“It’s just pure instinct”: OL Reign’s remarkable aerial advantage in 2023 – scout report

There is little doubt among fans of the NWSL that the 2023 season has provided plenty of talking points, with the poor form of 2022 Championship runners-up Kansas City Current and North Carolina Courage topping the standings after 15 rounds of the campaign among those topics which have instigated a great deal of discussion.

Another story which has garnered an increasing amount of attention this year is OL Reigns goalscoring habits, with the Seattle side showing a propensity to score where they can with their heads. The fact that they have already found the net 10 times from the air (and have scored their last six goals in all competitions with their heads) shows that this is a key aspect of their game plan.

However, what many have been wondering is why they have been so threatening in these aerial battles, with many sides finding it almost impossible to defend against them. This tactical analysis will look to provide some answers to that by dissecting how their aerial attacks have been constructed, breaking down angles of delivery, the positioning of those in the middle and their role rotations, showing why each has been vital to them posing such a threat in this area of the game.

Angle of delivery

The first thing to look at is the angle of delivery because any goalscoring attempt always starts with a team sending the ball in at the right time and along the correct trajectory. It is not easy to execute the perfect cross, with so many things capable of going wrong, but OL Reign have clearly been working on this, and it shows when analysing how they find each other from different areas of the field.

What has become increasingly prominent is that they are capable of altering situations to give themselves the best possible opportunity of finding the perfect delivery, and that comes down to their ability to recognise when the angle that they have been given is too tight and how they can change it to give themselves a better chance of success.

This is a prime example of that, with OL winning a free kick in the central channel. Still, the angle not being favourable to them, due to the path to Elyse Bennett, in the red circle, who is the intended target, being too straight and the ball, therefore, having too narrow a corridor to travel along. Thus, rather than attempting that pass and risking it going astray, defender Shae Holmes sends the ball towards the far side of the pitch without hesitation, where she has fellow rookie Alyssa Malonson in support and waiting to receive it.

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