Making his debut for KingFut, UEFA B and El Gouna FC youth coach Omar Lasheen provides a tactical analysis on one of the brightest stars in the Bundesliga, Morocco’s Achraf Hakimi.
In a brand new series on KingFut, we’ll be featuring tactical breakdowns on players and clubs from the Middle East and North Africa. With the Bundesliga the first major league to resume after the coronavirus outbreak, Omar puts the spotlight on the marauding Moroccan who continues to shine in Germany.
Player Profile – Achraf Hakimi
With Borussia Dortmund making a final push towards the Bundesliga title, their right wing-back Achraf Hakimi has picked up where he left off before the unprecedented prolonged break. The 21-year-old Moroccan, on a two-year loan from Spanish giants Real Madrid, has taken the league by storm since his arrival in Germany.
His development at Dortmund has been attracting a lot of interest from the top European clubs, showing their knack of growing and nurturing talents into top players. This player analysis will look at Hakimi’s main strengths as well as areas for improvement.
Offensive Positioning and Spatial Awareness
Achraf Hakimi’s understanding of his position allows him to place himself in the right areas of the pitch to maximize his contribution. In a 3-4-3 system, Dortmund’s preferred formation, the wing-back’s role is to provide a wide outlet for teammates on the ball as they are responsible for the whole outside lane when the team is in possession.
Hakimi’s ability to scan the areas around him and identify spaces where he can exploit helps him in being efficient when his team are on the attack. In the flexible 3-4-3 system utilized by Dortmund coach Lucien Favre, players are free to roam from their positions and occupy different spaces depending on the offensive situation.
In offensive organization against compact defences, Hakimi usually prefers to stay out wide and stretch the pitch, spreading opponents out horizontally to create space for the forwards to get on the ball. He can do this by interpreting the area around him and recognizing where to stand in order to shift the defenders’ focus.
The image below shows Achraf Hakimi positioning himself in the outside right vertical lane, near the touchline, keeping the pitch as wide as possible. This creates an element of doubt in the defender’s mind, keeping an eye with Hakimi, not allowing him to shift across and close the space between him and his central defender. With Hakimi’s positioning and without touching the ball, he has created space inside for Jadon Sancho to get on the ball more comfortably, giving the opportunity for a more dangerous attack.
Also, due to Hakimi’s passing ability, he can move inside to be more in contact with the midfielders, providing an extra passing option to keep possession, given that one of his teammates are occupying the outside lane. The rotation between players in offensive situation makes it difficult for opponents to mark players, which creates spaces and unexpected gaps in their defensive organization.
This is illustrated in the example above, with Thorgan Hazard moving outside to keep the width in Dortmund’s team shape, Hakimi has moved inside to link up with his midfielders. His ability to quickly detect and occupy the space left by Thorgan Hazard, has left him unmarked in the final third of the pitch; giving him the opportunity to use his passing quality and keep possession to help his team probe and find a way through a compact defence.
Strength: Final Third/Final Ball
Achraf Hakimi possesses great quality in the final third in terms of his decision-making and technical execution of the final ball. He has a huge capacity to cover big distances during the 90 minutes, 9.74km per game, a Dortmund high. That allows him to keep up and be constantly dangerous when Dortmund are in the final phase of the attack, providing a direct threat on goal with crosses and shots.
The graphic below shows his attacking quality in relation to Bayern Munich and RB Leipzig’s right-backs/wing-backs, two of the three top scoring clubs in the league alongside Borussia Dortmund. So far in the Bundesliga, he has 5 goals and has the highest assists for a defender in the league with 10.
What helps him in becoming lethal in the final third is his competence to quickly asses the space around him and his teammates’. Hakimi’s high quality decision-making in terms pass choice and his pass execution allows him not only to spot his teammates, but also get his pass to reach towards its intended target. His ability to pass the ball with different parts of the foot, hitting it with different levels of power, but still maintaining its precision is shown in his stats so far this season.
An example of his quality in the final third is shown below in a counter-attacking situation. His open body position, facing forward, ready to attack the space at speed, communicates to his teammate where he wants the ball while raising his head, already scanning the area in which he wants to cross the ball in. After reaching the ball, his technique allows him to pass the ball in rapidly on his first touch, reaching the forward’s feet and creating a dangerous opportunity.
The second situation is demonstrated in the image below. As he gets the ball in a wide area, with little pressure put on him by the defender, he is able to assess his teammates’ position. Recognizing that Thorgan Hazard is free at the far post, he opens up his body to play a finessed ball across the face of goal, keeping it away from the defenders and reaching its target at the intended speed and accuracy to create a goal-scoring chance.
Room for Improvement: Defensive Positioning
Defensively, Achraf Hakimi has lacked the consistency he’s shown from an offensive standpoint. His defensive positioning in particular has made the right side of Dortmund’s defence an area for opponents to target.
Hakimi is a quick player, recording the quickest top speed in Bundesliga history, 36.2km/h, which gets him out of most difficult situations, especially in recovery runs.
However, his initial positioning when Borussia Dortmund are in defensive organization allows his opponents to be comfortable. In a 3-4-3 system, the wing-back either marks the opposition winger or presses up against the opposition full-back. The lack of clarity in his decision-making results in uncertainty, which gives opponents the time and space to get on the ball and make the action.
These are shown in both of the above situations, where the opposition left-back has received the ball in a comfortable situation and Hakimi is neither close enough to hassle him or deep enough to help his central defender. This allows the opposition to make the cross with little pressure, providing the chance for a dangerous attack.
Conclusion – Achraf Hakimi
A world-class player in the making, Achraf Hakimi has a high level of quality and strengths that can take him to the top. With his top attacking assets combined with a flexible tactical system, he has been maximizing his two-year period in Germany and should be going back to Spain having made huge strides in his performances.
Given he stays determined and hungry, alongside some coaching to improve his defensive awareness, there is no doubt that we will be singing the Moroccan wing-back’s praises for years to come.
Let us know your thoughts on this analysis in the comments and which players you’d like featured in this series…
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