[BostonCard]

Finishing -- defined here as being more likely to score a goal off of a given shot -- doesn't seem to exist at the team level. In fact, stat based people often predict certain teams to progress/regress based on weird outliers in finishing. Instead, they judge teams on whether or not they get more shots, and in particular quality shots, than their opponents.

Here's an interesting article:

http://cartilagefreecaptain.sbnation.com...cted-goals

Second, player finishing skill is the primary driver of the "super team effect" in expected goals. Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich all outperform typical versions of expected goals by large margins. But if I include a player finishing adjustment, most of that outperformance disappears. I have shown that players who finish chances brilliantly for these superclubs also finish their chances at high rates on other teams. So these top sides tend to finish their chances for the simple reason that they have collected players who nearly all, individually, shoot well. This is, I think, good prima facie evidence that the shooting skill adjustment captures something real.

So it does look like conversion is, in fact, a thing at a team level, though my guess is that there is a lot of noise involved so it is hard to detect an effect statistically in all but the most extreme teams.

BC

[BostonCard]

Finishing -- defined here as being more likely to score a goal off of a given shot -- doesn't seem to exist at the team level. In fact, stat based people often predict certain teams to progress/regress based on weird outliers in finishing. Instead, they judge teams on whether or not they get more shots, and in particular quality shots, than their opponents.

Here's an interesting article:

http://cartilagefreecaptain.sbnation.com...cted-goals

Second, player finishing skill is the primary driver of the "super team effect" in expected goals. Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich all outperform typical versions of expected goals by large margins. But if I include a player finishing adjustment, most of that outperformance disappears. I have shown that players who finish chances brilliantly for these superclubs also finish their chances at high rates on other teams. So these top sides tend to finish their chances for the simple reason that they have collected players who nearly all, individually, shoot well. This is, I think, good prima facie evidence that the shooting skill adjustment captures something real.

So it does look like conversion is, in fact, a thing at a team level, though my guess is that there is a lot of noise involved so it is hard to detect an effect statistically in all but the most extreme teams.

BC