SoccerBlogs

Despite what Cesar Luis Menotti may want you to believe, football is a game of offense and defense. So as a follow up to my recent post on last season's offensive performance in the big leagues, I thought it was only fair to defenders and goalkeepers to take a look at who has been doing a great job keeping the opposition at bay.

Here's a (possibly) puzzling factoid of the day. Together with Benjamin Leinwand, I've been looking at goal production in different leagues over the last 15 years, give or take. And one of the (to us, at least) interesting and puzzling patterns has to do with how many goals are scored per match in the biggest European leagues - including the Bundesliga, La Liga, Serie A, the EPL, Ligue 1, and the Eredivisie.

Here's a different way of looking at positive leverage. In the spirit of analyses that have looked at teams' ability to generate and take advantage of chances in a match, it's a way to identify teams that both generate positive leverage situations and manage to, well, leverage them for a win.
Here's what the graphs show.

Here's a different way of looking at positive leverage. In the spirit of analyses that have looked at teams' ability to generate and take advantage of chances in a match, it's a way to identify teams that both generate positive leverage situations and manage to, well, leverage them for a win.
Here's what the graphs show.

In earlier posts, I have discussed the idea of positive and negative leverage - the idea that being up or down a goal (or two or three) changes the dynamics and the psychology of a match. Statistically, I defined it as the odds of a team winning the match, given the particular score at the time and the time remaining in the match.

In earlier posts, I have discussed the idea of positive and negative leverage - the idea that being up or down a goal (or two or three) changes the dynamics and the psychology of a match. Statistically, I defined it as the odds of a team winning the match, given the particular score at the time and the time remaining in the match.

A couple of days ago, I wrote about the positive leverage teams generate when they are up by a goal or the lousy leverage they have when they are down by one. I defined the leverage that puts one team in control of the match or creates pressure on another team statistically as "the likelihood of winning, given the score and the time remaining in the game.

A couple of days ago, I wrote about the positive leverage teams generate when they are up by a goal or the lousy leverage they have when they are down by one. I defined the leverage that puts one team in control of the match or creates pressure on another team statistically as "the likelihood of winning, given the score and the time remaining in the game.

In soccer, a single goal has enormous value. In fact, we can put a number on that value. I've written about this before in posts on the most common scores in soccer or posts about the point value of goals. In a game where over 50% of matches involve fewer than 3 goals, and the most common score line is a goal difference of 1 (rather than 3 or 4), being ahead or behind is a big deal.

In soccer, a single goal has enormous value. In fact, we can put a number on that value. I've written about this before in posts on the most common scores in soccer or posts about the point value of goals. In a game where over 50% of matches involve fewer than 3 goals, and the most common score line is a goal difference of 1 (rather than 3 or 4), being ahead or behind is a big deal.

With clubs like Liverpool, Chelsea, and Aston Villa dishing out loads of cash - well, actually recycling it - to move for strikers during the most recent transfer window, I started wondering how valuable goals really are. Obviously, you need to score goals to win matches, but how many points does a first or second or third goal give you?

In case you were wondering how your favorite league compares on various metrics with the other big leagues of soccer, below is a quick graph of accuracy ratios (defined as the ratio of shots on target to all shots taken) across the Bundesliga, EPL, La Liga, and Serie A as of the end of the calendar year (roughly halfway through the season).

In earlier posts, I looked at the correlation between fouls and red and yellow cards in the Big 4 leagues as well as the distribution of yellows and reds in the 2009/10 season or the cost of receiving yellow cards, but I haven't spent much time talking about red cards in and of themselves.

Corner kicks are kind of like free kicks in the opponent's half: both are set pieces. They're also among the few moments in a match when teams have a real and predictable chance to create significant chances. So they're among the few guaranteed opportunities to score. And while I've been thinking about them for some time, I have not reported any systematic analyses of corners.

Which are the best soccer teams or leagues in the world? Of course we can see which teams win more matches, and for leagues, UEFA's league coefficient allows us to answer that question with a fair amount of precision. Less systematic but popular ways of determining league or team quality involves looking at international head-to-head competition, or evaluating which leagues attract the best players and managers.

Which teams are the worst (and best) defensive teams in the big leagues of European soccer? Let's take a look at defensive performance so far this year - since it's roughly the halfway mark everywhere, these numbers should be more or less comparable across teams and leagues (assuming that the leagues are similar in important ways, which we know to be sorta true from previous analyses I've posted here .

Here's another "end of the year" post about where we stand halfway through a very exciting season in the Big 4 leagues of international soccer (Bundesliga, EPL, La Liga, and Serie A).* Below is a set of calculations of offensive production (goals per match) at home (the first graph) and away (the second graph).

Do yellow cards help or hurt a team's chances to win a match, or do they perhaps not matter at all? The intuitive answer seems to be that they should hurt - that is, if yellow cards are an indicator of a team's inability to cope with the other side's offensive pressures. This would be consistent with the common complaints you hear from managers that teams foul more when they are on the losing end of a match (remember Arsene Wenger's complaints about Stoke and Blackburn?

Quite some time ago, a reader asked if the team that scores first wins more often. I was reminded of that question when my son asked me if he could watch the second half of the Barca-Real match the other night, with Barca leading 2-0 at the half. Frankly, I didn't know the answer, and unfortunately, the data I have collected to date does not allow me to answer that question exactly.

In an earlier post, I reported the most common scores in the English Premier League. To summarize briefly, the data showed that there are two groups of results: First, there is a group results that occur with a frequency of around 10% each (1-0, 1-1, 2-1, 2-0, 0-0), totaling fewer than 50% of matches.

Here's another quick update on where the leagues stand roughly a quarter into the season, as of Oct.18, 2010. This time, let's take a look at goal and shot ratios.

Remember that the leagues typically are very similar in goal and shot ratios, with the exception that the Premier League tends to have more accurate shooters (the rate at which shots on goal, SOG, find their target), but lower conversion rates (the rate at which shots on target, SOT's, translate into goals).

Here's a quick update on goal to shot ratios to date across the big leagues of European soccer. In an earlier post, I looked at these averages for the 2005-09 period. Across the Big 4 leagues, the goal/shot ratios were virtually identical and reminiscent of Charles Reep's ratio of 1 goal in nine shots on goal (.

This post follows up on some earlier analyses of punishment in football and Wenger's hypothesis that bad teams foul more, especially when they play good teams. Because he is the manager of Arsenal, Wenger's comments are widely reported and discussed. And mind you, Wenger is a clever man, so much so that Sam Allardyce, the manager of Blackburn, accused him of trying to influence the referees.

In a recent post, I calculated the point values of goals conceded for the 2009-10 Premier League season. Keep in mind that a clean sheet guarantees a team at least one point from a match and potentially gives it three (in case the team scores a goal). For the EPL, the data showed that clean sheets were highly valuable to a team in 2009-10, producing about 2.

Where do fouls come from? Listening to Arsene Wenger or reading analyses of the World Cup final, they reflect an inferior team's strategic decision to disrupt the play of superior teams. That may well be, but I bet that's not the end of the story. Anyone who's ever played the game knows that on some days the match just turns out to be a little nastier, tougher, more competitive than on others.

In the past few days, there's been yet another dustup between managers about intentional fouls committed against their teams, this time between Arsene Wenger and Sam Allardyce. Wenger and Allardyce are the prototypes for managers with different playing philosophies - with Wenger preferring the short passes, possession dominated game, and Allardyce favoring a more long ball oriented game (I am simplifying greatly here, I know).

It's been fun comparing various aspects of leagues. It's clear that in some fundamental ways, they're very similar (think about goal/shot ratios, for example). But in other ways, they're quite different. So, on the topic of punishment in soccer, I've been looking some more at data on red and yellow cards in the four big leagues.