Taylor Kornieck at Orlando Pride 2021 scout report – why her attacking impact is fundamental – tactical analysis

Taylor Kornieck has been one of Orlando Pride’s most influential players at the start of this NWSL season as well as during the NWSL Challenge Cup. The 22-year-old has contributed with goals, assists and much more during this start of the season and her performances gave a glimpse of what she can achieve at Orlando in the upcoming matches.

In this tactical analysis scout report, we will explore the characteristics of Kornieck while shedding light on her goalscoring, playmaking, defensive contribution and set-piece taking. The analysis will also look at how her chemistry with Alex Morgan, Sydney Leroux and Marta impacted Orlando’s tactics positively and added a lot of creativity and effectiveness to their attacking actions.

Positions at Orlando Pride

Kornieck can play at different attacking positions and this was something that Marc Skinner exploited very well so far since he used Kornieck as a RW at times, as a striker most of the time, and recently with the coming of Morgan he even used Kornieck as an advanced playmaker. Moreover, during her time at MSV Duisburg and Colorado, she was used as an advanced playmaker and as a striker which enabled her to acquire experience in playing those roles and knowing how to position herself and what is needed from her in each situation.

As you can see in this heat map, Kornieck moves a lot without the ball and covers almost the whole pitch since she often retreats to defend and moves forward a lot. This includes penetrating and crossing from the wings as well especially when opposing defenders defend more centrally.

In Orlando’s line-up, Kornieck is becoming a key player in attack. The chemistry between her and Morgan was very apparent in the last couple of matches and if they continue working on this aspect, Orlando would be scoring more goals per match as the two players move a lot without the ball and Kornieck’s passes are usually accurate and intelligent.

Goalscoring, playmaking and set-pieces

Kornieck scored 31 goals since 2016 when she used to play for Colorado. Although this number is not extraordinary for five seasons, it tells us a lot about her possibility of becoming one of the NWSL’s best strikers very soon. When looking at some of these goals, it is easy to notice how Kornieck uses her great physical abilities in the perfect way to score goals either by headers, shooting from distance, free-kicks, penalties, one-on-ones with goalkeepers and more. The experience in scoring all these types of goals made it a bit easier for her to start this season with great performances even though the level of NWSL is surely much more competitive than NCAA Womens Soccer.

Kornieck’s 1.85 m height enables her to beat her markers in aerial duels so often and Orlando Pride have already gained the fruit of this Kornieck characteristic in the match against Racing Louisville after she jumped higher than her marker and put the ball inside the net in a beautiful manner and with a powerful header that confused the goalkeeper.