use her left foot for shooting.
What is even more remarkable is that she uses her left foot in an unpredictable way, too and often decides her shooting attempt at the last second, which makes these shots more likely to confuse goalkeepers.
Also, being a balanced player and having exceptional physical strength helps Albert shoot without preparing for her shots or fearing to shoot while being unbalanced.
At the same time, she uses this talent and ability in her favour most of the time as she usually aims at shooting from distance, which is not a very common habit for midfielders nowadays.
Even those who do so are not as really accurate and useful as Albert in this regard.
The next picture shows another similar goal from Albert, who scored three goals per game on some occasions when she played for Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
Having the ability to score both with the right and the left foot from outside the box is a capacity that every team needs.
Being consistent in this regard should be Albert’s objective, with the support of her head coaches.
Another characteristic that both head coaches will need to focus on and try to work with Albert on is set-piece taking.
Albert is a player who can become a fatal set-piece weapon if encouraged and given the necessary confidence and instructions to excel in terms of set-pieces, especially free-kicks.
She proved on several occasions that she could be a trusted and dangerous free-kick taker, as she could score them from different angles and with various types of shots.
She was even able to score a free-kick from a very angled spot near the touchline with Notre Dame Fighting Irish, showcasing her ability to orient her free-kicks in a precise way and confirming that she is a player who focuses on details and tries to exploit opposing mistakes, especially in terms of goalkeepers’ positioning.
Korbin Albert Playmaking abilities
According to statistics, Albert is a good passer since she averages 80.6% in passing accuracy and 66.2% in passes to the final third.
Exploiting these good numbers even further at PSG and soon with the USWNT would be very useful for Albert since that would make her a more useful player.
Indeed, she is yet to provide assists at PSG, but she has already proved that she can be extremely dangerous when it comes to passing, whether in terms of crosses, through passes, or key passes at the back of the defensive line.
Moreover, her ability to penetrate defensive lines is extremely dangerous, allowing her to surpass her markers.
At the same time, clearing spaces for her teammates inside the box as she approaches her target.
The following example shows how Albert’s penetration attracts defenders and provides space to her teammate.
At the same time, Albert does not really struggle when trying to overcome this defensive resistance using quick dribbles and feints.
With 40.7% in terms of long passing accuracy, Albert can improve her numbers mainly by attempting more long passes and crosses per match, as she tends to rely more on simple passing or through passes rather than crossing.
Nevertheless, she also showed that she can be dangerous whenever she crosses from the wings, even using her left foot.
Exploiting her crossing ability even further can definitely make her a more useful player for PSG and the USWNT from a playmaking point of view.
Another remarkable trait that differentiates Albert from other midfielders is her ability to run very fast while still being able to dribble and pass the ball accurately, making her accelerations and penetration attempts a lot more dangerous and effective.
The following example highlights this ability to break opposing defences thanks to her penetrations before attempting a final key pass at the back of the defensive line and between two defenders to serve her teammate, who was moving towards that same spot.
Finding more chemistry between Albert and her attacking teammates can be fruitful for the team in the long run, as this would facilitate executing similar actions successfully and exploiting Albert’s exceptional attacking traits, especially her ability to run quickly, dribble and provide key passes simultaneously.
Roles at PSG and under Hayes at the USWNT
Albert has been a regular and valuable player for PSG this season, mainly as a right or a left midfielder.
Nevertheless, she is yet to show her goalscoring skills and assist making and is trying to accustom herself to European football, knowing that the differences between the competitions PSG participates in and the NCAA are many.
That’s why giving Albert some more time to expose her goalscoring and playmaking skills is necessary, and time will then determine whether she can perform similarly to the ones she did in the NCAA.
Therefore, Jocelyn Prêcheur will have to be attentive to Albert’s roles as he should help her strive to do better by giving her clear roles and ones that suit her abilities.
In other words, Albert can be relied on for defensive duties mainly because she wins an average of 64.4% of the defensive duels per game and makes about 10 recoveries inside the opposing half.
This last statistic means that Albert can be very useful in high-pressure situations and should be exploited more often, whether by Prêcheur or Emma Hayes in the future.
In terms of playmaking, both PSG and the USWNT can use Albert quite more in midfield and encourage her to go for at least two solo accelerations towards the box per match, exploiting her excellent and quick penetration and dribbling skills.
Such penetrations can cause a lot of danger to opposing defences, especially if the team trains on ways to support Albert in this regard, such as working on one-two combinations in certain areas to create space for the ball holder.
With 80.6% passing accuracy average, Albert should be pushed to provide more key passes per game and always aim at serving strikers while spotting their movements continuously.
In addition, having a midfielder with excellent penetration and shooting skills from distance at the USWNT is not very common.
And that’s why Hayes will have to encourage Albert to shoot more from outside the box to exploit her talent while alternating her shooting angles and techniques to avoid becoming predictable for goalkeepers.
Conclusion
Korbin Albert is expected to become one of the best American midfielders soon, especially if she succeeds in playing well at PSG and adapts her playing style successfully to European standards.
At the moment, she has all the characteristics needed to excel at this level, and the call-up to play for the USWNT will undoubtedly represent a huge psychological boost for Albert to become an even more complete midfielder and have more confidence in her abilities as a player.
At the same time, she will have to work hard to excel with the USWNT and guarantee a regular spot, knowing that doing so in a powerful team like the USWNT might be more complicated than ensuring a regular spot at PSG.
Working on regularly improving her shooting abilities, dribbling skills, quick penetrations, and set-piece-taking abilities is the key to becoming an even more remarkable midfielder, as these traits are already differentiating Albert from most other midfielders.
