Glossary

Preparation Phase: The phase before the ball-striking motion. In this stage, the player will look to prepare optimal conditions for the striking motion. During the preparation phase, things to look out for are:

• The steps and strides a player takes in preparation for the shooting motion.

• The placement of the planting foot. How far ahead or behind is the planting foot from the ball?

• The location of the ball. What is (are) the touch(es) a player takes to place the ball? How far ahead or behind the planting foot is the ball placed?

Backlift: The phase where a player retracts their leg before striking the ball. Things to look out for are:

• How far back is the player bending their knee?

• How are they using their arms to aid their balance?

Downswing: The downswing is the phase where a player brings down their leg to strike the ball. Things to look out for are:

• The tension in the knee and hips

• The tension in their ankles? Can they maintain a tenseness that will limit ankle movement upon impact with the ball?

• How are they using their arms to aid their balance?

• What part of the foot are they looking to use to strike the ball?

Follow Through: A player's movement after striking the ball. Things to look out for:

• Transfer of inertia?

• The movement of their shooting leg.

Zone of Influence: A term coined by Kannan Ahmed.

Dominik Szoboszlai is, without a doubt, an elite striker of the football. However, there needs to be more variety in Szoboszlai's ball-striking.

Problem

Analysis

The Hungarian tends to over-rely on one specific striking movement. As a result, we'll begin with a deep dive into his preferred shooting mechanic:

• Preparation Phase: Szoboszlai begins by altering his strides to short strides, giving him more control over the placement of his planted foot and the distance between his shooting foot and the ball. He's quite good at measuring these two things, often placing his planting leg slightly behind the ball and giving his shooting leg enough distance between the ball for the striking motion while also making sure his leg isn't too far to the point most of the energy isn't being transferred to the ball. In his last two to three steps, it appears as if he's galloping, again altering his stride, taking slightly larger strides. This allows him to complete the swing in one motion, more on this later, and also enables him to keep his momentum before the shot. Another thing Szoboszlai looks to do in this phase is re-adjust his angles prior. By the end of the movement, Szoboszlai's chest is usually lined up with the ball's flight path. With his planted foot, Szoboszlai looks to aim his toes towards the intended destination. Furthermore, there's also a slight bend of the knee, accumulating potential energy that is ready to transfer—more about this in the follow-through section.

• Backlift: One of Szoboszlai's most significant strengths regarding his ball-striking is his ability to generate power with little backlift. As he begins to plant his foot, the backlift on his shooting leg begins. Returning to his galloping-esque strides, it practically makes the backlift part of his stride, allowing for efficient energy consumption; no extra energy is exerted to lift his foot off the ground. In addition, it lets him use the ground's reaction force in his strike. Perhaps that is a reason why he can generate power with little backlift. He usually adjusts the amount of backlift on various factors: the amount of time he has to release the ball, the amount of power required, etc. More often than not, the lower part of his leg bends back slightly further than 90°.

• Downswing: Prior adjustments make the downswing a simple step. ****Szoboszlai's leg cleanly descends as it takes its path toward the ball. A tense knee, limiting any wayward movements, along with a tense ankle, aids the downswing. In this phase, his chest curls above the ball while his hips loosen up; this is all part of shifting his weight. Moreover, he begins using his arms to aid his balance while he shifts his weight.

• Follow-Through: Szoboszlai's shooting leg doesn't 'follow' completely; instead, he takes a subtle bend before landing on his shooting foot. The leap from his planted foot to his shooting foot signifies efficient inertia transfer.

Diagnosis

The issue with Szoboszlai's preferred ball-striking motion is its lack of suitability to the angles he's presented with at Liverpool. Furthermore, he also has problems surrounding his joint mobility—one of the reasons for his technical inconsistencies concerning the short pass—energy efficiency, as well as housing legs that don't have the capacity to consistently play 70/80 plus passes per game—in Insights #2 we will be touching on physical capacities.

• Joint mobility → poor range of motion. This is particularly an issue when working with bigger angles.

• Energy efficiency → leads to poor weight on passes and other issues we will discuss in upcoming Insights,

• Leg capacity → less suitable to playing deeper in the pitch. Also, a limitation to his temperament.

Limitations

Despite pre-season plans to play Szoboszlai off the left, Liverpool's inability to bring in a 6 last summer has forced Mac Allister to play deeper, consequently forcing Szoboszlai to start off the right. In turn, the Hungarian international is presented with angles that don't suit his mechanics.

To look at his suitability more in-depth, we will investigate the following in-possession phases:

• Progression

• Chance Creation

• Attacking Transitions

Progression: When Szoboszlai isn't constrained with playing within the pockets and instead afforded the freedom to shuttle vertically to aid the second phase, he is usually assigned with playing in-to-out passes to Salah or accessing players behind the opposition's second line—neither of these fit Szoboszlai's mechanics and physical capacities.

• Ask Szoboszlai to make re-adjustments to his body shape that he isn't comfortable with

• Ask Szoboszlai to consistently play passes with the inside of the foot, where he gets inconsistent ball contact with

• Ask Szoboszlai to demonstrate a high degree of joint mobility

• Energy inefficiency also a problem

Chance Creation: In the final third, due to the roles of Trent and Salah, Szoboszlai is given more suitable tasks. For starters, he is presented with suitable shooting opportunities, although Liverpool could improve the spatial-temporal elements by using more push/pull dynamics. Another thing, Szoboszlai's wider positioning, at least in comparison to most interiors, presents him with more appropriate angles.

• Hiding his joint mobility and body shape deficiencies

• Allowing for more opportunities to use preferred ball-striking motion

Attacking Transitions: One of Szoboszlai's most significant issues with the lack of variety in his ball-striking is the inability to strike the football with different parts of his foot effectively. The instep and inside of the foot are both excellent examples. Mainly an issue in attacking transitions where outlet passes to the likes of Núñez and Salah require Szoboszlai to show variety.

• Asked to use different parts of the foot to strike the ball

  • Lack of joint mobility and inconsistent ball location on strikes leads to poor use of the inside of the foot

  • An inability to 'wrap' his foot around the ball leads to poor use of instep

Before moving on to solutions, we will touch on Szoboszlai's zone of influence.

Note: We will show a small glimpse of how zone of influence can be used in scouting.

As previously defined by my good friend Kannan, we can look at how Szoboszlai's limitations affect his zone of influence. It should be noted that conclusions to Szoboszlai's zone of influence cannot be made, as we have not examined the entirety of his profile—this is part of the reason I only wanted to discuss some of his limitations.

• Szoboszlai's inability to adjust to certain angles limits his influence on the right side of the pitch.

• Szoboszlai's inability to make up ground consistently through his ball-striking, mainly due to his energy efficiency issues, tightens the radius of his influence.

• As an added extra, when looking into certain phases of the game, Szoboszlai's influence is also limited due to his limitations. For example, he cannot effectively contribute to deeper phases of build-up.

Solutions

• Szoboszlai would be better suited to playing off the left, where his range of motion limitations are hidden (to an extent).

• Szoboszlai will be more effective playing higher up the pitch, where he can use his preferred mechanics more often. Moreover, this could be further helped by Liverpool implementing more push/pull dynamics to their play in the final third.

• Some of the issues discussed today are coachable, particularly with a coach like Klopp, whose training sessions require players to develop various solutions. Szoboszlai will likely become more comfortable operating at more angles and striking the ball using different techniques.