In the second post of our series analyzing the 2023 Women's World Cup, we'll talk about two players who have shown enormous potential during the most important international competition. Even with very short careers, Spain's Salma Paralluelo, 20, and Colombia's Linda Caicedo, 19, have already been nominated to be among the 10 best players in the world in 2023 (according to the Ballon d'Or awards).
Salma Paralluelo
Considered the third best player in the world in the 23/24 season, Paralluelo is currently one of Barcelona's main offensive players, as well as being an almost absolute starter for the Spanish national team, even though she has only been playing for a short time. The young player is left-footed, and in the national team she usually plays as a center forward.
Paralluelo was decisive in winning the 2023 World Cup. As well as starting in all 7 games, she scored two very important goals for her team in the competition: a goal against the Netherlands in the quarter-finals and another against Sweden in the semi-finals.
Graph 1 shows all of Paralluelo's progressive actions during the competition. It can be seen that there is a high concentration of these actions on the left side of the pitch, with many carries directed towards the back line and many passes directed towards the center of the opponent's box. In the 7 games she played during the 2023 World Cup, Salma played as a right winger, as a left winger and, above all, as a center forward. Her position wasn't fixed during the competition, and this fluctuation allowed us to better visualize her playing preference, since even though she was in other positions, she was always more participative on the left.
Definition of progressive action: Actions in the first 30% of the pitch are ignored. They must reduce the distance from the ball to the opponent's goal by at least 15%. Only successful passes or drives that are finished closer vertically to the opponent's goal or that have their end point inside the opponent's penalty area are counted.
Graph 1. Salma Paralluelo’s Progressive Actions
Something interesting to note is the high number of progressive carries, a common characteristic of fast players with good physical conditioning. Coincidence or not, Paralluelo practiced athletics (short- and middle-distance running) for many years, even going so far as to have to combine this activity with playing football at the club that revealed her, Villarreal.
We also need to mention another important attribute of Paralluelo's for his team: her ability to pressurize the ball. As we mentioned in our last post, Spain's style of play is very aggressive. To put this into practice, their attacking players have to be involved even when the team is without the ball, and Paralluelo is one of the best examples to show how this happens, as she is the third Spanish player with the most defensive actions in the competition, with the vast majority of these actions being performed in the opponent's half.
Graph 2. Salma Paralluelo’s Defensive Actions
Linda Caicedo
Linda was nominated as the ninth best player in the world in 2023 (by the Ballon d'Or awards). She is currently a midfielder for Real Madrid and the Colombian national team, and a first team regular for both. In the national team, Linda is generally more of an offensive player, which makes it possible to think of her as a classic attacking midfielder. At the 2023 Women's World Cup, she was a starter in all five of Colombia's matches (eliminated in the quarter-finals), scoring two goals and providing one assist.
In the map of progressive actions, we can see a large flow of actions that start on the left and end up in the center or on the right of the field. Compared to Paralluelo, we can see that even with an almost equal number of progressive actions per 90 minutes, Caicedo executes many more progressive passes/90 (Caicedo 3.75 vs. 3.27 Paralluelo), while the Spaniard uses a lot of carries to attempt to attack (Caicedo 5.06 vs. 5.64 Paralluelo).
In all, Linda had 47 progressive actions during the competition, making her the third Colombian player with the most progressive actions per 90 minutes.
Graph 3. Linda Caicedo’s Progressive Actions
In addition, her passing radar (graph 4) shows that Linda's touches are mostly directed to the right side, which reinforces the idea that she is more likely to play on the left. The Colombian plays an important role in turnovers, passing medium and long balls to the opposite side of the pitch in an attempt to find spaces to attack.
Graph 4. Linda Caicedo's Pass Sonar Map
Salma Paralluelo x Linda Caicedo
In the graph below, OP refers to "Open Play", i.e. only shots with the ball in play are considered, disregarding penalties, fouls or corners. In addition, all the metrics were normalized according to the number of minutes played by the players.
Despite playing in different sectors, it is still extremely valid to compare the two in terms of offensive statistics. Looking at xG and goals, Linda's incredible efficiency stands out, as she has accumulated over 0.37 goals with around 0.06 expected goals. Salma has a very intense contribution in shots, finishing almost 3 times every 90 minutes, while Linda articulates the game considerably more with passes, executing almost 30 passes per match.
In addition, there is a considerable discrepancy in passing accuracy between the two players, with Linda Caicedo having a good advantage. However, this can be explained by the difference in the positions and roles played by the two players. As she played most of her minutes as a center forward at the World Cup, Paralluelo was often faced with a context in which passes are more difficult and more susceptible to error, as she is marked more intensely than players who play in Linda's position. Despite this, we can say that Paralluelo is efficient when passing under pressure, a very important characteristic for any center forward.
Graph 5. Comparative Radar between Paralluelo and Caicedo
Conclusion
After this analysis, we can get an idea of the characteristics and potential of these two young players, who should be even more important for their team and for the women's soccer scene at the 2027 World Cup, which will be hosted in Brazil.
This was our second post analyzing the 2023 Women's World Cup. Our next post will focus on the most outstanding players in the competition, but without the emphasis on promising young players. Stay tuned for the rest of our series!
