The underlooked qualities of Herman Stengel, Strømsgodset’s main playmaker

Herman Stengel is a 28-year-old Norwegian centre midfielder. He moved to Strømsgodset IF in 2018 and this is his 7th season for the club. In the last three seasons he has been one of the most consistent players in Eliteserien and among the best playing in Norway.

Stengel is a discreet player. He doesn’t have extraordinary physical attributes or a superb technique. Actually, he has a low work rate, he rarely dribbles, shoots or is involved in many duels. You are probably wondering why he is one of the best midfielders in Eliteserien.

Herman has attributes that allow him to compensate for what he lacks. He has very good positioning and spatial awareness. He often looks at his surroundings to correct his position. That allows him to recover the ball possession (5,5 recoveries per match in 2023) and to intercept opposition passes (1,3 interceptions per match in 2023). He communicates a lot with his colleagues to correct their positioning, to tell them where to pass or to ask for the ball. His presence in the field helps the midfield to keep its tactical discipline.

Stengel is a team player thus he doesn’t tend to keep the ball too much time. As a playmaker, he prefers to play simple and deliver quickly to create unbalances in the opposition. He has good movement off the ball and usually uses this skill to provide passing lines to his teammates. Furthermore, Stengel has good passing skills, vision and good decision making, ending up choosing the best option more often than normal. Last year he did 5 assists, created 6 big chances, and made 2,4 key passes per match.

Adding to these qualities, Herman Stengel possesses good levels of concentration which help him to make less mistakes than the average. The consistency of his performance is something to behold as it seems as he doesn’t have “bad days”.

For him and his team follows the match against HamKam tomorrow.