Erhan Mašović Scout Report
Erhan Mašović, the Serbian center back who now plies his trade for VfL Bochum in the Bundesliga, is a defensive titan as evidenced in the scout report for the 2023-2024 season. Specifically, his ball recovery is second to none, an elite trait that catapults him into the top 7% of his peers, demonstrating his uncanny ability to regain possession and neutralize opposing threats.
Nonetheless, our player stats demonstrate a room for growth. Mašović's touch percentile is startlingly low; he ranks almost at the rock bottom, in a lower two percentile. The insinuation is that he doesn't get his foot on the ball too often which, by proxy, might affect his contribution regarding goals, assists, xG, and xA. This suggests less directness in attack on his part, a notion that aligns with his lesser involvement in the attacking third, where he sees the ball a mere 10% of the time.
Regardless of this, Mašović is a bit too fond of the referee's book, ranking in the top third percentile for yellow cards received. His foul committed percentile isn't as alarming but does send out a warning at around 38%.
His style of play metrics divulge that he's heavily involved in midfield duels, earning his crust in the thick of the action rather than the final third. This tallies with his game-by-game activity distribution with him seeing the ball nearly half the time in the midfield third.
Despite his impressive ball recovery skills, Mašović's pass accuracy and progressive passing skills are surprisingly lacking. Positioned in the bottom 10%, this leaves significant room for improvement and partly explains his negligible threat on the goal. Perhaps with honed skills in these departments, this defensive behemoth could become a more holistic player, contributing not just in retrievals and duels but also in the build-up of play and attacking opportunities.
All in all, Erhan Mašović brings a distinctive, defensively-geared style of play to the field. Despite a few areas for growth, his ball recovery prowess makes him an unignorable asset to his Bundesliga side, VfL Bochum.