This will be the first in a series of articles where I will be focusing on the key players of the Real Madrid Femenino setup. There will be content like this along with transfer updates and much more about the women’s team in the future.
1st July 2020 will be marked as one of the biggest days in the history of Real Madrid as CD Tacon was rebranded as Real Madrid Femenino, showing that Real Madrid as an institution want to leave an imprint in all sectors of the sporting world.
Women’s football has hit significant strides over the last few decades and major countries in the world have their own women’s football league(s). That has prompted the biggest clubs around the world to establish teams for female counterparts.
Speaking about Real Madrid, it played under the name CD Tacon, with the word ‘Tacon’ standing for ‘heel’ in Spanish. Tacon was also an abbreviation of five different words that represented the ethics of the club.
Las Blancas have reinforced the squad with as many as eight new signings to challenge for both Spanish and European supremacy within the next few seasons. The latest of those eight signings is a young and electric midfielder named Maite Oroz.
Hailing from Huarte, Navarre in the Basque region, roughly 396 km away from Madrid, Maite Oroz started playing football at the tender age of six within Huarte’s youth academy. After exuding talent and poise, she joined the youth academy of Osasuna in 2010, making her senior debut for the first team in 2013, and even scored a goal against Athletic Club Femenino just weeks before her 16th birthday, a team she would later go on to represent.
She signed for Athletic Club Femenino in 2015 and became an instant hit in the dressing room. In five seasons with the Basque club, Maite Oroz appeared 107 times in Primera Iberdrola and scored eight goals.
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Her contract with Athletic Club Femenino expired at the end of the 2019-20 season, which led her to Real Madrid.
In this column – and all the forthcoming columns on other players – I will be talking about the positions of the players, their playing styles, and what they will bring to the table.
Where does Maite Oroz play on the pitch?
Maite is a midfielder who can play at multiple positions in the middle third of the pitch.
She can play as a double pivot in 4-2-3-1 as a pure central attacking midfielder in the same formation and as a central midfielder (more like a deep-lying playmaker) in a 4-3-3.
You will usually find her more towards the right-hand side of the pitch during the match, much like Luka Modrić.
What will she bring to the table?
Creativity, flair, panache, nutmegs: all these in abundance.
Maite is a star in the making. She is not your average or typical midfielder. Heck, most wouldn’t even believe she is a central midfielder simply by looking at her skills.
Maite is a calm, yet torment-striking presence in the midfield. She is a daredevil and a technically-gifted midfielder. Do not take her short stature for granted as she is one of the most press-resistant midfielders in the world at the moment. To strip possession off her is a tough task. That extends to her making her way out of extremely tight spaces and keeping the ball at her feet.
The ball sticks to her feet like a magnet. Her first touch is brazen and she invites challenges to evade the press from opposition players. Her dribbling is beyond amazing, adding to a repertoire of skills that she has at her disposal, making her one of the best young players in the world.
If she is a footballer who enjoys grooving on the pitch with the ball, her reading of the game, vision, and passing abilities are equally wonderful. Not only can she recycle possession, play short passes, quick one-twos, or create a triangle, but she can also carve through the defense with her slick (and sick) through balls. She is a creative supernova.
Creating spaces out of nothing seems to be a force of habit for her. She is adept at dead-ball craft. Although Maite loves to pull the strings and wreak havoc in the final third, she is known to make late runs in the box to finish goalscoring chances.
Her long-range shooting is quite underrated too.
Maite didn’t score many goals during her time with Athletic Club Femenino, but she has always shown an eye for goal during her days as a youth player, scoring a lot of goals at age-group levels.
Thoughts
There are no qualms about the fact that Maite is an exceptional talent. I am new to women’s football. To be honest, I don’t even know the names of all the players in the squad. But I have seen highlights and a few of her matches on Athletic Bilbao’s YouTube channel.
She is just 22 and she can definitely improve a lot. But she is way better than most players her age. Maite is going to be a great signing for Real Madrid Femenino and will definitely help the team bridge the gap between them and the best clubs in both Spain and Europe.
I expect Maite to become a leader in midfield in the coming seasons and this season she will surely shine. In my opinion, there aren’t many players in the world who can match the profile of Maite Oroz.
I’m very excited about her first season at Real Madrid Femenino. It will be interesting to see how coach David Aznar decides to use Maite. I hope she can play as a no. 10 or at least as an advanced central midfielder in a 4-3-3.
Keep an eye on her as she has all the ingredients to become the next big thing. We at The Real Champs will be back with another column on another player soon!