After a long journey at Montpellier Hérault Sport Club, where Sakina Karchaoui stood out as one of the best left-backs in the D1 féminine, she soon became an impactful player for Lyon Féminin for one season and then went to Paris Saint-Germain, where she has had some great successes from 2021 until today.
It was recently announced in French media that Karchaoui has just renewed her contract with PSG for four years until 2028, refusing to change her team despite receiving some interesting offers and preferring to pursue her experience with Les Parisiennes since she believes that she can contribute heavily to her team’s upcoming achievements and help them annually in their battle with OL Lyonnes for the league title.
More importantly, Karchaoui’s ultimate target with PSG is to reach the UEFA Women’s Champions League final with them and eventually lift the title, knowing that she has already won the 2019-2020 edition with Olympique Lyonnais.
It is worth noting that Karchaoui began her career as a midfielder before transitioning to play as a left-back and becoming one of the best in her position.
Surely, Montpellier and Olympique Lyonnais played a huge role in shaping Karchaoui’s footballing identity and helping her progress in a more remarkable way before she joins PSG to showcase her skills even more and become a more complete player.
What made Karchaoui even more prolific as a left-back is her ability to score decisive goals on crucial occasions, such as in UEFA Women’s Champions League group stage games against tough teams like Real Madrid, in addition to her key passes and numerous assists that made her even more valuable for PSG and later for the French national team as well.
In fact, Karchaoui earned her first cap with the France national team in April 2016 against Ukraine before getting the chance to participate in big tournaments such as Euro 2017, FIFA World Cup 2019, Euro 2022 and the FIFA World Cup 2023, knowing that she played a crucial role in most games and was always valuable for Les Bleus.
In order to explore Karchaoui’s abilities in a more extensive way, this analysis will cover the French international’s defensive and attacking traits while identifying her roles within PSG’s tactics in a tactical analysis article written in the form of a Sakina Karchaoui scout report.
Sakina Karchaoui Roles And Positions
Karchaoui began her career as a midfielder, initially learning how to provide key passes and possess the necessary vision and quick reactions to distribute the ball accurately while surrounded by opponents.
Being raised as a midfielder also helped Karchaoui develop better ball protection abilities and be physically solid.
All these midfielders’ characteristics later helped Karchaoui in becoming a world-class left-back as she used the mentioned abilities in the left-back role while working harder to master the main left-back roles such as marking wingers, mastering all types of crosses from the left-wing, cutting inside, dribbling past opponents and running near the line and more.
At Les Parisiennes, Karchaoui’s roles are various and include set-piece taking (mainly penalties), crossing from the wing, participating actively in the build-up, providing passing solutions and doing overlaps on the left-wing, defending and marking direct opponents and applying high pressing whenever needed.
Although Karchaoui has usually played on the left flank, we see her occasionally leaning towards the right wing on some occasions, and she has proven that she can deal well with the various situations she encounters on that wing.
But overall, the 28-year-old remains a defensively solid left-back with excellent attacking attributes that allow her to advance so often and always be useful inside the final third, as PSG and France usually instruct her to advance in order to benefit from her attacking abilities.
The following heatmap shows that Sakina Karchaoui tends to advance a lot and participates actively in her team’s attacks, knowing that both of her head coaches at PSG and with France instruct her to advance a lot per game.
Exploiting Karchaoui a bit further as a left-winger at times can free her from defensive duties and help using her attacking traits even more when needed.
Sakina Karchaoui Heat Map
Sakina Karchaoui Goalscoring & Shooting Abilities
In terms of shooting, the 28-year-old averages 31.8% shots on target, given that she shoots 0.65 times per game.
This average is normal mainly because Karchaoui’s main duties do not include shooting, given her position on the pitch.
