41–50 of 61 posts
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Did you do similar analysis to 2018 World Cup? Thanks for sharing your analyses of football/soccer, which is the sport that I'm passionate about.
I didn't, but the good news is that data is freely available here: https://github.com/statsbomb/open-data/ Try it!
One of those who doesnt like the use of advanced stats in football. I do watch a lot of football though. My reason is simple: The advanced stats as they are called (xG, xA, xPA, offense actions, defense actions) all end up as a mere tool for disregarding the actual result and providing arguments for which was the better team. Like team A won the match 1-0 but team B were the better team since they had more >. The ide…
Germany 2014 was about the best I've seen the game played. Something I watch that seems to differentiate players and teams at every level is what happens on the first touch when receiving a pass. When you first start watching this, you'll notice that as you move up the ranks, the ball just sticks to a pro's feet, preferably in front of them a couple feet away where they are ready to play it again. Watching Germany th…
I think it seems that way because of the 7:1 in the semi finals. But honestly, the result came to be mainly because Brazil was really playing like garbage the whole tournament and only made it that far because the referees had seriously helped them. They shouldn't even have made it out of the group stages. The remaining German matches were really close (The match agains France, mentioned below, was the real final of…
Even thought to different results, Brazil is always a force to be reckoned with.
They are the only team (I think) that has constantly reached a certain point at the World Championships.
What I observed in their game, is that they play as a team (Contrary to what my country does) and at the same time, every single one of their players is somebody to be afraid of individually.
Regarding the world championships, if you ask me it wasn't Germany that won the 2014 world cup, nor it was Spain in 2010.
It was Pep Guardiola that won both.
Ok, so something I wrote years ago hit the HN front page. This is what it feels, uh? I also have a github with more notebooks about football here: https://github.com/rjtavares/football-crunching If you gave any questions about football analytics, hit me up. (Gmail and Twitter are the same name as my HN account, if you prefer email or DM)
I understand English is unlikely to be your first language. Please read this as a genuine attempt to be helpful.
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Watch Germany vs. France and say that. The Germans stalled and fouled the whole game and scored off a set piece. In the final versus Argentina too, the game was scoreless until extra time. They also needed extra time versus Algeria. Their only real display of attacking was versus Brazil who self-destructed after having their best player (and top 3 player in the world) horrifically injured.
And yet, perhaps the most breathtaking display of football dominance I saw from that Germany team, was from their 2016 Euro semi-final against France. It was way more impressive than their brazil dismantling. Their control of the game was out of this world. Football is "unstable" as a game. To dominate in a consistent way, you actually need to be overwhelming superior to your opponent in many different stages/aspects…
Ok, so something I wrote years ago hit the HN front page. This is what it feels, uh? I also have a github with more notebooks about football here: https://github.com/rjtavares/football-crunching If you gave any questions about football analytics, hit me up. (Gmail and Twitter are the same name as my HN account, if you prefer email or DM)
Interesting article thanks. A little constructive feedback on some language in the conclusion. "Football is a game of space. That's why parking the bus can actually allow to win a match." The second sentence doesn't make sense unfortunately. Worse, it's not really possible to work out what it means either. It sounds like you mean "That's why parking the bus can be a good strategy" (or something like that). But the fi…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting article thanks. A little constructive feedback on some language in the conclusion. "Football is a game of space. That's why parking the bus can actually allow to win a match." The second sentence doesn't make sense unfortunately. Worse, it's not really possible to work out what it means either. It sounds like you mean "That's why parking the bus can be a good strategy" (or something like that). But the fi…
There's a grammatical hiccup there with the 'allow' but the meaning is quite clear for soccer-fluent readers.
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There's a grammatical hiccup there with the 'allow' but the meaning is quite clear for soccer-fluent readers.
Completely unclear to me and I've been soccer (football) fluent for over 50 years. I know what parking the bus means (for non football fans - it means falling back and defending in numbers). If football is really a game of space it should be a poor strategy. Is the author saying parking the bus is good or bad strategy?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Completely unclear to me and I've been soccer (football) fluent for over 50 years. I know what parking the bus means (for non football fans - it means falling back and defending in numbers). If football is really a game of space it should be a poor strategy. Is the author saying parking the bus is good or bad strategy?
It's a strategy that gives up possession in exchange for denying offensive space to the opponent and relies on exploiting (through counter attacks) the defensive space the attacker opens. When executed well, it can win games but it's not amenable to the type of analysis presented in this write-up. That's what the bit is about.
If anyone's interested in doing similar analysis, my company StatsBomb makes a lot of event data available on GitHub, including the last World Cup, lots of Champions League finals, NWSL and FAWSL etc: https://github.com/statsbomb/open-data/