The attacking contribution of Lina Hurtig for Juventus Women and Sweden – tactical analysis

Lina Hurtig has been one of Sweden’s best attacking players during the last two seasons based on her performances both at Juventus Women and at the national Swedish team. Before joining Juventus in 2020, Hurtig played for a number of Swedish teams since the age of 15. Her first experience started with Gustafs GoIF where she scored 14 goals and made four assists in 20 games. Such performances granted her a move to a bigger team like Umeå IK with which she stayed for a bit more than four seasons and scored 24 goals in 88 games.

Following the team’s relegation from Damallsvenskan, Hurtig joined one of the most successful Swedish clubs, Linköping, a team at which Hurtig improved her skills even further and showcased her talent in the best of ways, attracting the interest of numerous European teams like Juventus after winning the Damallsvenskan title in 2017 and putting on some excellent performances from 2017 to 2020.

Hurtig started getting playing time in a non-consistent manner at Juventus under Rita Guarino during the initial period at the Serie A club, but then, she started convincing everyone with her skills and the addition she provides in the attacking phase. Therefore, she earned almost a starting spot in the team’s line-up and even when she didn’t start games, she was always subbed in during the second-half to provide some extra attacking depth. She lifted the 2021’s Serie A Women title with Juventus and now she looks forward to reaching an advanced stage with her team in the UEFA Women’s Champions League under the management of Joe Montemurro.

Hurtig’s contribution for her national team has been already excellent, given that her international journey started with the Swedish Under-17 team in 2011, before lifting the UEFA Women’s Under-19 Championship in 2012 with the Swedish Under-19 team. Later in 2014, she was called to represent the Swedish senior women’s team with which she participated in the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup and won the bronze medal before finishing as runners-up during the 2020 Summer Olympics.

In this tactical analysis article, we will highlight Hurtig’s main skills, strengths and attacking characteristics that are allowing her to shine both at Juventus and with the Swedish national team. The scout report will also include an analysis of the player’s goalscoring style and her various attacking roles.

Positions and roles

Hurtig can play different attacking roles as she became experienced in starting games with various positions and therefore distinct roles as well. For instance, she is actually Sweden’s striker, a position that suits her physical characteristics perfectly since she has a good height of 1.80 meters. Playing as a striker allows Hurtig to be more central and get involved in duels with centre-backs either to win the ball for herself or to provide passes for the players coming from behind and therefore serve as a “station”.

Moreover, such close position to the goal gives Hurtig the ability to exploit her finishing skills perfectly as she often gets opportunities for shooting from inside the box when being a striker. Plus, most crosses are played towards the middle where the striker is always waiting for the ball, and therefore, her height is exploited when receiving crosses and attempting headers towards the goal. Hurtig’s statistics in this regard are good overall, with 54% of aerial duels won, 45,3% duels won, and 38% offensive duels won. That being said, Hurtig can improve her averages even further if she wants to become a more clinical player inside the penalty area.

At Juventus, Hurtig was tried as a striker during some games but then she was employed as a left-winger by Guarino. This position was further confirmed under Joe Montemurro who has been constantly using Hurtig as a left-winger, a position which is not strange to the player who used to play according to this plan even during her spell at Linköping.

Unlike the striker position, playing as a left-winger involves more running and more defensive duties compared to strikers. Therefore, Hurtig is obliged to defend more and retreat more, as you can see in this heatmap.

At the same time, the Swedish international often tries to advance on the wing and cross for her teammate when being a left-winger since she is not necessarily asked to score goals but rather to provide support to one of the playing strikers, Cristiana Girelli or Andrea Stašková. Both of these players have an advantage on Hurtig for the striker spot and that’s why Montemurro opted for using Hurtig on the left-wing in order to exploit her physical and technical strengths, knowing that the player can be very helpful in attack for his Juventus.

And until now, his tactical plans proved to be successful since Juventus are actually at the top of Serie A as they have qualified to the UEFA Women’s Champions League Quarter-finals with Bayern Munich, Paris-Saint Germain, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Arsenal, Lyon and Wolfsburg.