Player Report- Sebastian Szymanski:
Sebastian Szymanski is a 21 year old left footed Polish midfielder/winger currently playing from Dynamo Moscow(joining them from Legia Warsaw in 2019). He has won 10 caps for the Polish National team and is valued by Transfermarkt at 7.20m.
In this article,I will be talking about his playstyle while also focusing on his strengths and weaknesses. I have watched 475 minutes of Szymanski to provide you all with a good report,byt before starting to talk about his style,I would like to mention that he is playing for a Dynamo side which has struggled a bit this season. At the time of writing he has 1 goal and 5 assists for Dynamo Moscow in the league this season.
Playstyle and Strengths-:
In the matches that I watched of Szymanski, I saw him play as a right winger in a 433, as a right sided central midfielder in a 433/352 and as a central attacking midfielder in a 4231. The first thing which I noticed about Szymanski was how he makes runs into spaces vacated by the opposition. An example can be seen below-
Many times the runs of Szymanski are not identified by his teammates due to them not being able to notice his run or they just don’t have the technical ability to find him,he will benefit more from these runs when he plays for a better club as he would be surrounded by much better players there.
His positioning in the half space and then receiving the ball there with a turn and finding a teammate with a through ball is another ability of his which I admire. But, I have one big complaint against him and that is that he just dosen’t scan enough or dosen’t scan at the right time,most of the times his scanning lets him down at times. The main reason why I want Szymanski to scan more is because it would allow him to use his ability to play through balls and play long pinpoint passes to the fullest(as you can see below).
If he starts to scan more,it would automatically lead to him creating more chances which would assist both him and his team. His understanding with his right back regardless of his position on paper is another important characteristic of his playstyle,he always try to assist his right back when they build up through him(the rb) by moving to the right half space,which helps in creating a 2vs1 situation if Szymanski’s marker dosen’t follow him and if the marker follows him,gaps are left behind for the centre back to exploit by moving forward. Another quality of Szymanski is to change the direction of the Dynamo attack by playing a crossover ball from the right to the left side,this helps Dynamo as it breaks up the defensive shape of the opposition. His excellent first touch allows him to get past his marker at times whereas also assisting in him situations when surrounded by 2-3 players. I only saw him play as a winger for 65 minutes approximately but one thing about him which impressed me in those 65 minutes was his ability to always track back the opposition fullback when the fb attacked,for me this is a really important trait in a modern winger,as it doesn’t alllow the opposition to create numerical overloads using the full backs and the wingers.
A skill which he uses to evade a sliding tackle which impressed me was how when he was going to get tackled he would bounce the ball a bit using both his feet with his first or second touch,which breaks the balance of the opponent and also stops any chance of him recovering which allows Szymanski to progress the ball with a dribble or a pass. When receiving the ball with his back to the goal,he dosen’t play the ball backwards as it could break the flow of the attack,he tries to turn as soon as he receives the ball and then he tries to either progress the ball quickly or tries to use his dribbling skills to get out of the situation or win a foul. His positioning between the lines is excellent too,he tries to recieve the ball a bit closer to the opposition defensive midfielder or centre back trying to force them out of position which would lead to gaps being left which Dynamo could exploit. One last thing which I would say in favour of him is that he is a constant threat from set pieces.
Weaknesses-:
His weakness of not scanning enough was already mentioned by me before and I think that this is the biggest weakness in Szymanski’s game as it leads to him losing the ball many times while also making poor decisions at times in the final third due to this. Another weakness of his is how easily he goes down,he goes down at the slightest of touches and for someother guys this wouldn’t be a big deal but I don’t like this in a player. Although his positioning when Dynamo attack is excellent,his positioning when Dynamo defends is really bad,most of the teams he isn’t aware of his surroundings and ends up losing his marker at times(he is a bit prone to conceding blindside runs too). He also gets frustrated too much after losing a 1vs1 defensive duel,he would just go and recklessly foul the opponent from behind after losing a duel,he needs to control this as it could lead to him missing big games due to suspension in the future. I think so you can’t succeed in football if you don’t take risks,and Szymanski needs to understand that because at times he plays too safe,in place of trying a cross,through ball or a diagonal ball,he would just play a simple pass,he needs to play with a bit more confidence which he will automatically develop when he plays more games. Another thing which has risen very much in the last ten years on a global scale is pressing and Szymanski needs to improve this aspect of his game too,he is too rush with his pressing,his timing isn’t right when pressing(this could also be a sign of him not being well coached in pressing). Szymanski needs to be involved more inside the opposition box too,in the games that I saw of him,he would reach the edge of the penalty area and stop there most of the times,he needs to start making late runs inside the box for the better performance of himself and his team. One thing which really angered me about him was that sometimes I noticed him jogging back in place of running back after Dynamo had lost the ball in the attacking transition,and the main problem was that two times due to this the opposition scored,so I hope he improves this.
I don’t know whether the thing which I will say now can be classified as a weakness or not but opposition teams use Szymanski’s short height to create chances using goal kicks and free kicks by beating him aerially,plz forgive me if this cannot be classified as a mistake.
Note: I wasn’t able to use stats as I don’t have detailed stats available for the Russian Premier Division.
Conclusion-
Szymanski surely has the potential to be a star in the future but as of now he needs to develop a bit more and I think so he should either stay at Dynamo for a couple of seasons or move to Eredivise for a couple of seasons before making a move to one of the top 5 leagues in Europe.
Hope you all liked the report.
