The arrival of Japanese international Yui Hasegawa will have an impact that will certainly be felt on and off the pitch. She is the first asian to play for the rossonere, taking the AC Milan brand, and the Women’s team, to another stage on marketing level, reaching further across the globe. Also, she is a regular on the Japanese national team and her former club is on the most successful there, so she is a talented well-recognized player with many fans, which positively impacts not only on social media but also in the team’s audience as well. Last, but not least, she has the player profile that Milan searched this calciomercato, as an international player with history, titles and a winning mentality, a powerful combination of youth and experience which confirms that the mission to make AC Milan Women’s team a powerhouse in Serie A and Europe is a go.
Now, her impact on the field is something that leaves to wonder. Unfortunately, there is no much data about her around, but our analyst Selim Ben Hmida did a fantastic job and provided to all rossoneri fans a must-read content on our new #4. So, with that in mind, lets try to understand how and where she could play on Ganz’s team.
The current formation
Giving the recent performances and the results so far, it seems unlikely that Milan will have a formation change any time soon, so, let’s assume the diavolesse will stick to the current 3-5-2 formation. As we’ve seen and read, Hasegawa is a versatile option who can play as left midfielder as she did at her former club Nippon TV Tokyo Verdy Beleza or a left winger as she did at the 2019 World Cup for the Japanese national team. She is not a strong player, but a fast and intelligent one who knows how to use it in her favor, finding herself often well positioned on the field.
Left midfielder and the fierce competition
In the current team, that set of skills grant her two possible spots to be deployed. She might be the left midfielder, replacing Grimshaw and playing alongside Jane and Veró, two pillars of this team with an impressive work rate both offensively and defensively. As we saw, she knows how to take advantage of her intelligence and speed, making great runs and often finding herself on one-on-one with the adversary goalkeeper.
Although, it’s not a secret that this particularly sector of the team is packed and she would face a lot of competition as Julia Simic, Dominika Conc, Caroline Rask and Claudia Mauri have all shown to have what it takes be a starter.
Playing on the left-wing
Thus, the second option seems to be a little more interesting to her, although she has never played in this position before. It’s public knowledge that Linda Tucceri-Cimini has been a fundamental asset to this Milan since, well, ever. The left-footed wonder is one of the untouchables of this team as a left full-back or, currently, a left winger. However, Milan has no backup for her since she is the only natural left full-back on the entire roster. That way, if Hasegawa manages to quickly adapt to the left winger role on the 3-5-2 formation, she can have much more chances and minutes to play, giving Tucceri-Cimini some well-deserved rest being substituted or on occasional matches against minor clubs.
Whatever the future holds
Again, it's not certain that in the future, head coach Maurizio Ganz will not switch the Milan Women's team formation again, given the amount of impressive players he has at his disposal and, whether that happens, going back to the 4-3-1-2 of the start of this season or even the 4-3-3 he used last season would be a perfect match to the qualities Hasegawa has shown in the game so far.
