The traditional approach to football analysis used to be based largely on fairly simple statistics like the number of goals scored and the percentage of possession that each team had enjoyed. This has changed in recent years, as an increasing number of advanced statistics have been made available. How does this improve the fan experience, and how does it turn watching games into an interactive analytical experience?
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!The Analytical Approach Across Entertainment
Football isn’t the only area of modern entertainment where the data revolution has opened up new possibilities. Other sports have also adopted a data-first approach that lets fans instantly look up fascinating statistics that give them a deeper understanding of what is happening.
It’s not just sports, either. Fitness wearables and hi-tech fishing gear turn outdoor trips into a way of gathering lots of statistics to measure your performance. If you’re studying the details of a UK casino bonus, you can look at advanced factors such as volatility and return to player. Looking for something to watch? Metrics like audience retention curves and critic aggregator scores are available to help choose your next film or TV show.
So, what data is available to football fans?
Expected Goals and Other Key Measures
The expected goals (xG) metric is one of the most hotly debated yet potentially useful statistics now used in football. Instead of looking at long-range shots and close-range tap-ins as equals, the xG figure adds a probability value to every shot taken.
xG is based on various data points, such as the distance from the goal, the angle, the amount of defensive pressure, and whether it’s a shot or a header. This lets us see whether a team is scoring an unusually high or low percentage of their good opportunities. Over time, we might expect to see this revert to the mean.
Even more useful is the expected threat (xT) number that is assigned to players. This tells us how much a player is boosting their team’s chances with their action. This gives us a better view of how a player is contributing. While making a clever pass out of defence to break the press might not be a traditional assist, it can be a huge contributor to the team’s overall xT.
Other statistics worth understanding include passes per defensive action (PPDA). This is a metric that tells us how intensely a team presses its opponent. A low PPDA tells us that it’s an aggressive press that’s designed to win the ball back quickly in the opponent’s half. Then there’s Packing. This focuses on how many opposition players a pass goes past – basically, how many are left behind the ball. This is often used alongside, or even instead of, high pass completion percentage, as it gives more granular detail on just how useful a pass was.
How Are They Useful?
All of these are among the statistics that are becoming increasingly useful to fans who want to understand the tactics and how well they’re working. Understanding them means you can appreciate games more than ever.
You can look up the latest live stats and see from them what you think will happen next. In theory, it’s easier to understand the flow of the game and whether the current scoreline is an accurate reflection of what has happened. You can also weigh up how your team might perform in their next match by comparing their average stats to the opposition.
It’s still possible to enjoy football without advanced statistics, but for many fans it’s added a new way of analysing the action in real-time that makes games even more exciting.
