Sven Botman-Scouting Report

Player Profile:

Name: Sven Botman

Age: 20

Nationality: Dutch

Club: Ajax (Heerenveen loan)

Position: Centre back

Introduction:

Sven Botman is a 20 year old central defender who has just completed his first season of first team football ,due to the Eredivisie being cancelled, playing for Heerenveen on loan from his Ajax. He has featured in every single game for Heerenveen this season and his good form throughout has earned him contract extension back at his parent club Ajax. Botman has operated as a left centre back this season and has showed his potential at different points of the campaign. Unfortunately, I’m restricted to the amount Heerenveen matches I have access to and only have one match to my disposal and that fixture is one where Sven Botman’s side take on Ajax. When this match was played Sven was only 19, this was a big chance for him to show Ajax the player he can become.

Sven Botman is number 18 on these videos.

On the ball:

Passing

Sven Botman was composed on the ball throughout the game and was comfortable playing the ball with both his right and left foot. His preferred foot is his left one and with this he offers different passing angles to what a right footer at left centre back would. Botman showed confidence when playing the ball forwards and the majority of the time he did look to progress the ball, but when the option to play forward weren’t there, he was more than capable of playing a switch to his centre back partner or when under pressure played it back to his goalkeeper. When the keeper does have the ball, Botman positions himself wide of the goalkeeper which drags out the striker which then makes the central midfielder free to receive the ball. Another thing which impressed me about him was his ability to open himself up on the ball especially when under pressure using his surprising impressive agility to take a touch to then open up better passing options.

Data wise, Botman shows up with excellent numbers playing 3.8 long balls p90, 4.35 accurate passes into the final third p90 and has an overall pass accuracy of 82.9%

Progressive dribbling

We had to wait until the latter stages of the evening for when Botman starting displaying his ability to carry the ball into more advanced areas off the pitch, breaking the first line of pressure. From the 80th minute till the full time whistle Botman completed three progressive runs from defence finishing off with a nice pass at the end (in particular on the first clip). I would have liked to see Botman attempt to carry the ball further up the pitch and be more aggressive with his carries throughout the whole game not just the last ten minutes. Botman’s ability on the ball is one of biggest strengths and will help him develop into the so called modern ball-playing defender.

Defending:

Ajax ended up winning this game 4–1, therefore Heerenveen were under the cosh for the majority of the game. They were forced to deploy quite a low block with Botman playing left centre back.

Duels

When watching him defensively the first thing that strikes you is his size and frame. He stands at 6ft 3 and is quite stocky. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see Botman use his strength as much as I would have liked but I have no doubt that he is a physical centre back as he wins 71% of his total duels p90. He also didn’t contest in any aerial duels against another player, the two headers he won were both free headers, but again I have no worry to whether he is comfortable in the air as just by looking at his frame and the data which shows him to win 73% aerial duels p90 he is more than confident heading a ball.

1v1 Defending

Botman’s way of defending 1v1 was impressive. This is shown more on the second clip below where Botman is actually tasked with a 2v1, in this situation Botman doesn’t commit to the man with the ball but instead he forces him to make the first move, this ends with the player on the ball slipping and playing a bad ball out wide which allows the Heerenveen defence to reorganise themselves. This is a very mature way of defending for a then 19 year old.

On the first clip despite not winning the ball, he shows the same style of defending against a very good player in Hakim Ziyech and if he did commit in that situation, due to calibre of player Ziyech is he probably could’ve used his great footwork to get round him or even give win a penalty.

Sven Botman also showed his intelligence at times to read play and win the ball back in all areas off the pitch. On the first clip below he does particularly well to position himself to be able to cut off any options for the crosser and is able to intercept play. The last clip shows his quick thinking as as soon as his man gets the ball, Sven is straight away pressures behind and forces him to play it back where it came from. Botman has managed a decent amount of interceptions in the Eredivise at 1.5 p90 and also a good number of tackles at 1.8p90

Positioning in the box

Something which did confuse about Botman’s game is that when Ajax had a free-kick or a corner (which they had in abundance) Botman would seem to lose his man or not be in the areas which a 6ft3 centre back should be when defending set-pieces. You could argue that this was the case for one of Ajax’s goals where the corner is cleared back to the man that took it to the put back in the box, but then Botman slowly drifts towards the edge of the box where the ball will definitely not be heading when in reality a player of his size should be on the penalty spot making himself a presence. I’m not saying that the goal is his fault, I’m just saying I would have rather have seen a player of his stature be involved in defending his goal on set-pieces more.

Conclusion:

I know that this is only one game that I have looked at and I didn’t get the opportunity to see some parts of Botman’s game tested but he showed up to well on the data for me to ignore so I thought I’d start my series of scouting reports of with him. I would 100% want watch him play again and I have no doubt we will get to next season but instead he’ll be lining up in Ajax’s colours.

Of course Botman has a long way to go but getting a full season at top flight football under his belt at the age of 19 and 20 is a great start. Next season I imagine he will feature for Ajax and possibly make himself a starting centre back and could if given the chance could even get himself some Champions League minutes (whatever happens with the competition next term). In my opinion Sven Botman will end up playing for a side in the big five leagues as his ball-playing abilities won’t go un-noticed by the big boys. Obviously there are still aspects of his game which can be worked on (positioning on set pieces etc) and ones which as said before I weren’t able to get a full idea of but just from watching this match and looking at his data, Sven Botman has a very high ceiling.