Some Things Will Always Change
Gone are the days when doctors smoked cigarettes and players caroused at the pub post-match. Now every professional team is meticulous when it comes to keeping records on player fitness. But no longer is it simply a matter of timed sprints and weights lifted; today doctors can determine exactly how much salt is in a playerâs sweat and customize their fluid intake in accordance.
Likewise, the ways in which we analyze statistics and implement strategy are changing. Most match coverage on TV or online provides basic numbers on, but not limited to, the following: shots taken, shots on target, corner kicks, fouls committed, offsides, etc. But without context, these numbers, weâre discovering, are not especially indicative of a player or teamâs performance.
After every major tournament FIFA publishes a Technical Report. It contains the story of the tournament from the group stage to the final. In them youâll also find a referee report, a medical report, comparisons with previous tournaments, and a technical and tactical analysis meant to provide context concerning things like systems and shapes, organization and discipline, ball possession and ball progression, set pieces, and yes, moments of individual brilliance. Additionally, in the statistics and team data report, readers can find for example, statistics showing when, where, and from what distance goals were scored, how they were scored, whether from a combination play or a defense-splitting pass.
But itâs all somewhat open to interpretation. The reports donât actually tell us a lot of things, like who made the pass, or who scored what type of goal. For some things you have to go to the tape. Thatâs where companies like Opta, Prozone, and StatDNA come into the picture. Teams across the globe are hiring them to unlock the mysteries of the data. Take, for example, Huff Poâs data dashboard developed by Opta.
And as Chris Anderson and David Sally show in their book, The Numbers Game, the statistics do bare intriguing details. âIn the average game, the ball changes hands 400 times,â says Chelseaâs director of soccer operations, Mike Forde. Which means a change of possession happens nearly every 15 seconds. Too, a single player will actually only touch the ball a small percentage (7-10%) of the time â thatâs 6 to 9 minutes out of 90.
Knowing that, might a coach be more apt to practice counter-attacking and defending, or to at least find something useful for the players to do during the 80 minutes they donât have the ball?
Then thereâs this recent BBC article by Steve Crossman, which shows that of all the goals scored (over 800) in the past six World Cups, only an average of 4.8% of them are scored from free kicks.Everyone sits on the edge of their seat when a free kick is about to be taken, but with a success rate like that itâs no surprise more teams use free kicks simply as a means to keep possession and quickly pass the ball back into play.
The Numbers Game also shows the same is true for corner kicks, and that the number of corner kicks a team earns has no effect on the outcome of the game â a team is not more likely to win if they earn a lot of corner kicks. And yet, theyâre still so exciting.
"So whatâs the key?" you ask.
"There are two routes to success in soccer,â write Anderson and Sally. âOne is being good. The other is being lucky. You need both to win a championship. But you only need one to win a game.â Itâs about 50/50 between skill and luck, they say.
So here we are. World Cup Fever is spreading like wildfire. From the embers, new fans of the game arise in droves. For the initiated, itâs an opportunity for us to stick a wing out, take the newbies under the fold, and share our insights on the game, and inevitably, to explain the law of offsides. But no matter what we tell you, or what the statistics show, all you need to know is this:
