Following the departure of Martina Piemonte and then the Swedish international Kosovare Asllani, AC Milan Women decided to sign the Polish international Nikola Karczewska to most probably get a central role in head coach Suzanne Bakker’s Milan.
Numerous changes are happening at Milan to make the team more competitive, both in Serie A and on a European level, after failing to even make it to the playoffs as they played in the relegation round last season.
Although Milan did not have issues finishing at the top of the relegation round standings, this remains a very negative season for the club, as the results were much lower than expected.
Milan will, therefore, need to play better football and achieve better results this season to battle for a UWCL spot.
Why not be more ambitious and challenge Roma, Juventus, Inter Milan, and the rest for the Serie A Femminile title as well?
The Polish forward was born in Warsaw in 1999 and used to play for Górnik Łęczna, where she was the top goal scorer in the Polish league, before moving to France and joining FC Fleury.
Afterwards, she was capable of scoring 11 goals in her first season in France before signing for Tottenham and earning an opportunity to play in the WSL during the 2022/23 season.
Last season, she spent the whole year on loan at Bayer Leverkusen from Spurs, where she scored 10 goals and had two assists.
This rather positive season helped her gain more experience and adapt to different styles of play since she had already played in four different European leagues before joining Milan with a contract until 30 June 2026.
This will certainly facilitate her integration into Serie A, as she has the experience needed to cope with environmental changes and quickly adapt to the new city lifestyle and Italian playing style.
At the same time, we must mention that Karczewska also has some international experience since she made her debut with the senior national team in June 2019 during the match between Poland and Slovakia.
In this tactical analysis and Nikola Karczewska scout report, we will explore Karczewska’s attacking abilities, mainly her goalscoring and playmaking traits, while discussing her role at Milan and how she can be central to their tactics during the coming two seasons.
Therefore, the analysis will evaluate this new attacking signing by examining her strengths and shedding some light on her possible improvements while at Milan.
Nikola Karczewska Position & Role At AC Milan Women
As mentioned above, Karczewska will probably replace Piemonte and Asllani as the Rossoneres main strikers.
Bakker already started using Karczewska as a striker during the friendly match against Newcastle United.
This means that Bakker is planning on relying heavily on Karczewska for that role, especially if she confirms her abilities and shows positive signs during the rest of the pre-season.
In fact, Karczewska performed well against Newcastle United and scored a goal that highlights the Polish’s goalscoring instinct.
Based on her previous experiences and actual statistics, we can argue that Karczewska can play a stationary striker, blocking defenders, having an advantage on defenders when receiving crosses and long passes, and providing key passes to the midfielders coming from the back.
She can also use her body very well to protect the ball and resist the disturbance of defenders inside or near the box, which would make the difference up front for Milan.
Her role would also include scoring as many goals as possible by exploiting crosses since she has the physical abilities needed to have an advantage over defenders during such actions usually.
She also proved previously that she times her movements inside the box very well to anticipate the defenders’ runs and get to the ball first.
It is true that things can be a bit more complicated in Serie A, as defenders might be more aggressive than in Germany.
Yet, Karczewska has what it takes to still make a significant impact and cope well with the defensive differences, not only thanks to her physical strength but also thanks to her intelligence and excellent decision-making regarding movements and finishing.
Overall, Karczewska’s roles at Milan will most likely be the same as those of the previous strikers who used to play in this position.
The difference however is that Karczewska is more of a stationary striker who does not necessarily have the traits that allow her to drop back and contribute a lot in the playmaking, unlike Asllani for instance.
Karczewska rather has similar characteristics to those of Piemonte, meaning that Karczewska’s movements will more likely be centred inside the box or at the edge of the box.
That being said, she can also lean towards the wings at times to provide passing options to wingers and confuse defenders by getting out of her zone.
At the same time, we should mention the fact that Karczewska was used as a winger on a few occasions and can cope with that position in emergency cases since that’s not the position that allows her to give 100%.
Nikola Karczewska Goalscoring Instinct And Abilities
You have read it right; Karczewska indeed has what we call goalscoring instinct.
She knows exactly when and how to move to anticipate defenders’ movements and get to her teammates’ passes/crosses first.
That’s what makes her a valuable striker who can still improve a lot and be even more crucial in front of goal.
Milan will certainly help Karczewska become a more decisive striker, while the latter will surely contribute to winning more points than last season by scoring plenty of goals, especially if she gets the needed passes from her teammates.
That’s why a lot of work is needed by the coaching staff and the players themselves in order to create good chemistry between the attacking players and the midfielders while developing numerous attacking plans to use according to situations and opponents.
On her first appearance with the Rossonere, Karczewska has already shown positive signs.
She scored the following goal and stressed that she is very intelligent in terms of movements inside the box and that she can be very quick and beat defenders when chasing passes.
What is also important is that some chemistry is already being created between her and the wingers, as we saw significant understanding and few errors between them.
Karczewska noticed her teammate’s run to get the ball on the right side and immediately started running faster to surpass her marker and be the first on the ball to score it.
With 0,56 average scored goals per game and 1,81 shots per game, we can argue that Karczewska can improve her numbers a bit further at Milan and focus on scoring more and more on target while trying to improve her goalscoring numbers as well.
That being said, we cannot overlook the Polish’s impeccable goalscoring traits since she deals very well with crosses and uses complicated and sometimes acrobatic movements when needed, too.
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