Total xG Explained: The Most Misunderstood Statistic in Football | Part 1 

why you have 100subs?

The biggest problem is teams react to the real time scoreboard, and ultimately don’t care about ‘winning xG’ If a team scores a long shot early on, one that maybe only has a 0.05 chance of scoring, the scoreboard is 1-0. They don’t care about 0.05-0. The rest of the game they are likely to play defensively, leading to less chances created AND reducing the real world quality of their opponents chances. Had the long shot not gone in they would have played differently, creating more themselves and allowing more space for their opponents. Other gripe with xG - it treats all players as equal. Salah taking a shot on his left foot from the edge of the box is far more likely to score than a league average player in the same scenario. Best example of this is penalties, which are always ~0.78, yet there are some pen specialists who average well over 90%.

I feel like this video itself misunderstands the point of xG. It's not there to predict the final scoreline, we already have a statistic that predicts that perfectly, which is the final scoreline. It's simply there to give a more accurate indication of the general performance of the teams as the final scoreline rarely (or even indeed almost never - which is where the 1/6 chance comes from) represents what teams 'deserve' given the chances they get. You do have a point that it doesn't perfectly indicate the winning chances of each team, but even in this extreme example of 20 super low-scoring opportunities vs 2 high scoring ones, the result is only a couple of percentage points. And that whole calculation assumes the xG model to be accurate on every individual shot (as it is fairly sensitive to errors on the individual chance estimations), which is not really the case. XG is more a measure that accurately averages out larger amounts of chances. So it's true that it's not 100% accurate but it's an intuitive, concise and better indicator of the quality of a teams chances than the final scoreline, which in my opinion is a good reason to include it in the statistics alongside the scoreline. It's not there as a replacement to the final scoreline nor to proclaim an alternative winner, it's there to give a general indication of the amount and quality of both teams' chances in a better way than either the scoreline, possession, total shots (on/off target) or any other statistic could possibly tell you. Of course it's only a statistic calculated by inherently flawed models so we shouldn't blindly put all our faith in it, and I imagine seeing other people do this is probably where your backlash to it comes from.

Another day another banger 🔥

excellent analysis.subbed

I agree that the xG obfuscates the quality of chances, but is xG trying to give you an accurate scoreline? Or is xG a base statistic to see which team theoretically played better? I think it is fairly intuitive that higher the xG, the more goals a team would score so why does it matter that xG cannot predict the scoreline precisely? What does your stats show on xG correctly predicting the outcome of the game instead of the scoreline?

Thanks a lot. Didnt understand the equations but got the gist of it. Well presented.

Amazing video and style man! Loved it totally on such a unique topic and I request you to not change your video styles and narration voice even when you go big! (which I know you will). Keep making videos regularly, will be looking forward to the next one

I read on reddit at least 20+ reasons why its a crap statistic. Comparing xG/xA is one step away from comparing whether or not if batman or superman would win in a fight.

Hey, good video! For me personally, xG helps me to get a cryptic idea of how a game that i haven’t watched went. A few years ago you didn‘t really have access to these kind of statistics- you only had possession, shots on target etc. There were situations in which I couldn‘t explain to myself how a team lost that had 15 shots on target, scoring zero goals while the other team won, having scored twice from four shots on target. After watching the highlights I understood because the losing weren‘t able to break the opponents defense- just shooting from outside the box while the winning team stayed patient and worked the ball into the box. xG isn‘t accurate in predicting scorelines but I think it gives a pretty good overview combined with the number of shots on target. Also, there is a reason why professional scouts and Managers like Thomas Tuchel value the information xG gives. Nevertheless you made good points! I hope you gain some subscribers, you definitely deserve more.

This video is amazing

Very interesting video. Is there somewhere that records these cumulative probabilies? Would be interesting to see for other matches.

Very well presented video Aqua Melon and an interesting take. I notice you said at the end that you're still learning how to make videos. You've got your visuals down well. My constructive criticism would be to focus on your audio a bit more. It sounds like you're trying to speak quietly so you don't disturb anyone. Your pacing in how you speak is good but the level of your voice is inconsistent which is partly due to your recording and partly due to the audio editing. 2:09 for example 'the moneyballification of all modern sports began', is difficult to hear on a first listen. Whereas 6:58, the audio is much better and can hear your voice way more clearly. Can't give you specific advice on how to improve it as it depends on your recording setup and your editing software but look into it. Remember audio is 50% of your video and people are much more forgiving of poor visuals if the audio is good. Whereas if the audio is bad but the video is good, it's less paletable. Some general tips would be to listen back to your video at the end without headphones and also listen at 2x speed to make sure everything is easily understandable. And also be careful with adding background music, make sure the levels prioritise your voice. Left a like and subbed for more, just trying to help :)

Great 👍🏻 Didn't understand how the win probability was calculated though

I was watching a game and the striker had an open goal, which was apparently only .10 xG, Like what?

I say this for ages, but all these laptop managers discussing football with me, not every played a ball, are actually maths fetishists.

I feel like you can't really discuss this without mentioning variance

If you have a soft voice like yours it's best not to have your (unnecessary) music at such a high volume. It makes listening a lot more difficult...