I remember Sócrates, captain of the Brazilian team at the World Cup 1982, he had his last job working for a Brazilian TV channel. One commentator talked about how many kilometers a player had covered and other statistics. So Sócrates said: "the one who has to run is the ball. Otherwise we would leave the ball standing still and put a player to run around it". He always had a funny counterpoint to the other guy who was a spreadsheet head. XD He died on a Sunday morning. On the afternoon of the same day, Corinthians, his team at heart, won the national championship.
@Djorn Barrett this is one of the reasons why I dislike Xavi. For as much of an all-time great as he was, he is extremely critical and intolerant of any other style of playing than the one he lives and breathes.
One of my favourite players of all time. Majestic and so smart with the ball. Never looked like anything was difficult for him. It's a crying shame that that early to mid 80s Brazilian squad didn't win the World Cup.
This is a world class analysis of where people measure the game wrong. Excellent content. Needs more people to watch and embrace what you guys put together.
Its literally not the measurements that are wrong. Numbers are almost never wrong. The conclusions drawn from it are wrong. These are the absolute basics.
@@colouredIncognito football itself is a very simple game...but all these stats are interpreted incorrectly by a lot of numbnuts which is what this video was trying to dispel...
I think it's only a mistake if you're forced to tackle, someone like Wan Bissaka purposely forces players into a position where he can tackle them, that quote has never set right with me.
@@pphyjynx8217 that's his style and giving that he is a fall back where you are told to show your man the line. his tactic is reasonable. Cbs and Dms should have mist tackles as they are always covering the ass of someone. Unless you are Maldini or the flying Dutch man.
Maldini played under sacchi and cappello who both played oragized defence and seeking natural talent of attackers when going forward which is way different of what we see now where teams mostly depend on talented defender who can cover lot of spaces back cuz full backs love going forward or invert into midfield so basicly teams now defend with cb’s who are mostly let alone or alnogside dm when opponent counter attack so insted of man marking they are forced to clutch tackle opponent. Both Sacchi and Capello mostly play 442 with where sacchi play offside trap so he outsmart and outmove opponent insted of beat him with def. or phys. ability and under capello they defend as back of 6-8 players so opponent is just outnumbered and is rly hard to walk into good shooting areas cuz u always have at least two player trying to stop you and u are forced to look for shoots outisde penality areas where defender does need to block it is enough to interupt shoot or try to cross to cuz there will always be big man adventige. Later he player with players like gattuso and ambrosini who would go to tackle or duel opposite attackers so full becks and cb’s can set man marking defence. You can see from where this quote came.Back in the time teams would have rly organized defence and would not look for overlaping attacks cuz they highly depend on natural quality of midfilders and attackers so you have compact 4 at the back who does not have any or have low attacking dutys with midfield without dm’s. All midfields have duty to act as box to box midfields(davids,roy keane,anchelotti,seedorf,ambrosini,dechamps,cocu,butt,redondo and sammer,matthaus,rijkaard,desailly when they played in midfield) with only one or two have fully creative midfielders (zidane,maradona,beckham,laudrup,savićević,nedved...) and attack consisted of target man (inazghi,shearer,van basten,cole,batistuta,papen,ronaldo,zamorano...) who pick the balls from creative midfield and other striker who was highly gifted player (baggio,laudrup,stoichkov,del piero,totti,gulitt,rivaldo...).That was how most teams would line up and play excluding teams like cruijffs barca,LvG Ajax, Cappellos Roma, Germany and Brazil national team
I dunno they're not that bad at this, I've been watching them every day for about three years now and most of these they don't make mistakes with. Definitely the goalkeeper one, but not the minutes played and can't remember the last time they used chances missed or distance covered.
Tim Memmo Well, maybe not that often on Sunday Vibes or Continental Club. But on Winners and Loser or Euro Round-up they often use stats like possession, pass completion or shots on target as a measure for a team‘s performance.
Henry Friedman not necessarily, you just have to use the correct stats. You need a healthy mixture of player analysis through the eyes and through the numbers.
@@mrwoot08 For me, stats just tell you more about a playstyle. How they play and you need mixture of stats to know the quality. Still, its best used to see their playstyle. You still need to see they play though.
Not necessarily. Can't watch all the games by all the players. Plus, sometimes players who are not flashy may be overlooked unless looking at stats. Kante was a good example back in the day.
@@Jonifico That's why Football club have scouts. Its different experience in the stadium. For TV, they follow the ball.. for us fans, maybe just watch our own local team. Whichever is closest. For scouting, Liverpool relied on stats but they also spend time to actually watch them play. Need mix of different stats and watching them play. You can't see how they communicate, how they moved, their off the ball movement, their positioning with stats. And I don't think Kante is all about stats. Scouts must have seen him first place. A DM wouldn't be overshadowed unless its from the TV perspective (But still, he's a DM.. he is always in the action.) Not youtube though. Its bad to scout players.
Not a poor defender but just not this all time great that he’s made out to be. The art of defending is dead in modern football so when someone like him comes around he looks infinitely better than he is
@@BigPurp9 Exactly, people say ''he doesnt need to tackle thats why hes so good'' no most of that is why Liverpool is so good. The fact is he plays in such a dominant side that he doesn't need to be tested, its not like hes consistently being tested and proving that he can win battles its just that hes literally not being tested he goes on four-five league game streaks without having to make a tackle its insane. Obviously a great CB but not as good as people make out, i'll take a Koulibaly over him personally
@manny I heard something, I don't know if its true but apparently that season he was dribbled past once in the league but all statistic websites showed it as 0 because it would have been like 0.02. I don't know if its true or not but thats what I heard
The stat that annoys me most is the “winning percentage with and without said player in the starting 11”. There’s so many other variables than just one player being in the squad: quality of opposition in games he played and games he didn’t play, form etc. Also if the starting 11s for the two groups aren’t the same with the exception of the player for the “without XI” i.e. it renders the stat even more pointless EDIT: you covered this yessssss
The Spurs stat for win % with or without Kane is a prime example of this. People begin to think he's not an important player and Spurs should get rid of him, which considering hes been their best player for most of this decade, is nonsense
Matthew Champion many spurs fan blame him for losing the ucl final last season but what they don’t know is that Poch played an not so fit kane in the final. Poch should have played Moura instead, as he was on great form.
@@powerman6952 He gets shit for no reason, if you go and watch the game again, it's clear to see he was your best player. Kane is a scapegoat for no reason. Spurs were absolutely terrible, none of the players showed up, an unfit Kane tried his best and still managed to be your best player, setting up Son, who got bodied by Van Dijk before he got his shot away. Kane was not bad, that is a ridiculous myth
@@whiplash7400 wrong, VVD and matip had a field day because Kane was unfit, he ruined the fluidity of the attack, spurs created chances and had shots but no penetration, an in form moura would have caused more problems
Never use this so just a random thought but has this figure ever been right for at least 90% of games? Is it just as bad as counting the 'goal assist' league as important?
Chips1889 it’s not a metric that is used to predict the outcome of games. It’s a metric used to indicate how players/teams will continue to perform in the future. As football is such a low scoring game, xG cannot match the score line as a lot of the final result is based off luck (e.g. one team dominates but can’t score, the other team get one chance and score) Yes the bad team won, but the point xG makes is it’s not a sustainable win
@@harryharvey9138 So what you are saying is that it's not much use then. A bit like we all cheer for a corner but less than 1 in 20 produce a goal. Fooled again?
Point 6.5: This is the biggest sin of Football Daily. Teams or players are expected to underperform after overperforming and vice versa. The chance of getting a tail on a coin toss is still 50%, after getting 10 in a row. You could argue a player will likely perform at their EG for the rest of the season, but don't expect them to perform under EG so that they get same EG at the end. Saying that a season is a small sample size is actually very, very true. I always get the impression from FD that they expect a team to just collapse after a good start or that a team's early bad luck will mean every other team will get the bad luck eventually. Point 4 is especially key; I have argued with many people on why number of tackles and interception is not a key indicator of defense; it is equivalent of blocks and steals in basketball. The Maldini statement about tackling is cliche at this point, but at its heart is correct; you only tackle in defense when you have to. Teams only dribble at you if there is a weak link, if you fill the space out they aren't going to go through you. Is like how people were going how Jorginho is doing a lot of tackle, or how Vertonghen is averaging a lot more tackles this year despite clearly physically declining as a sign that they are passable/still good at defending. Whereas Scott McTominay is averaging quite few for a midfielder. Players think they can attack through a slow defender, whereas teams will rather go wide than try and go through a physically able defender. Point 10 is still fundamentally unfair despite the adjustment. A player who frequently comes on at the 70th minute for a side behind will create crap tons of chances compared to someone who plays full 90. This adjustment is better than average alone obviously, but is still flawed. This comes to Point 10.5, you cannot extrapolate a per 90 data when a player often comes off the bench, it is unrealistic to think they are necessarily going to have the same rate when they play a full game more often. Football Analysis is under going the issue of basketball in the early 2000s. People are taking stats more seriously, but a lot of people are not contextualizing or understanding the stats properly. And also, damn Foster is carrying Watford there.
Eddie Chan I think the biggest problem with xG is that it considers all players to be equal. For example, Lewandowski will always score more goals than say Barnes( no offence) for the same xG, cause he is objectively a better striker. Saying that this means he is over performing and will come down, is extremely reductionist, and doesn’t work.
The coin flipping thing is false. There's a 1/2048 chance you'll flip a coin onto the same side 11 times (or a.048% chance). In other words, you have a 99% chance of a getting heads after getting tails ten times in a row.
@@itsmadcalm no, you have that percentage before starting the first coin toss, once you've done it the percentage starts changing, so if you manage to do it 10 times in a row, you'll have a 50/50 chance of doing it an 11th time
The goalkeeper stat is bang on! David De Gea had rave reviews a few seasons back for making 15 saves against Arsenal...a few of the 'saves' was him literally bending down to pick the ball up
Summary 00:30 (1) using save percentage to evaluate a GK shot-stopping ability. Use Goals Prevented instead 01:57 (2) conflating distance or sprint stats with effort 03:36 (3) using possession as an indicator of quality. Use expected goals instead. 04:41 (4) judging a player' defensive ability by the number of tackles and interceptions they make 05:18 (5) using tackle win-rate to judge a player' tackling ability Use true tackle win rate instead. Formula: total tackles/(total tackles+challenges lost+fouls when attempting a tackle) 06:34 (6) using goals minus expected goals as an indicator of finishing ability in small samples 07:39 (7) judge a team' performance with or without a fiven player 08:31 (8) judging a player' pass ability on his passing accuracy. Use expected pass completion rate instead. 09:14 (9) judging players who fail a lot 09:39 (10) comparing players who have played different numbers of minutes. Dividing the stats by minutes/90 instead.
No. xG is not an indicator of quality of performance, but of "quality" of position when a shot is taken by the "average player". Position is not a shot, a shot is not a goal, and goals win games. Why this is so difficult for people to understand astounds me.
Andrew Cole at ManU was an example of a player of how many shots he took to score, yet he was a prolific scorer for United, although not as many goals per game as say Van Nistelrooy
they only criticize him cuz his hair, but he's the best player and one of the most hardworking players on the pitch He defends at the back, make 40-yard passes and gets into the box yet fans still criticize him It's not surprising that he became discouraged at the past months
What? Guys have talent no doubt, but his decision making, and attitude when he lose the ball is what grind the fans gear, you look the 90 minutes he played when he played the ball too long or give away the ball due to want make some risky and spectacular long pass right? Or just some utube highlight?
He gives the ball away an abysmal amount for a "world-class" player. He frequently goes missing in big games an' all. He's talented, no doubt, but that Fernandes has made a bigger impact in just 5 games - mostly because of his attitude and application - than Pogba has 3.5 seasons tells you everything you need to know about why us United fans aren't too fond of him.
David Foster inconsistent? when I watch him play he always creates chances every game and Ole always plays him deep. What do you want him to do? He can’t score, defend, create all at the same time. It’s like you people forget what he has done. Remember Ole’s winning streak when he was caretaker Pogba was creating all the time. Last season he was in the PFA team of the year an inconsistent player is not usually there. If you watch Messi? A lot of the times he loses possession constantly I remember one game he lost the ball like 20 times and rarely tracked back to get it but Barca fans never criticize him. A lot of the players don’t make runs, so how is Pogba supposed to play with a bit more urgency. Did you see France at the World Cup? Always making runs, Pogba was always supplying them with chances. Same thing is happening with Bruno most of his assists have been through set pieces because no one is making runs so as to make it easier for him to create chances in open play.
Great video. The same thing is happening in basketball. At 7:40 they are mentioning player's plus-minus(+/-), its good to know that +/- stat doesn't apply to football.
The biggest stat misuse I see is using Assists to determine how impactful a player is on their teams attack. You'll often hear pundits saying player X hasn't gotten enough assists for thier position or how much they should be contributing, but the whether or not something is an assist entirely depends on player Y not player X. A better statistic to use in these discussions would be key passes or chance creation. Because if player X is regularly putting player Y in to 1 on 1 situations but player Y never finishes, why should that mean player X hasn't contributed?
agreed, everyone was slating Jorginho because he didn't register a single assist in the league under Sarri, but if you look at the chances he created, you'd see that the finishing of them were poor, Giroud's comes to mind first
The worst thing about tifo football videos is that they end . Great work mates i love your contents Next time provide micheal ballack tactical profile video. Thanks
Guaita is such an underrated goalkeeper. Top 3 in pl this season easily. Basically carried palace to 12th with the quality of saves he’s been making this year. He wouldnt get in but should the euros have been this year he should go over de gea and kepa. I can’t speak about any other goalkeepers cuz I haven’t wat he’s them but he’s still been so good this season
Sky will start shitting their selves if/when the athletic start making in depth documentaries. There’s only so much ‘Carra and Neville watch ‘ or shows to that ilk people can tolerate. The athletic will do great in depth videos about all sorts. Note I do not work or have an endorsement from the athletic
I hate football daily. Football hipsters who will claim some Belgium second division player from 1973 is the best footballer ever because he has some obscure stat with a 100% reading.
By the same reasons of number 1, I've always tought the stats of "shots / shots on target" don't say anything. It miss the clear point that a shot "off target" that misses the goal by a inch may be far better than a shot "on target" that reaches the arms of the goalkeeper in the center of the goal.
Ninja Quant More likely than not the goalkeeper will hold on to the ball. A low shot to the corner of the goal is the best to aim for but you may miss it, like Messi in the World Cup Final. Better than him aiming it directly at Neuer.
He seemed to be talking about on-target shots vs off-target shots. Would you say a penalty that sends the keeper the wrong way but barely misses the goal a better penalty than one that goes in because of a goalkeeper error?
@@Reckoner12 I don't think you see the point of my argument. The thing is not that all shots being on target are unusefull, like your exemple of a penalty shot illustrates very well. The point is that the generic stats that groups all the game shots as on/off target don't say much about the game. Let's say, for example, in 90 minutes team A near misses the post in all of its 10 shots, and team B shots two times slowly in the arms of the goalkeeper, no danger at all. Team A, with less shots on target, had much more goal chances than team B. Therefore, goalchances is a much better indicator, regardless if the shot was on or off target.
david de gea too. he was great with 10 men in front of him and possesion based football but in recent years he has struggled in more attacking systems, he is exposed 1 on 1 more.
@@Writeous0ne Thank you At least someone who sees football as I do The same can be said about oblak Put him in an attacking team save number would drop
@@lukadanieljr7082 Oblak is a great shot-stopper in my opinion and when my team played against Atletico I dreaded facing him. He is a wall behind a wall. If you take the defensive style of the team in front of him, he is still terrific, but it would be much easier to score goals against him. This reminds me of my team (Sporting Clube de Portugal). We had a great goalkeeper (Rui Patrício) that had the worst team in front of him. He was great but conceded so many goals. Then, with changes in the entire structure of the club (new president, new coach, new players), but, since the team defended a lot better, he stopped conceding as many goals (went from conceding 55 goals a season to conceding 1.3 goals per game to 0.7 per game in the next season). In the following seasons, even playing more games, playing against better teams, the worst goal per game average he had was 1.0. It might not seem like a huge improvement, it played its part. If a team plays defensively, the shots are either blocked, easier to defend or go wide. If a team plays by controlling the ball, the other team will have less chances to create anything (though when they can, it will be harder for the keeper because there is more space). Now when the goalkeeper is 1v1 10 times in a game, even if he has 80% save percentage, he would, most likely, not even defending half the shots.
@no. 3 - The great Polish coach Kazimierz Gorski used to say: the more we have the ball, the less the opposition has it. Pretty simple, but shows how important is keeping possession rather than giving the ball to rivals
Briliant! these are the aspects that makes tifo what they are. crucial thing to learn and think about. another mistake we do is judging player by watching highlights of the matches they play in and skills , tackles, saves, dribbles & goals compilations
Can't believe I missed this upload. I will link it to several buddies who I have tried to explain similarly to, but they won't listen and using the usual "can't argue against facts" arguments and treating the hard stats as holy.
This was a great video from which I can deduce two things. One the media have no clue what they’re talking about when they analyse stats because I’ve always had work rate rammed down my throat like it’s ever been an indication of quality. Two it drives home the point that football and life to a certain extent is much more about quality over quantity.
It still surprises me that people even pay attention to the save percentages of football goalies, given the enormous variability in shot quality and quantity different goalies have to face
I used Dubravka argument before.. don't heard from them ever again. Its an argument between Alisson vs other keeper save stats. When I used Dubravka stats.. they shut up. Do not just use one stat to tell a player is good. Use the whole stats and watch the game. For me, the stats just tell us more about a player playstyle rather than saying good or not.
number 10 is largely a debatable point because once youve allowed for injuries the players getting more minutes are likely doing so because theyve performed better so deserve more credit. And Per 90 stats tends to favour players who have played less. If you hit a good patch of form and then come out of the side youll have excellent stats without having a sustained impact while someone who has been consistent all season will have worse per 90 stats potentially but will have been the difference maker in a number of key moments
Case in point, football performance depends on a myriad of factors not easily captured in statistical models. In fact, I would say that for most sports.
Goals per appearance and working out the strike rate from appearances can be totally different for a regularly subbed or sub striker. 5 minutes on the pitch is counted as an appearance the same as 90 minutes.
Aah you covered that in the last one! But also conversely a sub-striker may have a better strike rate per minute as the game has opened up more and a team has got tired near the end of the match.
Also in the chances created example, most of the players on the list took free-kicks, so if you take wide free-kicks (and your team gets lots of free-kicks... ahem Grealish :) you will have a much better chance of creating chances.
Hey TiFo, huge fan of your videos and analysis! On this one I was just hoping to get a little more clarification on that True Tackle Win Rate (TTWR) stat, which I’m trying to factor into my own analysis more. I don’t know if I just don’t have access to the correct numbers (“fouls when attempting a tackle” must be far different than purely “fouls” but that’s all I have), but I can’t seem to get anything near what’s displayed in the examples: their percentages all regress with the formula given, and frankly I don’t understand how numbers like Wan-Bissaka’s (or Cedric’s) are possible when you’re only factoring in more opportunities that their team lose the ball-perhaps some clarification on the terminology would help because it really seems the only difference between TTWR and the standard win rate (SWR) is that fouls are included in times possession wasn’t won back, which could only decrease percentages. Is TTWR more a measure of how good a player is at winning the ball back, or simply putting in a clean tackle? Is there a difference between ‘total tackles’ (in TTWR) and ‘tackles won’ (SWR)? If so, why does TTWR factor in ‘challenges lost’ if ‘total tackles’ is meant to already include those won and lost? Is there somewhere I can find ‘fouls when attempting a tackle’ and is that significantly different than the ‘fouls’ stat I’ve been working with? I know it’s originally not your article, but I’ve been trying to figure this out for a couple weeks and can’t sort it so any help would be tremendously appreciated
Tiffo: Using Save percentage to evaluate a keepers shot stopping ability is wrong. Also Tiffo: Uses Save percentage to evaluate a keepers shot stopping ability.
The way I think of it, a tackle can serve to disposses the team if it is annoying enough that the player loses control or loses balance and your next defender is able to get possession or make a successful tackle. In other words an obstacle, if passed by, is still an obstacle and I wish there were a measure to see how much of a perturbance it was to the attacker or how much of a neisance the defender was to stop the attacker from their end goal (scoring).
Shooting from outside the box can be easier to score when opposing midfielders/defenders do not close down and narrow the angle as aggressively as they would inside the box.
Foo Aloysius not at all. In the situation you described the only thing that’s easier is getting the shot off. And while you might have more time to shot that doesn’t mean they can’t still block it. They’re still bodies in front of goal give you a bad angle and if they aren’t in front of goal then it just gives the goalie more time to see the shot and save it
@Tifo - Talking about Firmino, while his XG kind looks the same when compared to the previous season, he missed 20 big chances this season VS 9 the previous season. Would you consider that to measure the shots >> goal scoring quality of a player? On the other hand, he has won the highest no. Of possesions in the final 3rd standing #1 this season in the league with 37 times VS 24 times standing #14 in the table the previous season. Do you thing this would have affected his scoring ability depending on where he was trying to take those shots from or the role he was playing ?
Great video as always; I feel like anyone who has ever played the game (no matter the level) probably already understands that many of these stats are useless without proper context. I'm sure most of us have played with stellar teammates or against tough opposition that have not excelled in any particular groupings of these statistics.
great video. bit of particulars. 7. If you judge a player's effectiveness within the context of their position, i.e. creative midfielder creating chances/strikers scoring, this has a measurable effect on the game and can definitively tell you the impact the player has on his team's performance. The variables which are mentioned, and other which are not, are also used in measuring their performance when they are in the squad. This isnt measured over the course of one game but rather, like the bulk of stats mentioned and alternative stats proffered, over a decent enough sample size. Its hard to say that we are unable to say, and measure, the effect Messi, Ronaldo, Fernandinho, Lewandowski, Kroos, etc. have on their teams performance and if the ability of a player to impact the game in their given position (especially consistency - this is where statistics often thrive) is largely how we measure quality then this is not entirely correct. all other stats i completely agree. 10/10 job on this vid as usual.
Another factor that can affect chance creation also will be the position the player played. A player who is deployed as a CM will be less advantaged than a player deployed as an AM.
This is good stuff, it shows why the vast majority of stats (such as pass % currently in the game Football Manager are next to useless. I'm a big advocate of making FM more realistic by getting in all the same sorts of stats real managers would take into account, and doing away with the attributes system, for example Pace - 18, Acceleration - 18, and replacing them with a combination of using useful stats, and also, in the case of measuring pace, perhaps using things such as 40 yard dash times to judge acceleration, 100m dash times to judge pace, things which would only become fully apparent once you have had the lad in training for a while, and so on.
I feel like with goalkeepers, you have to watch a game to judge, they can have an easy job, leading to a clean sheet, or concede 4, but prevent so many goals.
I hate how much stats are used to discuss football now. Football daily is the worst for it, they judge a player purely on stats and it's so borning and just inaccurate more often than not.
Quite a few of these measures are in a totally different category than the one you suggest to replace them with, though. Possession vs expected goals for example: I can figure out possession in the first half of the game using a stopwatch, pen and paper. Expected goals is waayy more complicated, looking at historical data and calculating the number based on that. To me that's like arguing that Looking at the drawing of a bridge is much less indicative of its strengththan running a computer simulation. Yes, you're right, but the tools required are vastly different.
On the last point about chances created per 90. Its not always a better comparison to divide chances created by minutes played because a lot of the players coming on as late subs are facing a tired out defense, making chance creation slightly easier. Not sure how to account for this statistically, but it at least explains why all these sub players with similar stats as De Bruyne aren't all world class.
Interesting that Ederson comes out better than Alisson with goals prevented even though Alison has a higher save percentage. I would've assumed the running theory that Ederson is better with his feat but Alisson is the better shot stopper, seems the Liverpool defence just force worse quality shots at him than the Man City defence which makes sense too. The power of stats used correctly.
Would expected goals not be subject to some of the same issues as brought up here? Notability “shutting up shop” is probably going to have an effect on amount of quality shots faced, if the team holding a lead isn’t too interested in attacking.
I'm sorry but the vast majority of teams who win league titles dominate possession. Just highlighting Leicester who were the exceptional to this rule, doesn't mean that possession doesn't matter.
I think it'd be interesting to look at why some of the more modern statistics we can use (expected goals, expected shots etc.) are frowned upon and scoffed at by the media and "traditional" fans of the sport.
The defensive part is totally the reason why people saw Henderson as a shit player at Liverpool before they won the league. They just saw the stats and that he "didn't contribute" in any way, but the thing is; he did most of his work "behind the scenes". Like blocking players, commanding the team, apply pressure to the other team etc.
7:58 even in basketball it's not a good stat. It depens on who that player is being replaced by. If player A is being replaced by an excellent 6th man then his stat only makes him a slight positive whereas if player B is replaced by a "bad" player then this stat makes him look like a big positive. And you can't even use this stat in a huge sample since the coach usually keeps the same rotation so one player will usually get replaced by the same player
Re. tackling - you can compare this with stats for defensive backs in American football. Players like Stephon Gilmore, Tyrann Mathieu and Jamal Adams are considered among the best; yet they never seem to be near the top of INT's or passes broken up. Why? Because teams throw to their side of the field less.
Using statistics to judge players is only relevant within the context of the teams tactics. E.g. if the front man is played with his back to goal in order to retain possession and start attacks then he shouldn't be judged on goals scored or shots total. Instead look at his ability to retain possession and passes that lead to attempts/goals. Conversely a 6 yard box striker should only be judged by goals/attempts, and assists. This is the same for any position on the pitch. If you want to judge a player using stats you have to know the teams tactics. Once you know the tactics you can select which stats are appropriate to help analyse each position. It is therefore not fair to compare players from different clubs using statistics unless the teams have similar tactics. If you compare the fullbacks of a Klopp team with mourinho's, Klopps will always appear statistically to be better offensively. However it could be that Mourinho's fullbacks are not allowed to play to their full potential in attack, as he imposes an emphasis on stopping the opposition from playing. The statistics are not reflecting the players abilities, rather the teams style of play.
Thanks for making this video because I was going to make a video that would compare two players and I was obviously going to use a couple of stats for it so it's at least good enough for me to know that I'm using stats correctly
It's funny how the athletic here have debunked a number of stats, because they are not representative of the players true abilities. Yet the athletic often rely on as many stats, which admittedly may measure performance more accurately, but ultimatately are just as redundant as any other measurement of stats. To measure a players true ability, just watch them play! All this moneyball nonsense is just a very effective way for tech firms to charge football clubs millions for "data analysis" and other nonsense. There was even a guest on the tifo podcast recently telling them how they use automated algorithms to scout players. Like that's better than sending a scout to actually watch a player. What utter drivel.
Post shot-xG is also pretty useless for a goalkeepers ability to keep the ball out of the goal, some goalkeepers are very bad at positioning, which is a big part of shot stopping among other things, and so if a goalkeeper is positioned badly so then has to make a good save to stop the goal, they are not actually better than a goalkeeper who doesn't let the shot occur in the first place.
At 8:43 you compare City to Burnley. As much as the point you're trying to make is partially valid and to an extent, you picked a legendary team and a below-average team as examples to compare. I think that actual statistic might help to prove that teams which have higher a passing accuracy percentage might just be better teams overall, generally speaking 😅 Great content though 👌
Barca fans know it better than anyone. Literally the whole point of having more possession is reducing the amount of randomness that can happen against you and to create more for yourself as well. It's what you do with the possession that makes sense.
You forgot the BIGGEST and MOST COMMON of them all; G/A nerds to judge a player. There's just way too many variables to use G/A to compare the quality of players.
I remember Sócrates, captain of the Brazilian team at the World Cup 1982, he had his last job working for a Brazilian TV channel. One commentator talked about how many kilometers a player had covered and other statistics.
So Sócrates said: "the one who has to run is the ball. Otherwise we would leave the ball standing still and put a player to run around it". He always had a funny counterpoint to the other guy who was a spreadsheet head. XD
He died on a Sunday morning. On the afternoon of the same day, Corinthians, his team at heart, won the national championship.
@Stats 05 Yeah but its not good football, if you rely soley of physicality than actual football skill.
@Djorn Barrett this is one of the reasons why I dislike Xavi. For as much of an all-time great as he was, he is extremely critical and intolerant of any other style of playing than the one he lives and breathes.
One of my favourite players of all time. Majestic and so smart with the ball. Never looked like anything was difficult for him. It's a crying shame that that early to mid 80s Brazilian squad didn't win the World Cup.
And that's why he failed to win the WC in 1982 :)
This is a world class analysis of where people measure the game wrong.
Excellent content. Needs more people to watch and embrace what you guys put together.
This isn't anywhere near world class, this is the absolute basics tbf
@@colouredIncognito i agree, nothing complex about this video, and we could argue some of the points here
Its literally not the measurements that are wrong. Numbers are almost never wrong. The conclusions drawn from it are wrong. These are the absolute basics.
It’s a terrible video you pretentious nut. The same shit can be explained in much simpler terms
@@colouredIncognito football itself is a very simple game...but all these stats are interpreted incorrectly by a lot of numbnuts which is what this video was trying to dispel...
4. Maldini: "If I have to make a tackle then I have already made a mistake."
I think it's only a mistake if you're forced to tackle, someone like Wan Bissaka purposely forces players into a position where he can tackle them, that quote has never set right with me.
@@pphyjynx8217 that's his style and giving that he is a fall back where you are told to show your man the line. his tactic is reasonable. Cbs and Dms should have mist tackles as they are always covering the ass of someone. Unless you are Maldini or the flying Dutch man.
@@kishoncharles7787 so you know more than maldini? Lol... delusion
Maldini played under sacchi and cappello who both played oragized defence and seeking natural talent of attackers when going forward which is way different of what we see now where teams mostly depend on talented defender who can cover lot of spaces back cuz full backs love going forward or invert into midfield so basicly teams now defend with cb’s who are mostly let alone or alnogside dm when opponent counter attack so insted of man marking they are forced to clutch tackle opponent. Both Sacchi and Capello mostly play 442 with where sacchi play offside trap so he outsmart and outmove opponent insted of beat him with def. or phys. ability and under capello they defend as back of 6-8 players so opponent is just outnumbered and is rly hard to walk into good shooting areas cuz u always have at least two player trying to stop you and u are forced to look for shoots outisde penality areas where defender does need to block it is enough to interupt shoot or try to cross to cuz there will always be big man adventige. Later he player with players like gattuso and ambrosini who would go to tackle or duel opposite attackers so full becks and cb’s can set man marking defence. You can see from where this quote came.Back in the time teams would have rly organized defence and would not look for overlaping attacks cuz they highly depend on natural quality of midfilders and attackers so you have compact 4 at the back who does not have any or have low attacking dutys with midfield without dm’s. All midfields have duty to act as box to box midfields(davids,roy keane,anchelotti,seedorf,ambrosini,dechamps,cocu,butt,redondo and sammer,matthaus,rijkaard,desailly when they played in midfield) with only one or two have fully creative midfielders (zidane,maradona,beckham,laudrup,savićević,nedved...) and attack consisted of target man (inazghi,shearer,van basten,cole,batistuta,papen,ronaldo,zamorano...) who pick the balls from creative midfield and other striker who was highly gifted player (baggio,laudrup,stoichkov,del piero,totti,gulitt,rivaldo...).That was how most teams would line up and play excluding teams like cruijffs barca,LvG Ajax, Cappellos Roma, Germany and Brazil national team
Actually Maldini tackled A LOT according to his tackle per game.
*football daily has left the chat*
😂😂😂
I dunno they're not that bad at this, I've been watching them every day for about three years now and most of these they don't make mistakes with. Definitely the goalkeeper one, but not the minutes played and can't remember the last time they used chances missed or distance covered.
Tim Memmo Well, maybe not that often on Sunday Vibes or Continental Club. But on Winners and Loser or Euro Round-up they often use stats like possession, pass completion or shots on target as a measure for a team‘s performance.
@@masterofking1910 true
@@timmemmo4051 and number 4
I feel like the thing to take from this is that you have to watch the game to know the impact and quality of a player
Henry Friedman not necessarily, you just have to use the correct stats. You need a healthy mixture of player analysis through the eyes and through the numbers.
@@se1397 What are the correct stats? Expected Goals is one that comes up frequently as a viable stat. Any others?
@@mrwoot08 For me, stats just tell you more about a playstyle. How they play and you need mixture of stats to know the quality. Still, its best used to see their playstyle. You still need to see they play though.
Not necessarily. Can't watch all the games by all the players. Plus, sometimes players who are not flashy may be overlooked unless looking at stats. Kante was a good example back in the day.
@@Jonifico That's why Football club have scouts. Its different experience in the stadium. For TV, they follow the ball.. for us fans, maybe just watch our own local team. Whichever is closest. For scouting, Liverpool relied on stats but they also spend time to actually watch them play. Need mix of different stats and watching them play. You can't see how they communicate, how they moved, their off the ball movement, their positioning with stats.
And I don't think Kante is all about stats. Scouts must have seen him first place. A DM wouldn't be overshadowed unless its from the TV perspective (But still, he's a DM.. he is always in the action.) Not youtube though. Its bad to scout players.
3:59 tell that to my girlfriend...
😂😂
👀
Your name is just negro ffs
@@nightmaere9699 Negro is black in Spanish so It doesn't mean much.
I've tried.
"Virgil van Dijk only makes 0.76 tackles per game, yet nobody would try and say this makes him a poor defender'
You'd be surprised.
Andrew Thompson Manchester United fans come to mind.😂🤣😂
Erick Castro yes, Manchester United comes to your mind because you are obsessed
Not a poor defender but just not this all time great that he’s made out to be. The art of defending is dead in modern football so when someone like him comes around he looks infinitely better than he is
@@BigPurp9 Exactly, people say ''he doesnt need to tackle thats why hes so good'' no most of that is why Liverpool is so good. The fact is he plays in such a dominant side that he doesn't need to be tested, its not like hes consistently being tested and proving that he can win battles its just that hes literally not being tested he goes on four-five league game streaks without having to make a tackle its insane. Obviously a great CB but not as good as people make out, i'll take a Koulibaly over him personally
@manny I heard something, I don't know if its true but apparently that season he was dribbled past once in the league but all statistic websites showed it as 0 because it would have been like 0.02. I don't know if its true or not but thats what I heard
The stat that annoys me most is the “winning percentage with and without said player in the starting 11”. There’s so many other variables than just one player being in the squad: quality of opposition in games he played and games he didn’t play, form etc. Also if the starting 11s for the two groups aren’t the same with the exception of the player for the “without XI” i.e. it renders the stat even more pointless
EDIT: you covered this yessssss
The Spurs stat for win % with or without Kane is a prime example of this. People begin to think he's not an important player and Spurs should get rid of him, which considering hes been their best player for most of this decade, is nonsense
Matthew Champion many spurs fan blame him for losing the ucl final last season but what they don’t know is that Poch played an not so fit kane in the final. Poch should have played Moura instead, as he was on great form.
@@matnat21 we know that he was unfit, that's why we believe he's the reason we lost that final
@@powerman6952 He gets shit for no reason, if you go and watch the game again, it's clear to see he was your best player. Kane is a scapegoat for no reason. Spurs were absolutely terrible, none of the players showed up, an unfit Kane tried his best and still managed to be your best player, setting up Son, who got bodied by Van Dijk before he got his shot away. Kane was not bad, that is a ridiculous myth
@@whiplash7400 wrong, VVD and matip had a field day because Kane was unfit, he ruined the fluidity of the attack, spurs created chances and had shots but no penetration, an in form moura would have caused more problems
I've always been a fan of adding a 3rd category to penalty stats
Scored
Missed
Saved
Not including saved is just rude to goalies
agree 100%
Good idea. Seems a no-brainer now you mention it.
I've been playing fm wrong this whole time...
Bruh... Tell me about it
"Expected goals is far better indicator of a better team." As a Chelsea supporter, this sounds soothing to my ears😏
Kepa is just terrible
Never use this so just a random thought but has this figure ever been right for at least 90% of games? Is it just as bad as counting the 'goal assist' league as important?
Chips1889 it’s not a metric that is used to predict the outcome of games. It’s a metric used to indicate how players/teams will continue to perform in the future. As football is such a low scoring game, xG cannot match the score line as a lot of the final result is based off luck (e.g. one team dominates but can’t score, the other team get one chance and score) Yes the bad team won, but the point xG makes is it’s not a sustainable win
Dheepak Surya Kalyanaraman you’re responding to the wrong thing.
@@harryharvey9138 So what you are saying is that it's not much use then. A bit like we all cheer for a corner but less than 1 in 20 produce a goal. Fooled again?
Point 6.5: This is the biggest sin of Football Daily. Teams or players are expected to underperform after overperforming and vice versa. The chance of getting a tail on a coin toss is still 50%, after getting 10 in a row. You could argue a player will likely perform at their EG for the rest of the season, but don't expect them to perform under EG so that they get same EG at the end. Saying that a season is a small sample size is actually very, very true. I always get the impression from FD that they expect a team to just collapse after a good start or that a team's early bad luck will mean every other team will get the bad luck eventually.
Point 4 is especially key; I have argued with many people on why number of tackles and interception is not a key indicator of defense; it is equivalent of blocks and steals in basketball. The Maldini statement about tackling is cliche at this point, but at its heart is correct; you only tackle in defense when you have to. Teams only dribble at you if there is a weak link, if you fill the space out they aren't going to go through you. Is like how people were going how Jorginho is doing a lot of tackle, or how Vertonghen is averaging a lot more tackles this year despite clearly physically declining as a sign that they are passable/still good at defending. Whereas Scott McTominay is averaging quite few for a midfielder. Players think they can attack through a slow defender, whereas teams will rather go wide than try and go through a physically able defender.
Point 10 is still fundamentally unfair despite the adjustment. A player who frequently comes on at the 70th minute for a side behind will create crap tons of chances compared to someone who plays full 90. This adjustment is better than average alone obviously, but is still flawed. This comes to Point 10.5, you cannot extrapolate a per 90 data when a player often comes off the bench, it is unrealistic to think they are necessarily going to have the same rate when they play a full game more often.
Football Analysis is under going the issue of basketball in the early 2000s. People are taking stats more seriously, but a lot of people are not contextualizing or understanding the stats properly. And also, damn Foster is carrying Watford there.
Eddie Chan I think the biggest problem with xG is that it considers all players to be equal. For example, Lewandowski will always score more goals than say Barnes( no offence) for the same xG, cause he is objectively a better striker. Saying that this means he is over performing and will come down, is extremely reductionist, and doesn’t work.
The coin flipping thing is false. There's a 1/2048 chance you'll flip a coin onto the same side 11 times (or a.048% chance). In other words, you have a 99% chance of a getting heads after getting tails ten times in a row.
EJ Echono no
@@bryantndongmo4780 Yes. That's how probability works.
@@itsmadcalm no, you have that percentage before starting the first coin toss, once you've done it the percentage starts changing, so if you manage to do it 10 times in a row, you'll have a 50/50 chance of doing it an 11th time
The goalkeeper stat is bang on! David De Gea had rave reviews a few seasons back for making 15 saves against Arsenal...a few of the 'saves' was him literally bending down to pick the ball up
6:27 ".. and Martik Kelly is down in 29th, which is much more accurate."
Throwing some proper shade there
Preetham Venkatesh 29th out of all the fullbacks used isn’t even bad.
I just want to say that every time I read something on the Athletic it looks so much like Tifo on paper, that I read it with your voice.
1 drawing any conclusion from anything with a small sample size
Summary
00:30 (1) using save percentage to evaluate a GK shot-stopping ability. Use Goals Prevented instead
01:57 (2) conflating distance or sprint stats with effort
03:36 (3) using possession as an indicator of quality. Use expected goals instead.
04:41 (4) judging a player' defensive ability by the number of tackles and interceptions they make
05:18 (5) using tackle win-rate to judge a player' tackling ability
Use true tackle win rate instead. Formula: total tackles/(total tackles+challenges lost+fouls when attempting a tackle)
06:34 (6) using goals minus expected goals as an indicator of finishing ability in small samples
07:39 (7) judge a team' performance with or without a fiven player
08:31 (8) judging a player' pass ability on his passing accuracy. Use expected pass completion rate instead.
09:14 (9) judging players who fail a lot
09:39 (10) comparing players who have played different numbers of minutes. Dividing the stats by minutes/90 instead.
No. xG is not an indicator of quality of performance, but of "quality" of position when a shot is taken by the "average player". Position is not a shot, a shot is not a goal, and goals win games. Why this is so difficult for people to understand astounds me.
@@peteraleksandrovich5923 yeah thats just summary from the video
Andrew Cole at ManU was an example of a player of how many shots he took to score, yet he was a prolific scorer for United, although not as many goals per game as say Van Nistelrooy
You sounded so tired when talking about the Athletic.
Tired of reading 'this comment originally appeared on the athletic' and similarly themed comments under every video
Same, I enjoy the content but this Chanel lacks originality now and there is no point signing up the Athletic as half of it ends up here anyway!
It’s about time
vvrath why? What does it change for you?
Tyler Owen that’s not true at all. The athletic puts out a lot more content per week
This is an incredible video
I left a dislike because the video is shit.
@@civilservant9528 wtf why??? This video is so true
The amount of research and preparation this video took is crazy
I don’t know why some United fans criticize Pogba because He doesn’t run around like headless chicken but once he gets the ball he is effective.
they only criticize him cuz his hair, but he's the best player and one of the most hardworking players on the pitch
He defends at the back, make 40-yard passes and gets into the box
yet fans still criticize him
It's not surprising that he became discouraged at the past months
What? Guys have talent no doubt, but his decision making, and attitude when he lose the ball is what grind the fans gear, you look the 90 minutes he played when he played the ball too long or give away the ball due to want make some risky and spectacular long pass right? Or just some utube highlight?
He’s effective like 1 every 10 games or something
He gives the ball away an abysmal amount for a "world-class" player. He frequently goes missing in big games an' all. He's talented, no doubt, but that Fernandes has made a bigger impact in just 5 games - mostly because of his attitude and application - than Pogba has 3.5 seasons tells you everything you need to know about why us United fans aren't too fond of him.
David Foster inconsistent? when I watch him play he always creates chances every game and Ole always plays him deep.
What do you want him to do? He can’t score, defend, create all at the same time. It’s like you people forget what he has done.
Remember Ole’s winning streak when he was caretaker Pogba was creating all the time.
Last season he was in the PFA team of the year an inconsistent player is not usually there.
If you watch Messi? A lot of the times he loses possession constantly I remember one game he lost the ball like 20 times and rarely tracked back to get it but Barca fans never criticize him.
A lot of the players don’t make runs, so how is Pogba supposed to play with a bit more urgency.
Did you see France at the World Cup? Always making runs, Pogba was always supplying them with chances.
Same thing is happening with Bruno most of his assists have been through set pieces because no one is making runs so as to make it easier for him to create chances in open play.
Great video. The same thing is happening in basketball. At 7:40 they are mentioning player's plus-minus(+/-), its good to know that +/- stat doesn't apply to football.
As someone who’s always trying to get people to understand the importance of perspective, context and intangibles, I absolutely love this video!
Great content!
Context is key, no wonder proper statistics shows why messi is head an shoulders above everyone with his play making + goal scoring
The biggest stat misuse I see is using Assists to determine how impactful a player is on their teams attack.
You'll often hear pundits saying player X hasn't gotten enough assists for thier position or how much they should be contributing, but the whether or not something is an assist entirely depends on player Y not player X.
A better statistic to use in these discussions would be key passes or chance creation. Because if player X is regularly putting player Y in to 1 on 1 situations but player Y never finishes, why should that mean player X hasn't contributed?
agreed, everyone was slating Jorginho because he didn't register a single assist in the league under Sarri, but if you look at the chances he created, you'd see that the finishing of them were poor, Giroud's comes to mind first
@@lukeduale1403lmfao was litterally just about to comment the same exact thing
Coronavirus originally appeared on The Athletic.
Just kidding lads. Stay safe, and stay inside and yes, wash your bloody hands!
no
My hands are bloody because of washing
It's not even funny
Jaydeep Bose shut the fuck up
@@iPro3million how about you shut the fuck up
“Running less can be beneficial...Stay home and save lives”
The writer of these is the journalists I want asking questions in press conferences
The worst thing about tifo football videos is that they end .
Great work mates i love your contents
Next time provide micheal ballack tactical profile video.
Thanks
This channel deserves more followers.
Guaita is such an underrated goalkeeper. Top 3 in pl this season easily. Basically carried palace to 12th with the quality of saves he’s been making this year. He wouldnt get in but should the euros have been this year he should go over de gea and kepa. I can’t speak about any other goalkeepers cuz I haven’t wat he’s them but he’s still been so good this season
Someone show this to Football Daily.
Enrique Salvador please
Really hate those stats merchants who always think they understand football juz by watching statistics
Sky will start shitting their selves if/when the athletic start making in depth documentaries. There’s only so much ‘Carra and Neville watch ‘ or shows to that ilk people can tolerate. The athletic will do great in depth videos about all sorts. Note I do not work or have an endorsement from the athletic
As well as Twatman Dave.
I hate football daily. Football hipsters who will claim some Belgium second division player from 1973 is the best footballer ever because he has some obscure stat with a 100% reading.
By the same reasons of number 1, I've always tought the stats of "shots / shots on target" don't say anything. It miss the clear point that a shot "off target" that misses the goal by a inch may be far better than a shot "on target" that reaches the arms of the goalkeeper in the center of the goal.
It's not. Shots on target are better than missed shots. A goalkeeper can blunder after a save.
Ninja Quant More likely than not the goalkeeper will hold on to the ball. A low shot to the corner of the goal is the best to aim for but you may miss it, like Messi in the World Cup Final. Better than him aiming it directly at Neuer.
He seemed to be talking about on-target shots vs off-target shots. Would you say a penalty that sends the keeper the wrong way but barely misses the goal a better penalty than one that goes in because of a goalkeeper error?
@@Reckoner12 I don't think you see the point of my argument. The thing is not that all shots being on target are unusefull, like your exemple of a penalty shot illustrates very well. The point is that the generic stats that groups all the game shots as on/off target don't say much about the game. Let's say, for example, in 90 minutes team A near misses the post in all of its 10 shots, and team B shots two times slowly in the arms of the goalkeeper, no danger at all. Team A, with less shots on target, had much more goal chances than team B. Therefore, goalchances is a much better indicator, regardless if the shot was on or off target.
Best video I've ever watched about football statistics. Spot on, world class analysis.
Can you explain de true tackle formula a bit more? Not sure i got it.
Can You guys talk a about , how Setién can Use De Jong And Arthur
Nobody cares
@@TheWorldDraft I care
@@b__c7538 football should be the least of your worries
@@TheWorldDraft What do you mean?
Drop Busquets he's past it
Kepa seems to oblige the save percentage myth
david de gea too. he was great with 10 men in front of him and possesion based football but in recent years he has struggled in more attacking systems, he is exposed 1 on 1 more.
@@Writeous0ne
Thank you
At least someone who sees football as I do
The same can be said about oblak
Put him in an attacking team save number would drop
@@lukadanieljr7082 Oblak is a great shot-stopper in my opinion and when my team played against Atletico I dreaded facing him. He is a wall behind a wall. If you take the defensive style of the team in front of him, he is still terrific, but it would be much easier to score goals against him.
This reminds me of my team (Sporting Clube de Portugal). We had a great goalkeeper (Rui Patrício) that had the worst team in front of him. He was great but conceded so many goals. Then, with changes in the entire structure of the club (new president, new coach, new players), but, since the team defended a lot better, he stopped conceding as many goals (went from conceding 55 goals a season to conceding 1.3 goals per game to 0.7 per game in the next season). In the following seasons, even playing more games, playing against better teams, the worst goal per game average he had was 1.0. It might not seem like a huge improvement, it played its part.
If a team plays defensively, the shots are either blocked, easier to defend or go wide. If a team plays by controlling the ball, the other team will have less chances to create anything (though when they can, it will be harder for the keeper because there is more space). Now when the goalkeeper is 1v1 10 times in a game, even if he has 80% save percentage, he would, most likely, not even defending half the shots.
@no. 3 - The great Polish coach Kazimierz Gorski used to say: the more we have the ball, the less the opposition has it. Pretty simple, but shows how important is keeping possession rather than giving the ball to rivals
Stopped the video I was watching to see this... dam I'm itching to watch a live game so much I jumped for a stats video
Belarus premier league is live
Briliant! these are the aspects that makes tifo what they are. crucial thing to learn and think about. another mistake we do is judging player by watching highlights of the matches they play in and skills , tackles, saves, dribbles & goals compilations
Can't believe I missed this upload. I will link it to several buddies who I have tried to explain similarly to, but they won't listen and using the usual "can't argue against facts" arguments and treating the hard stats as holy.
This was a great video from which I can deduce two things. One the media have no clue what they’re talking about when they analyse stats because I’ve always had work rate rammed down my throat like it’s ever been an indication of quality. Two it drives home the point that football and life to a certain extent is much more about quality over quantity.
well guita and dubravka are good goalkeepers
What's a good public source to look at these statistics updated on a regular basis? I'd not be surprised if these stats are not publicly available.
hello did you find any?
It still surprises me that people even pay attention to the save percentages of football goalies, given the enormous variability in shot quality and quantity different goalies have to face
Can you do a video of the Belarusian Premier League?
Review some food.
I used Dubravka argument before.. don't heard from them ever again. Its an argument between Alisson vs other keeper save stats. When I used Dubravka stats.. they shut up. Do not just use one stat to tell a player is good. Use the whole stats and watch the game. For me, the stats just tell us more about a player playstyle rather than saying good or not.
"VVD makes just 0.76 tackles per 90 minutes, yet nobody would argue that makes him a poor defender."
Oh man. You haven't seen United fans on Twitter.
1:50 Kepa 🤭
But more questionably, Allison being in the negatives. I'm not complaining since that makes my keeper Dubravka look better but that suprised me
You missed the point 🤣
@@anonymousperson3023 with a team like liverpool he cant really prevent goals because they defensively are solid and dont make many mistakes.
@@darkleader5962 So even the "goal prevented" stat can't be taken alone, but you have to take in consideration in what kind of team the gk is playing
number 10 is largely a debatable point because once youve allowed for injuries the players getting more minutes are likely doing so because theyve performed better so deserve more credit. And Per 90 stats tends to favour players who have played less. If you hit a good patch of form and then come out of the side youll have excellent stats without having a sustained impact while someone who has been consistent all season will have worse per 90 stats potentially but will have been the difference maker in a number of key moments
Case in point, football performance depends on a myriad of factors not easily captured in statistical models. In fact, I would say that for most sports.
This single video renders Football Daily irrelevant
Goals per appearance and working out the strike rate from appearances can be totally different for a regularly subbed or sub striker. 5 minutes on the pitch is counted as an appearance the same as 90 minutes.
Aah you covered that in the last one! But also conversely a sub-striker may have a better strike rate per minute as the game has opened up more and a team has got tired near the end of the match.
Also in the chances created example, most of the players on the list took free-kicks, so if you take wide free-kicks (and your team gets lots of free-kicks... ahem Grealish :) you will have a much better chance of creating chances.
Hey TiFo, huge fan of your videos and analysis! On this one I was just hoping to get a little more clarification on that True Tackle Win Rate (TTWR) stat, which I’m trying to factor into my own analysis more. I don’t know if I just don’t have access to the correct numbers (“fouls when attempting a tackle” must be far different than purely “fouls” but that’s all I have), but I can’t seem to get anything near what’s displayed in the examples: their percentages all regress with the formula given, and frankly I don’t understand how numbers like Wan-Bissaka’s (or Cedric’s) are possible when you’re only factoring in more opportunities that their team lose the ball-perhaps some clarification on the terminology would help because it really seems the only difference between TTWR and the standard win rate (SWR) is that fouls are included in times possession wasn’t won back, which could only decrease percentages. Is TTWR more a measure of how good a player is at winning the ball back, or simply putting in a clean tackle? Is there a difference between ‘total tackles’ (in TTWR) and ‘tackles won’ (SWR)? If so, why does TTWR factor in ‘challenges lost’ if ‘total tackles’ is meant to already include those won and lost? Is there somewhere I can find ‘fouls when attempting a tackle’ and is that significantly different than the ‘fouls’ stat I’ve been working with? I know it’s originally not your article, but I’ve been trying to figure this out for a couple weeks and can’t sort it so any help would be tremendously appreciated
Tiffo: Using Save percentage to evaluate a keepers shot stopping ability is wrong.
Also Tiffo: Uses Save percentage to evaluate a keepers shot stopping ability.
The way I think of it, a tackle can serve to disposses the team if it is annoying enough that the player loses control or loses balance and your next defender is able to get possession or make a successful tackle. In other words an obstacle, if passed by, is still an obstacle and I wish there were a measure to see how much of a perturbance it was to the attacker or how much of a neisance the defender was to stop the attacker from their end goal (scoring).
That’s why goals outside the area are so good: they have a higher chance of being saved. So, if it goes in, it means the striker has done doubly good.
Coronavirus Or any other player strikers are less likely to take shots from outside the box
Shooting from outside the box can be easier to score when opposing midfielders/defenders do not close down and narrow the angle as aggressively as they would inside the box.
Foo Aloysius not at all. In the situation you described the only thing that’s easier is getting the shot off. And while you might have more time to shot that doesn’t mean they can’t still block it. They’re still bodies in front of goal give you a bad angle and if they aren’t in front of goal then it just gives the goalie more time to see the shot and save it
@Tifo - Talking about Firmino, while his XG kind looks the same when compared to the previous season, he missed 20 big chances this season VS 9 the previous season. Would you consider that to measure the shots >> goal scoring quality of a player? On the other hand, he has won the highest no. Of possesions in the final 3rd standing #1 this season in the league with 37 times VS 24 times standing #14 in the table the previous season. Do you thing this would have affected his scoring ability depending on where he was trying to take those shots from or the role he was playing ?
Great video as always; I feel like anyone who has ever played the game (no matter the level) probably already understands that many of these stats are useless without proper context. I'm sure most of us have played with stellar teammates or against tough opposition that have not excelled in any particular groupings of these statistics.
great video. bit of particulars.
7. If you judge a player's effectiveness within the context of their position, i.e. creative midfielder creating chances/strikers scoring, this has a measurable effect on the game and can definitively tell you the impact the player has on his team's performance. The variables which are mentioned, and other which are not, are also used in measuring their performance when they are in the squad. This isnt measured over the course of one game but rather, like the bulk of stats mentioned and alternative stats proffered, over a decent enough sample size. Its hard to say that we are unable to say, and measure, the effect Messi, Ronaldo, Fernandinho, Lewandowski, Kroos, etc. have on their teams performance and if the ability of a player to impact the game in their given position (especially consistency - this is where statistics often thrive) is largely how we measure quality then this is not entirely correct.
all other stats i completely agree. 10/10 job on this vid as usual.
Another factor that can affect chance creation also will be the position the player played. A player who is deployed as a CM will be less advantaged than a player deployed as an AM.
This is good stuff, it shows why the vast majority of stats (such as pass % currently in the game Football Manager are next to useless. I'm a big advocate of making FM more realistic by getting in all the same sorts of stats real managers would take into account, and doing away with the attributes system, for example Pace - 18, Acceleration - 18, and replacing them with a combination of using useful stats, and also, in the case of measuring pace, perhaps using things such as 40 yard dash times to judge acceleration, 100m dash times to judge pace, things which would only become fully apparent once you have had the lad in training for a while, and so on.
For that possession stat, Bayern vs barcelona where bayern defeater them by 4-0 and 3-0 respectively looks more impactful.
I feel like with goalkeepers, you have to watch a game to judge, they can have an easy job, leading to a clean sheet, or concede 4, but prevent so many goals.
I hate how much stats are used to discuss football now. Football daily is the worst for it, they judge a player purely on stats and it's so borning and just inaccurate more often than not.
Joe sounds furious about every stat and how they’re misread, it’s bloody marvellous. He sounds like he’s had enough of some stats chancer in the pub.
Quite a few of these measures are in a totally different category than the one you suggest to replace them with, though.
Possession vs expected goals for example: I can figure out possession in the first half of the game using a stopwatch, pen and paper. Expected goals is waayy more complicated, looking at historical data and calculating the number based on that.
To me that's like arguing that Looking at the drawing of a bridge is much less indicative of its strengththan running a computer simulation. Yes, you're right, but the tools required are vastly different.
Quick, someone send this to Football Daily.
On the last point about chances created per 90. Its not always a better comparison to divide chances created by minutes played because a lot of the players coming on as late subs are facing a tired out defense, making chance creation slightly easier. Not sure how to account for this statistically, but it at least explains why all these sub players with similar stats as De Bruyne aren't all world class.
Goals prevented is based on how many shots you face, if you face more shots you're more likely to prevent more goals
Interesting that Ederson comes out better than Alisson with goals prevented even though Alison has a higher save percentage. I would've assumed the running theory that Ederson is better with his feat but Alisson is the better shot stopper, seems the Liverpool defence just force worse quality shots at him than the Man City defence which makes sense too. The power of stats used correctly.
Would expected goals not be subject to some of the same issues as brought up here? Notability “shutting up shop” is probably going to have an effect on amount of quality shots faced, if the team holding a lead isn’t too interested in attacking.
Any Palace fan would’ve known that about Guaita without the stats; wonder saves every weekend 🔴🔵
I love that kepa is last on goals prevented...
I'm sorry but the vast majority of teams who win league titles dominate possession. Just highlighting Leicester who were the exceptional to this rule, doesn't mean that possession doesn't matter.
I have always said this about point 8. Brilliant video, keep up the amazing work
I think it'd be interesting to look at why some of the more modern statistics we can use (expected goals, expected shots etc.) are frowned upon and scoffed at by the media and "traditional" fans of the sport.
Great video that is a glimpse of hope in our society being addicted to false statistics everywhere (not only in football)
The defensive part is totally the reason why people saw Henderson as a shit player at Liverpool before they won the league. They just saw the stats and that he "didn't contribute" in any way, but the thing is; he did most of his work "behind the scenes". Like blocking players, commanding the team, apply pressure to the other team etc.
8:50, CKA (Commonly Known As) Stats padding
Love this content respect bro *Dave Liverpool England* YNWA Great video',s you make amazing stuff (subscribed) Stay Safe people ❤👊🏼
7:58 even in basketball it's not a good stat. It depens on who that player is being replaced by. If player A is being replaced by an excellent 6th man then his stat only makes him a slight positive whereas if player B is replaced by a "bad" player then this stat makes him look like a big positive. And you can't even use this stat in a huge sample since the coach usually keeps the same rotation so one player will usually get replaced by the same player
United fans would do well to watch this video, especially with their weird emphasis on distance covered when it comes to certain players
Or when they try to say Vidic was a better defender than Van Dijk because he made way more tackles. Good defenders always have clean shorts ;)
The problem with more people accessing information is that now we need to teach more people how to correctly use these informations
Re. tackling - you can compare this with stats for defensive backs in American football. Players like Stephon Gilmore, Tyrann Mathieu and Jamal Adams are considered among the best; yet they never seem to be near the top of INT's or passes broken up. Why? Because teams throw to their side of the field less.
tbh these data were only used to stimulate betters to decide which team they should bet on.
Using statistics to judge players is only relevant within the context of the teams tactics. E.g. if the front man is played with his back to goal in order to retain possession and start attacks then he shouldn't be judged on goals scored or shots total. Instead look at his ability to retain possession and passes that lead to attempts/goals. Conversely a 6 yard box striker should only be judged by goals/attempts, and assists. This is the same for any position on the pitch. If you want to judge a player using stats you have to know the teams tactics. Once you know the tactics you can select which stats are appropriate to help analyse each position. It is therefore not fair to compare players from different clubs using statistics unless the teams have similar tactics. If you compare the fullbacks of a Klopp team with mourinho's, Klopps will always appear statistically to be better offensively. However it could be that Mourinho's fullbacks are not allowed to play to their full potential in attack, as he imposes an emphasis on stopping the opposition from playing. The statistics are not reflecting the players abilities, rather the teams style of play.
sick video. chart party vibes
Thanks for making this video because I was going to make a video that would compare two players and I was obviously going to use a couple of stats for it so it's at least good enough for me to know that I'm using stats correctly
We see fans wildly misunderstanding statistics on social media, so thank you for sharing this.
It's funny how the athletic here have debunked a number of stats, because they are not representative of the players true abilities. Yet the athletic often rely on as many stats, which admittedly may measure performance more accurately, but ultimatately are just as redundant as any other measurement of stats. To measure a players true ability, just watch them play! All this moneyball nonsense is just a very effective way for tech firms to charge football clubs millions for "data analysis" and other nonsense. There was even a guest on the tifo podcast recently telling them how they use automated algorithms to scout players. Like that's better than sending a scout to actually watch a player. What utter drivel.
Post shot-xG is also pretty useless for a goalkeepers ability to keep the ball out of the goal, some goalkeepers are very bad at positioning, which is a big part of shot stopping among other things, and so if a goalkeeper is positioned badly so then has to make a good save to stop the goal, they are not actually better than a goalkeeper who doesn't let the shot occur in the first place.
Amazing insight, more people need to see watch this video
Is there a correlation between distance run and how often a player is caught out of position also?
No
At 8:43 you compare City to Burnley. As much as the point you're trying to make is partially valid and to an extent, you picked a legendary team and a below-average team as examples to compare.
I think that actual statistic might help to prove that teams which have higher a passing accuracy percentage might just be better teams overall, generally speaking 😅
Great content though 👌
3:36 Try explaining this to Barca fans
they don't see the difference in progressive passes to box and back pass to busquets!!
well at least your username is correct
Barca fans know it better than anyone. Literally the whole point of having more possession is reducing the amount of randomness that can happen against you and to create more for yourself as well. It's what you do with the possession that makes sense.
Football Manager peoples, where you at? Lol. I'm sure we all used these stats wrong
Depends on how they are implemented in the game engage
You forgot the BIGGEST and MOST COMMON of them all; G/A nerds to judge a player. There's just way too many variables to use G/A to compare the quality of players.
Ronaldo twitter should watch this video
Cheers jeff