Chiara Beccari is a 19-year-old Italian international who has recently been selected among the nominees for the 2023 Golden Girl after having participated for the first time in the Women’s FIFA World Cup with Italy. Despite getting knocked out during the group stage, her World Cup performances and team performances at Como Women enabled her to attract the attention of numerous followers of the game and win the Best U21 Player of the Season trophy at the end of the 2022/23 campaign.
Although this 2023 Golden Girl trophy is more likely going to be awarded to Barcelona’s Salma Paralluelo following her crucial contribution to Spain’s triumph in the latest World Cup and especially during the final, the fact that Beccari was selected in a list including the best U21 players on the scene is already an achievement she should be proud of and must build on to become an even more complete and impactful player for the years to come.
Beccari started her footballing career at San Marino in 2018 and moved to Juventus after one season. Nevertheless, she wasn’t able to play a lot for the Bianconere and was eventually loaned to Como at the end of that season. At Como, she’s enjoyed her best season so far and earned a ticket to participate with the Azzurre in the World Cup after being called up in March for two friendly games. Following her World Cup performances, Beccari attracted the interest of Sassuolo, who loaned the player for the 2023/24 season.
With a lot of potential and a bright future expected for the 19-year-old midfielder, this tactical analysis and scout report would aim at exploring Beccari’s main traits, strengths, and weaknesses to see why she is added to the 2023 Golden Girl final shortlist and analyse how can Sassuolo and the Italian National team benefit from her qualities. The analysis will also shed some light on Sassuolo’s attacking tactics and Beccari’s importance in their system.
Possible positions and roles that Beccari can excel at
Beccari started her career mainly as a striker, and then she was used as a second striker at times and a winger at other times. She is used to playing according to various formations, including the 4-4-2, the 4-3-3, the 4-3-1-2 and the 4-1-4-1. She has been used more as a right winger lately, especially at Como. Yet, her performances as a centre-forward remain convincing, and using her as a second striker would be an even better choice for the teams having her at their disposal.
It would be much more useful to use Beccari as a second striker, mainly because she is a dynamic attacking player who doesn’t rely on physical strength or on playing with her back against goal. Instead, she consistently relies on her excellent pace and dribbling abilities while asking for the ball in space. That’s why the team gets more than 100% of Beccari when she plays alongside the centre-forward who receives long passes, attracts the attention of defenders, and acts like a stationary striker in order to free spaces for the players coming from behind or in this case, for Beccari.
Sassuolo and their head coach, Gianpiero Piovani, have quickly understood this and are actually using Beccari mainly as a second striker alongside the veteran Daniela Sabatino, forming a powerful attacking duo that combines experience and talent.
It is also true that Beccari’s most occupied position was the right-winger one at Como since that was the team where she had the highest playing time. Nevertheless, we believe that she has to try other positions for an extended period, as being positioned as a centre-forward, a second striker, or even as a left-winger could exploit her abilities more tangibly and entirely as it would make her more dangerous.
Her quick dribbling abilities, pace and ability to control her body in a fluid and dynamic way make her a very suitable player for accelerations and penetrations from the wing, especially from the left one, since penetrations from that side allow her to have more shooting possibilities than when coming from the right-wing.
Moreover, playing as a striker or as a second striker for an extended period can make her more impactful inside the box as it would make her more used to movements in that area and therefore disturb defenders even more, using her penetrations, movements without the ball, shooting and ball protection to resist defenders’ disturbance.
The following heatmap shows that Beccari played mostly as a right-winger and has yet to develop experience inside the box as a striker, which would be very important for her development and confidence. Developing experience as a striker and knowing when and how to move with and without the ball inside the box can only be achieved after being used as a striker in a recurrent way.
That’s why Sassuolo are exploiting Beccari in the best possible way by making her play consistently inside the box alongside a player she can learn a lot from. Beccari is, therefore, expected to have a better season than the last one, knowing that the last season represents Beccari’s peak season so far.
Playmaking talent
With 72.8% passing accuracy, Beccari can be considered a player with excellent passing average for a forward. She crosses with an average of 57.1% and provides 59.4% accurate passes to the final third and 61.7% accurate passes towards the penalty box, which is a very positive average for Beccari.
Working on her accuracy and dangerous passes would make Beccari an even more valuable player, as she has what is needed to always be an impactful passer, especially from the wings and when retreating to receive the ball a little bit away from the box.
The following picture highlights Beccari’s ability to provide passes with both feet, as this assist was executed using her left foot while being directly marked in a complicated situation. Her ability to make her passing decisions quickly yet accurately while usually protecting the ball excellently makes her attacking actions often dangerous and fruitful for her team.
In addition to using her left foot in an impressive way for key passes, Beccari has already shown glimpses of intelligence and attention to detail in the non-possession phase, especially when needing to press high.
Knowing that she equals 1.97 interceptions per game, Beccari often uses her pace to intercept passes suddenly after pretending to be looking elsewhere when the player decides her pass’s destination.
Recently, she was able to provide an assist thanks to an excellent pressing effort as she anticipated the opposing goalkeeper’s pass and knew precisely when to start her run to intercept it and give her teammate a perfect opportunity to score.
Providing key passes into space, especially at the back of the defensive line, is another role that Beccari can use, primarily when the team uses another striker alongside her. This example of an assist with the U19 Azzurre highlights this ability to pass between the lines using the left foot as well while choosing the perfect timing to avoid the offside foul.
This is precisely why it is crucial to use Beccari as a second striker and exploit her passing abilities at times (when Sabatino asks for the ball and moves in space, for instance) and instruct her to go for individual penetrations with the ball at other times (especially when Sabatino attracts defenders and clears the way for Beccari to penetrate inside the box).
Goalscoring potential
With 51.1% in average shots on target, Beccari can be a more regular and clinical goalscorer, especially if she gets more playing time inside the box (as a striker or a second striker). Beccari needs to exploit her goalscoring abilities a bit further to become a more dangerous player, as she can definitely score more goals per season.
She has already been able to score different types of goals with headers, shots from distance, solo penetrations and shots, first-time touch goals, and more.
Although she has a relatively good finishing instinct, we believe that she and her head coach must develop her finishing abilities even further and rely on her finishing more by working individually on finishing and collectively on finding ways to serve Beccari in suitable goalscoring situations more often, which would guarantee more chances and eventually more goals.
This would include improving the power of her shots while keeping the same accuracy, knowing that Beccari’s shots are usually accurate but sometimes lack a bit of power to confuse goalkeepers. On a collective level, working on specific movements by Beccari and her teammates in attack and midfield can result in increasing the number of shooting opportunities per game, especially if these attacking plans are well executed during games.
The following picture highlights Beccari’s physical strength and balance while running with the ball, knowing that she started her run while being tightly disturbed by two Parma players.
She could resist this disturbance and continue her run without losing the ball or falling. Afterwards, she quickly launched a tricky shot when she reached the edge of the box, and the ball bounced in front of the goal, confused the goalkeeper and went in.
This type of goal can indeed be tiring for Beccari, yet working on repeating such actions more often would represent a solid solution whenever the team fails to find a way to score since retreating to receive the ball near the middle would confuse the opposing marking system and make them lose their references in defence.
Beccari can also be crucial with one-touch goals whenever having the possibility to do so. She showed on numerous occasions that she knows when to use specific shooting techniques, when she has to keep the ball at her feet and dribble before passing or shooting, and when she has to shoot immediately without controlling the ball.
This means that Beccari is often aware of her surroundings and usually thinks about her next move and scans the pitch before receiving the ball, which is an excellent sign, especially for a striker.
This goal action highlights Beccari’s first-touch instinct perfectly as she quickly understood that she had to shoot without hesitation after she made the right move without the ball to be faster than her direct marker on the ball.
With her reasonably fast pace, Beccari moves well without the ball and often wins the advantage over her markers, as she is always attentive when moving to receive the ball in adequate conditions.
The following example shows a crucial Beccari goal against Juventus, and it must be said that this was one of Beccari’s most beautiful goals so far.
The fact that she initiated the action so far from the box and finished it by herself inside the box makes this goal remarkable, as it highlights how dangerous and impactful she can be when running with the ball and aiming for penetrations.
This also highlights that Beccari does not lose the ball easily and has some excellent dribbling skills (59.5% average successful dribbles).
In this action, she dribbled past the first opponent she encountered and then passed the ball to Como’s striker using her left foot while continuing her run into space, aiming for a one-two combination.
When Beccari received the ball back, she got through four Juventus players while dribbling the last one and leaned towards the left side of the box. Despite being in a not-very-balanced situation, she shot the ball with a “sliding shot” and scored from a difficult angle using her left foot.
Conclusion
Chiara Beccari represents one of Italy’s most promising talents and is expected to have a bright future in football if she continues working hard to achieve her goals and improve her abilities, especially when it comes to goalscoring.
With excellent first World Cup performances, she deserved to be selected among the finalists for the 2023 Golden Girl, alongside players like Barcelona‘s Salma Paralluelo, Manchester City‘s Mary Fowler, Real Madrid‘s Linda Caicedo and more, and she has to prove that her superb run of form will not last for one season only.
She has to be consistent in terms of performance to keep being called up for the national team, and why not move to a bigger club soon, thanks to her performances?
