@@ahmedgabr7416 yeah cause as everybody knows, just looking at the color pink (or any shade of it for that matter that isn't red or blue yet) will immediately make a Man so gay, he instantly wants to partake in a 50 Men Blowbang
The last few days you seem to be the only man on the Internet that actually likes football Not overly negative, not try hard "analytic", just a genuinely football supporter I respect that 💯
@@ninjalectualx because stats, although they can be an important metric, are not the end all, and tactics, although important, don't win every game. Sometimes a team with better expected goals and a much more solid defense gets beaten because the other team took two shots with an xg of .05. Would anyone say after the game that they SHOULDN'T have taken those shots? Probably not, but if we only go off of stats, the answer is "of course not, the xg is too low."
Bruno is also a great example on both sides. For the haters: Oh his pass completion is low, yeah because he is the advanced creative midfielder he is asked to do more risky passes that might create chances. For the lovers: Highest chance creation in the prem in total. Yeah because he always plays AND takes all set pieces. He is closer on the lovers side however both are good examples.
So true! Another example I saw is that for 1 season Bruno created more chances than de bruyne but it didn’t show how de bruyne still had higher expected assists and more BIG chances created, so de bruyne creates better chances
I completely agree with the main point of the video. On a side note, I do think that people are being too harsh on Rice. Everyone he passes to has their back to goal and he’s been defensively solid. The system has completely stifled him in terms of progressing the ball.
@@JoeShine95 Have they? I don't think they have. Nobody with any sense is claiming he's suddenly a shit player. But he doesn't suddenly have the touch of Zidane wearing an Arsenal shirt either. His control is bad. It was bad under Moyes, its bad under Arteta and it will be bad for England even if they sack Southgate. It's a weakness in his game. It's ALWAYS been a weakness in his game and if you watched him week in, week out for West Ham or now at Arsenal you would know this. Sometimes his physicality gets him out of trouble and he keeps it but examples of him fumbling about with the ball like Bambi on ice happen in virtually every game somebody gets close to press him just like in this clip. He is still an excellent holding midfielder. He just isn't this all-round legend some people think he is. The English media and some sections of the public have this mistaken notion that he is Lampard, Pirlo and Rodri into one. Which is hilarious. Lampard scored 20 goals a season, every season for a decade. Rice got what....6 last season? In a better team? There is nothing wrong with being what you are. He's really quite good at being an anchor. He protects the defense beautifully. He just isn't an 8. When people like Neville claim he is, they are wrong. He doesn't have the control, the passing range or the shooting technique to play that role. He scuffs half the shots he takes. And he isn't alone in that. Plenty of legends of the game couldn't shoot to save their lives either. But lets be real about what a player can and can't do.
The best way to use numbers is to cook them yourself or have written the definitions your source is using. Then you know what counts as a tackle, a dribble, a long range pass, etc. The general public usually doesn't have access to this information or doesn't care
You're right and it's something I've been thinking about for a while. People not really thinking about the stats they quote. The moment Tifo put up a video early into Unai Emery's time at Villa and seriously argued based on stats that he was doing a worse job than Steven Gerrard did was when I had enough of hearing stats without any consideration or context.
@@VillaFanDan92 the video I was thinking of is "Are Villa really as good as everyone thinks?". It's from very early in Unai's reign and focused on the XG vs XGA stats. The stats can definitely be useful but we can't ignore the eye test completely. After the Arsenal loss under Unai Villa were a completely different animal. But that didn't interest those just looking at XG numbers. That video in particular annoyed me because it was clear Villa were only getting started at the time. It was way too early to judge anything.
i think the pink lights and roses are a really nice look for you. like, no joke. you absolutely rock that setup and it would be nice to take that vibe back to your own setup
Ben Taylor of thinking basketball uses the phrase "the tyranny of the quantifiable." That phrase means that we tend undervalue what can not be quantified.
There's a reason why this was THE BEAUTIFUL GAME...don't understand how people wants to lean into numbers. Moments of brilliance is what MAKES football...football. Analytics takes all the drama, ,the romance, the emotion and the story out of sports
@@ninjalectualxof course starts dint tell the whole story, but if player A completed 25/30 passes and player B completed 13/30 passes it does give an idea that player B was less effective. That’s all. Nothing special.
@@MrIkOgNiTo He's maybe the best at his specific role (I think Rodri is certainly up there though, for controlling a game and progressing the ball) but he's certainly not a better playmaker than somebody like KDB or Trent or Messi, for instance. He's possibly the best at progressing the ball, and up there for controlling a game, but his job is not to be a playmaker.
@@eX1st4132 Kroos is definitely by far a better playmaker than Trent and maybe arguably better than Messi. Kroos range of influence is unmatched even by KDB or Rodri.
Probably the most informative Zealand video in a minute. Watch the full game, not the stats. My first question is also “who is counting these stats?” How do they determine that a player created a big chances, or a medium chance? The major clubs definitely have their own way of interpreting these stats in the most beneficial way as you stated. But that’s completely different than the stats given to the public. I’d love to meet the employee who counts duels won for matches, someone give me this job.
it is fun with stats, also Ballon d´or somewhere people forgot about actual play, now only assists and goals count.. an example i LOVE Thierry Henri, he is one of the BIG players for me, of all time, he had proper presence... but today it is like.. constant listing of Goals assists, and putting him up against the likes of NEDVED, as IT WAS A STEAL that he did not get it that year. i am an older man, so watched a lot of ball back then, NO NEDVED was not a goalscorer and assist maker, but he was KEY, he was everywhere he was a creator of goals, changes.. like my danish Eriksen that in his prime, was so important for the "creation of goal scoring" not ASSISTS.. even though he did a lot.. it is the same thing with ever key indicator done in the world, is they never tell a full picture, like also in business.
Henry just didn't do it in the Champions League like Nedved did that year. Nedved scored and assisted against Barca at the Camp Nou and scored in the return leg to put Juve into the semis. Then to do it all again against Real Madrids galacticos in the semis is basically what sealed the Ballon D'or for him. He missed the final against Milan after getting booked in the 2nd leg against Madrid. They lost on penalties after a 0-0. There is zero doubt in my mind that Juventus win that final if Nedved is on the pitch.
I also read that and I'm always thinking about that hahaha Wages can predict a league table better than, for example, transfer fees paid. Now it seems obvious, but it is a fascinating thing to think about
Baseball is a game of mostly discrete (i.e. isolated) actions. You can tally them and apply statistics. Football is a game of continuous actions with interactions between players. To model football mathematically one would have to apply fluid dynamics from physics.
As a Data Analyst with a pro club, I understand your point. Not all data is relevant, but all relevant data must be supported by evidence. The only thing is that a lot of clubs use different metrics to measure subjective takes. Eg: Dribbling - how many touches in motion equals a dribble? This isn't always consistent between clubs, but within a club is held consistently to a set standard. Generalised comments around Data are unhelpful to the game and its understanding
I judge midfielders stats by Progressive passes, dispossessions, and then heat maps. When watchin the games its mainly how involved a players is that game along with positioning on the field by player
There is a reason the best analytics teams still use scouts. No volume of statistics can entirely replace watching someone play. On a related note, why do people always latch onto the most useless stats? Anybody after ten minutes of a 0-0 game can tell you who is having the better of the ball more accurately than a possession percentage lmao.
This is so on point, it's a video that should have been made about the NBA 15 years ago. People don't watch games anymore, just short highlights and the stat sheet, and we ended up with Harden and Westbrook as MVPs.
No no no get the cat tower without a cat. And when people ask "Huh, do you have a cat?" you reply "yea, like 3 of them" and they go "well where are they?" you say "idk, they're supposedly somewhere around here"
g/a this, trophy that. Blah blah blah. Zlatan will always be my goat because of what you see on the pitch, and how he carries himself off the pitch. He thrills and entertains.
Considering I fell in love with soccer originally FOR its relative lack of stats compared to American sports (which is ironic because baseball is my number 2) I do find the stats apocalypse is taking some of the wonder out of the game at times
I agree Stats don't really tell the Story as they only tend to capture what happens when attacking with the ball. Where as I think a players off the Ball contributions are equally if not more relevant in evaluating an individuals performance. For instance I think the fact Foden kept chasing into space that Bellingham was trying to find space in was a factor into why England struggled against Slovakia. I think Trippier was playing in too advanced a position and was often seen in the attacking half as Stone was looking for an outlet meaning too often it was a pass to Walker which was predictable. There aren't stats that cleanly capture this on field activity but it is where space is made for good attacking teamplay.
People who go "someone someone is the best something something because big number" are the kind of people who will say "nukes good because unemployment goes to 0 after usage"
As someone who loves analytics they should be used to give you an idea of how someone plays and give you an idea of what they’re good and bad at, useful for building teams. But when it comes to how good a player is analytics won’t give you the full picture and only way to know is to watch the games
As a statistician, a lot of the time it’s the definitions that are cooked. Each individual action has a precise definition and as statisticians it is our role to apply and interpret the definition into the passage of play. With the Rice and Foden play, Rice makes the pass, that is clear, Foden does receive the pass, it was a poor pass but Foden by sticking his leg out and getting the first touch, has received it. Most of the time spent doing stats is debating definitions and the grey error within play, so that Rice and Foden play would have been debated by the statisticians as those with common sense would say it’s a shit pass and shouldn’t be completed, but when you look at the definition of a completed pass, you can see the pass is completed.
Stats in general are a good thing, but unfortunately not enough people have the correct level of education to accurately interpret or contextualise them.
I agree with the general points absolutely 100%. Overreliance on stats and too much focus on stats has gone too far, most measurements are irrelevant. The important stats are goals and expected goals. However, in the example shown I don't blame Rice. It's not great distribution from Rice but Foden does shit there. He comes into the centre of the pitch to recieve it when there is no advantage to be gained. He half scans before he receives it but still tries to take 2 touches and gets caught. He telegraphs what he is trying to do. It's poor. He lacks football IQ. Rice gives a reasonable ball there. He can actually bounce it back to Rice, though he is off balance. He can play the ball backwards first time. He can even hold the ball and draw a foul (though that's a challenge). What he shouldn't be doing is getting into that area of the pitch in the first place, if you are playing on the left hand side of a 3 man attack you don't need to be 4 yards away from the DM and if you do come into that space demanding the ball have something better up your sleeve than wanting to control it and knock it sideways because you're being closely marked. Usually, you can give it to Foden in any situation and he can handle it. On this occasion the defending team reads what he's doing. The main criticism I have of Foden is his football IQ. Here he shows a lack of intelligence in getting involved in the build up with no real picture in his head and messes it up when he isn't even trying something that would cause the opposition a problem anyway. So bad play by Foden in my book. Rice gave him it because he comes to receive it, I don't think he would play it that way otherwise. You can actually see at the start of the clip Rice can make a pass into Foden but he delays it. That's when Foden shows a lack of awareness and both of them conspire to lose it.
How do you feel about xG expected goals (either goals a striker should have won, or goals a goalie should have stopped?) I think they’re really useful. For example, if a goalie got relegated for a team that let in the most amount of goals in a season, it’s quite hard without stats to realise how much of that is his fault, or whether it was (a) the defence’s fault or (b) the shots he couldn’t stop were absolutely unstoppable. I find xG style stats extremely helpful. Hey, it’s working for Brighton and Brentford. Well, it *was* working, at least!
Even then it's not great. .xg rating for Australia goal was really low. Why it was a shot going no where near the goal that took a wild deflection that went into the top net. Now if that was Australia's only shot then stat's would make Martinez look like a dud. Lol dude let in a .05 xg goal so bad.
@@pato4063 of course you will get flukes that make the stats not paint the whole picture, but xG and the like are very good over a whole season. I am a Crystal Palace supporter. Watching a game you’d think that Sam Johnstone is a better goalkeeper than Dean Henderson, but when Sammy got injured towards the end of the season all my mates were all doom and gloom, some even thinking we were still going to be in a relegation battle. It was impossible to persuade them otherwise, they thought I was a fool for saying Dean was better because of stats. The first three games were worrying as it was two losses and a draw, and I was beginning to get some ribbing. But I held firm in my belief that Dean would sort it out and after that, well, just the one loss till the end of season, we beat the giants, and he got a Euros call-up and is potentially England’s second goalie if Southgate needed him (Ramsdale looked shaky in the friendly). So I think that stats for xG (both goals scored and goals saved) are very useful and paint an accurate picture of a goalkeeper’s potential of the players around him don’t let him down.
The theoretical solution to the problem of "what is a productive dribble per 90 and what is not" is ultimately weighing them to a success - either a goal or a penalty, with the most feasible way is to weight all the parts of a play to xG. Basically, you can dribble or pass all you want, but if it doesn't lead to a "success" it matters less (not zero importance of course, just a smaller weight). Obviously it highlights more issues like what counts as a "play leading to an xG," neither does it answer the question of what counts as a dribble. But at least there is a plausible framework to adjusting stats to highlight "productivity," and is not nothing.
And what about a cross that misses a guy in front of an open net by 6"? Since there was no shot that's 0 xG, but it was basically no different than creating and missing a .7 xG shot
This video has made realise, how fun it would be to do an FM save with player stats disabled, so that you have to do squad building based purely on numbers and highlights.
I don't need stats to tell me how shit Declan Rice is. I encourage anyone who disagrees to watch him, and him alone, for 15-20 minutes in the next match, or the first half of the USA match in the last World Cup. You'll see him wave his arms about and pointing, indicating for the pass to go elsewhere. If he's in space but doesn't quite fancy the ball because there isn't an immediate five yard pass available, he'll jog behind an opponent so he's no longer a passing option. I used to do exactly the same thing on a Sunday when I'd had a few too many the night before, run about and look busy, but trying to avoid getting the ball in any remotely tricky situation. Occasionally he'll make a good interception and the pundits go crazy, ignoring the complete lack of involvement and stifling of build up play in the preceding 10 minutes.
Sorry, but that's an incomplete pass and should be reflected as one in the statistics - it's the closest you can get to the NFL bad pass dropped by the WR P.S. the worst stat is accumulated xG as this supposedly shows the expected result of a match while in reallity you cannot accumulate missed chances
id love to see a football version of baseballs WAR stat or basketball VORP (value over replacement player its literally the same thing as WAR with a different name). id assume someones made a sort primitive version of the stat thats like eh but a genuine one would be cool
When perusing wyscout for interesting players in smaller leagues we typically look for a combination of baseline stats to give a shortlist. Then you can watch their 20 progressive passes of the past few games at 2x speed and see what sort of things they are doing for example. Usually find theres a couple in there aren't registered correctly anyway. Even for very simple stats like a player scoring a lot theres different ways they are doing it that might make you think they can step up. For example Promise David was having an amazing year for Nõmme Kalju in Estonia but it was more the intelligence of the movement, instinctive finishing with both feet and aerial presence that makes him more interesting. He just joined Union Saint-Gilloise.
The Declan Rice pass should not be considered a completed pass tho, even by current stats standards. A completed pass is defined by one that the next player is capable of actually keep possession of the ball, even if for just one second.
In football a couple of stats are needed to create an at least somewhat full picture. For passing for example the success rate alone is completely useless since a 3 Meter side pass is statistically of the same value as a 40 Meter diagonal pass which opened the game. Passing percentage, key passes per 90, progressive passes success rate, chance creating passes per 90, range of influence and packing rate need to correlate because every stat alone is somewhat useless. Btw Toni Kroos is a the best passer in the game!
The big issue is that statistics are used to show things. In football, a pea roller that the goalkeeper easily picks up is a better shot than a stunner that hits the post according to stats. Everything isn't well defined. Even just watching a match, what is the difference between a shot and a pass if its in the same direction. XG is poor because you can be a split second from a massive chance and get no xG for it.
I agree that often stats can be misleading. It doesn't make them not important as most top teams now have analysts that actually use the stats to advise coaches and managers. However the commentators are not qualified so aren't able to use stats as well.
I agree with all of this (football stats being misleading, difficult to track and interpret correctly etc.), but I gotta ask: where did the guy who made the tweet about this specific play got that stat from? Sounds like he's guessing, honestly. That'd be very stupid if it's really a dispossession and not an incomplete pass. The play is very similar to a "bad pass turnover" in basketball. Rice had the ball under control (poor control, but still) and made a terrible pass. Foden never had possession of the ball to have been dispossessed of it. Does anyone know if that's really how this play was recorded into the stat sheet??
