Why the signing of Saki Kumagai can add so much to Roma Women’s defence and midfield – scout report

Saki Kumagai is an international Japanese player who has just moved from Bayern Munich Frauen to Roma Women and will be participating in the FIFA Women’s World Cup very soon as the captain of the Japanese national team. She has been an international since 2008 as she started her senior career in that same year when she was just 17 years old.

She played at Urawa Reds during the first seasons, then she moved to Frankfurt until 2013 before making a big move to Olympique Lyonnais. In fact, her experience at Lyon lasted for a long period since she left the team in 2021, having played eight seasons for the French team and winning five UEFA Women’s Champions League titles, six Coupe de La France and seven Division 1 Féminine trophies.

Following this rich experience in France, Kumagai moved to Bayern Munich where she won the Frauen-Bundesliga this season. A few days ago, Roma Women reached an agreement with Kumagai and won the services of the Japanese international for two seasons. This means that Kumagai will be helping the Giallorosse in conserving their Serie A league title against teams like Juventus, Inter, Milan, Fiorentina and others while also trying to use her European experience to make Roma Women reach an advanced stage in the UWCL, knowing that they were knocked out in the quarter-finals this season against Barcelona.

In this tactical analysis scout report, our main focus will be on exploring Kumagai’s main traits from a defensive and playmaking perspective. The analysis will also aim at identifying her most suitable position at Roma and how she can be useful in the team’s tactics.

Most suitable position at Roma Women: Wenninger-Kumagai/Giugliano-Kumagai

First of all, it should be said that Kumagai started her career as a central defender both in the national team and at the first club she played for. Afterwards, she started to play as a central midfielder whenever needed at Olympique Lyonnais, with Japan and later at Bayern Munich. In fact, Kumagai can occupy the midfielder role perfectly since she guarantees defensive security and represents a mixture between excellent defending and a good playmaking contribution.

Kumagai moves well with and without the ball when being a midfielder as she gained the experience needed to cope with such a role and she knows how exactly to deal with continuous pressing that midfielders need to absorb. She can play in a 4-4-2 or a 4-2-3-1 formation as a second midfielder without issues as she did this successfully on multiple occasions.

At Roma, Alessandro Spugna will have the luxury to make the decision on each game whether to play Kumagai instead of one of Elena Linari or Carina Wenninger or Giada Greggi in midfield. Although this sounds like a complicated decision to make, Spugna will surely be able to determine where he will need Kumagai more based on the opponent’s strengths and weaknesses and on the importance of the game as well. In fact, Kumagai can occupy Linari’s spot perfectly in some games where Roma will need more defensive experience, stability and compactness while it would be more adequate to play Kumagai beside Manuela Giugliano in midfield and to keep Linari and Wenninger as CBs when the team needs more aggressivity in midfield as well as in defence.

The Giugliano-Kumagai midfield duo would prove more balanced and more powerful than Giugliano-Greggi since the first one combines Giugliano’s excellent passing and creativity and Kumagai’s powerful physical abilities and impressive defending. As you can see in this heatmap, Kumagai is very familiar with midfield positions and has been playing a lot in midfield, even last season, which guarantees to Spugna that Kumagai is ready to play as a midfielder if he wants.

Kumagai’s traits as a midfielder

When playing as a midfielder, Kumagai can be extremely useful for the team she plays at. She proved that at Lyon and then at Bayern Munich plus with the national Japanese team. In fact, Kumagai has got some fairly good passing accuracy averages with 90.8% in passing accuracy, 77.3% in passing to the final third and 81.8% in terms of forward passing accuracy.

Moreover, with 60% of accuracy in long passes, Kumagai is among the best in terms of long passing in Europe since she relies on crossing a lot whether when playing as a centre-back or as a midfielder since this type of passing allows her to avoid pressing and serve her attacking teammates in a more direct and surprising way, which helps the receiver in finding less resistance from defenders and in avoiding marking.