Ligue 2 Scout report: Florent Ogier
Not every player worth nothing has to be under-23 and in the Ligue 2, there is no difference about that. While the Ligue 2 is a very popular league to scout young players, a few 30+ players are doing quite well with their respective teams. One of them is Florent Ogier from Clermont Foot.
The 31-year old center back was born in Lyon and went to the Olympique Lyonnais academy when he was eight, where he remained for 10 years. After that, he went to the Grenoble Foot academy, after which he signed his first contract for AS Lyon-Duchere in 2009. He played for Dijon FCO, Besancon RC, Paris FC, Le Poire-sur-Vie VF, Bourg-en-Bresse and FC Sochaux-Montbeliard before signing for Clermont Foot in 2018.
Ogier plays as a center back in the Ligue and with his 1,82 meters, he is a force to be reckoned with in the air. He is right-footed and has played in both the Ligue 2 as the National, which is the third tier of French football.
The thing is with Ogier, is that he is not the best center back out there, but he is a very complete defender. In the radar below you can see how his qualities are divided.
Clermont Foot are doing quite well this season and as a consequence they are fifth in Ligue 2, pushing for promotion by placing themselves in a good position for the play-offs. They have 50 points, but they are only 3 points away from second place Lens., so there is still everything to play for. Becoming second will Clermont Foot be promoted directly into Ligue 1.
The French outfit have played a four-man defence all season within their 4–2–3–1 system, which has a defensive accent with their double pivot on the midfield. Ogier plays as a center back together with Hountondji, who plays on the left. Ogier has played 24 games of 28 in Ligue 2 and started all of them.
Ogier is a good player overall who is calm on and off the ball. While playing in the four-man defence, he knows when to press the strikers and when not. In order to not always be on the run in the rest-defence, his positioning is quite well and he is not afraid to go up the pitch in order to prevent danger. This also can be seen in the image below, where the positioning of Ogier in the 24 games is portrayed.
As a central defender, he often makes sure he covers the left-central defender when he is going forward or has troubles. This is what Ogier did in the last 24 games, but he also played as a full-back on the right, which gives him the opportunity to go forward.
One of his biggest strengths is his quality in the air. He has won 60% of his aerial duels in Ligue 2 with an average of 4.1 duels won per 90 minutes. This what stands out above all the other skills he possesses. Another quality he has is the number of clearances he has had. 4.4 clearances per 90 minutes and he recaptures the ball 1.5 times per 90 minutes. Obviously this are not the best numbers in the league, but he stands out with it and he kept 8 clean sheets together with his teammates.
As described above, his spatial awareness is really good and that gives him time without the ball in order to position himself well for the 1v1. He makes sure to wait a long time before trying to intercept or tackle the ball, which gives him the advantage of making it difficult for the opponent but also gives the chance to his full-back to help him on the right side of the pitch.
He doesn’t only play as a central defender, but also as a full-back on the right side. This gives him more opportunity to go forward and contribute to the attacking side of the game by Clermont Foot. The club doesn’t need the full-backs to become wing-back, but you can see how Ogier has contributed to their attacking plan. He has scored 2 goals and he gave 1 assist in those 24 games. On average this means that he scored 0,08 goals per 90 minutes and he had 0,4 shots per 90 minutes.
If we look at these specific statistics we can see that he has an average of 50,1 passes per game that reaches another player of Clermont Foot. That is 81% of all passes, which is a percentage above average if you look at the players in the same position in Ligue 2. His accuracy on own half is 90% and 63% on the opponent’s half.
What stands out as well, is his percentage of long balls that reach another player of Clermont Foot. He plays 5,6 long balls per game that are well-received, which is roughly 45%. With this statistic, he stands out in Ligue 2.
Conclusion
Florent Ogier is a 31-year-old defender in Ligue 2 who will certainly not move to a big club in his career, but that is okay. Overall he is decent, but he stands out in aerial duels and with his pass accuracy, which could see him be a potential target for promoted sides to Ligue 1 or sides avoiding relegation in France’s top tier.
