Marius Söderbäck is a 21-year-old utility player from Finland, currently playing for title challengers Ilves. He has played mostly as a left winger but also as an attacking midfielder and right wingback. He has 13 G/A in 2400 mins in the Veikkausliiga in the 2025 season and is a youth international from U18 to U21 for Finland.
Söderbäck is billed at 176 cm (5’9″), and has a small, pretty skinny build. That said, Söderbäck is actually very competent physically and more than holds his own in physical duels against bigger opponents. Söderbäck uses his upper body well to hold off defenders when carrying and shielding the ball, and can win a lot of fouls by positioning his body well. Söderbäck is pretty quick, but not rapid, and has a nice change of pace when carrying the ball, which allows him to be dynamic when carrying through the centre and in transitions. He is very agile on the ball, though he could do better with his balance, as he does have a tendency to fall after doing a bit too much.
Söderbäck’s technical qualities are very clear. He is trusted with taking most in-swinging set-pieces for his side and delivers extremely dangerous whipped crosses. His first touch too is very strong, being able to receive the ball comfortably and turn towards goal when needed. Söderbäck is a brilliant creative passer who weights his passes really well and can generate a lot of power on his passes with little wind-up, allowing him to disguise them quite well. He does, at times, have pretty poor risk assessment, playing risky passes in his own half and “blind” passes without assessing his surroundings well enough. One thing that really stood out was his ability to make good decisions and execute technical actions, such as passes, when under pressure, with little drop off in his ability. Unfortunately, for a wide player, he is very limited in 1v1s as a result of his one-footedness. Söderbäck only ever uses his right foot when dribbling and does not have mastery of the ball, taking heavy touches and losing possession at times. When shooting, Söderbäck often looks for the corners, which is a good trait to have, but can be inaccurate, dragging shots too far wide.
Söderbäck’s off-the-ball movement is superb. He always seems to have the ability to find space, whether that be out wide in transition, in-behind, in the pockets inside a settled block, or in a crowded penalty area. A lot of his goals this season have come from his great positioning and instincts in the box.
Marius Söderbäck is a versatile player and one who, at 21, was one of his team’s biggest performers in their title race this season. Söderbäck has some great attributes to his game, such as his creative passing, set-piece taking, off-the-ball movement, and surprising physicality, but is inhibited by his lack of tactical nous out of possession and his one-footedness. I personally believe he may be better centrally as a #10, or as a traditional winger on the right, as he rarely goes on the outside when playing on the left. With the Scandinavian leagues coming to their close season, I would not be surprised to see Söderbäck attract interest from the Allsvenskan. If he can work on some of the things currently letting his game down, I could see Söderbäck going on to play for a European challenging team in a league such as the Belgian Pro League, or potentially a Bundesliga/2. Bundesliga yo-yo team.
Target Scouting 