Why the defensive contribution of the “rock” Mapi León was fundamental to Barcelona Femení and Spain’s success – scout report

María Pilar León is Barcelona Femení’s centre-back who has been more than useful for both Barcelona and the Spanish national team. She started her career at Zaragoza and played her first-ever Primera División match when she was 16. Then, she had a brief spell at Espanyol from 2013 to 2014 before moving to Atlético Madrid where she played 84 games and scored four goals. In 2017, León joined Barcelona and from that moment onwards, her contribution at the club was exceptional not only in terms of defending but also when it comes to assists, playmaking and goalscoring.

In this tactical analysis scout report, we will explore León’s main characteristics as a defender, her roles on the pitch while carrying out an analysis of her tactical role at Barcelona and Spain, by relying on statistics and episodes from previous matches.

Roles and position

Mapi León plays essentially as a left centre-back in Barcelona’s 4-3-3 as well as in Spain’s 3-5-2. The latter is a formation used in certain matches by Spain’s head coach Jorge Vilda in which León is employed as a left centre-back, often alongside former Paris Saint-Germain’s Irene Paredes and Andrea Pereira. Therefore, León finds no issues in playing with a back-four or a back-three defensive line. She acts like a leader not only of defence but also of the whole team since she knows when and how to impose her personality and guide her teammates especially in set-pieces. Most importantly, León is crucial in terms of defensive decision-making. In other words, she knows how and when to resort to tackles, when to intercept passes and when to commit fouls. Having a player with such characteristics is extremely important in today’s football as defenders with such concentration, bravery, intelligence and sense of captaincy are becoming rarer and rarer.

What makes León even more precious for her team is her passing and shooting accuracy. Having excellent vision and helping midfielders in playmaking represents a big asset for the team as she not only supports her teammates by providing simple passes but she also provides some key passes especially by using long passes. And as you can notice in this picture, León’s movements are not only restricted to her team’s own half. She often advances to help in playmaking and even in goalscoring at times. Such movements however are usually calculated and planned in order to not leave a gap in the team’s defence in case of counter-attacks.

What is even more striking in this picture is that the red points show us that León covers the whole left side of the pitch from defence to attack. It is rare to find a player, especially for defenders, with as many red points as the ones León has in defence, midfield and attack.

Defensive duels and marking

León is definitely one of the best defenders in women’s football at the moment especially in terms of interceptions, tackling and defensive duels. She has some impressive statistics in this regard with 73,1% defensive duels won, 67,9% aerial duels won, 52,1% successful sliding tackles per match with an average of 4,45 interceptions per match. Such numbers highlight León’s defensive strength and efficiency both at Barcelona and Spain. Added to that, her playing style and charisma on the pitch are unique and remind football fans of some prolific/legendary defenders such as Paolo Maldini, Alessandro Nesta and Carles Puyol. León’s playing style is quite similar to these legends especially in terms of defensive duties.

For instance, León usually resorts to sliding tackles whenever she feels that the situation needs that sort of action in order to save her team from imminent danger. And the impressive thing here is that she does that quite often, with confidence, determination and without being afraid. That’s why she usually succeeds at intercepting the ball without necessarily committing a foul despite using tackles.