Milot Rashica is a left-winger who just turned 23 a few weeks ago and plays for Werder Bremen. The young Kosovan made last season 26 appearances in the Bundesliga, scored nine goals and assisted five times. Due to his great performances during the last season, hes now the player with the third-highest market value in the squad of Bremen. Only Maximilian Eggestein and Davy Klaassen have a higher market value compared to Rashica’s which is £18 million.
This tactical analysis in the form of a scout report will examine Rashica’s abilities and show why he is so important for Florian Kohfeldt’s team.
His career so far
He was born in 1996 in Vushtrria, a city in Kosovo and played in the youth teams of his hometown club KF Vushtrria. He debuted for their senior team aged 16 and joined Vitesse in 2015. He spent three years at the Dutch club and made all in all 100 appearances for them.
Because of his good performances at Vitesse, Bremen took notice of the left-winger and signed him in January 2018 and Rashica reportedly signed a 4.5-year contract until 2022.
Rashica made several appearances for the youth national teams of Albania and also played two times for their senior team in friendlies. In August 2016, it was announced that Rashica had switched to Kosovo and in the same month, he received a call-up from Kosovo for a 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification match against Finland. Rashica made his debut for the Kosovan national team after being named in the starting line-up in this match.
Positioning and movements
Rashica is a variable player what is a huge advantage for Bremen’s tactics since he can play on either wing or up front as a striker. Furthermore, he never just stays in his position when his team is in possession and instead, he’s always looking for free spaces and tries to create passing lanes.
Considering this, when he plays as a left-winger, he doesn’t just position in the left wide area, but also joins his teammates in the centre to overload it or switches position with the right-winger. These movements make it hard for the opponents to defend against the Kosovan. We can see in his heatmap that he’s mainly on the left wing but also drifts inside or positions on the right wing occasionally.
However, his usual position on the left wing gifts him the space to receive passes and start dribbles. Due to his wide positioning, he has some distance between himself and his opponent when he receives a pass and then can pick up speed when he goes for example in the one-on-one against the opponent’s right-back. As we will see later in this analysis, is one of his typical moves a dribble from the left wing into the middle to get himself into a good position for a shot.
Rashica likes to get involved in Bremen’s build-up and due to that he always looks for free spaces in the centre or half-spaces. As in the shot below, he often finds himself in the middle of several opponents. In these situations, he knows that it would make no sense to turn around or start a dribble and so he just lays the ball off to stay in possession.
