[BostonCard]

Your discussion made me think of this piece from fivethirtyeight.com:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/wha...iful-game/

Yes, a large proportion of goals are generated on short possessions, but soccer is also fundamentally a game of short possessions and frequent turnovers. If you account for how often each sequence-length occurs during the flow of play, of course more goals are going to come off of smaller sequences — after all, they’re easily the most common type of sequence. But that doesn’t mean a small sequence has a higher probability of leading to a goal.

To the contrary, a team’s probability of scoring goes up as it strings together more successful passes. The implication of this statistical about-face is that maintaining possession is important in soccer.2 There’s a good relationship3 between a team’s time spent in control of the ball and its ability to generate shots on target, which in turn is hugely predictive of a team’s scoring rate and, consequently, its placement in the league table. While there’s less rhyme or reason to the rate at which teams convert those scoring chances into goals, modern analysis has ascertained that possession plays a big role in creating offensive opportunities, and that effective short passing — fueled largely by having pass targets move to soft spots in the defense before ever receiving the ball — is strongly associated with building and maintaining possession.

I'd be interested in seeing the analysis done more thoroughly.  Presumably, you have to have a good team to be able to string together a bunch of passes and maintain possession (bad teams who try to string together a bunch of passes turn the ball over).  So, while the analysis that Reep made was flawed, I'm not sure the opposite argument is sound either.  Ultimately, if you are in a position on the field, you have a few broad choices: make a short pass, make a longer pass, dribble, or shoot.  And I guess the real question is that if that position is somewhere in your own side of the pitch, or if you are a goalie with the option of a short pass deep in your own zone or a long kick to the middle of the field whether the benefits outweigh the risks.  The analytics on such a thing would be difficult to carry out and confounded as hell.  But I would be interested in reading the book referenced:

https://www.amazon.com/The-Numbers-Game-...0143124560

Can those who know more about soccer than I do offer their thoughts?

BC

[BostonCard]

Your discussion made me think of this piece from fivethirtyeight.com:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/wha...iful-game/

Yes, a large proportion of goals are generated on short possessions, but soccer is also fundamentally a game of short possessions and frequent turnovers. If you account for how often each sequence-length occurs during the flow of play, of course more goals are going to come off of smaller sequences — after all, they’re easily the most common type of sequence. But that doesn’t mean a small sequence has a higher probability of leading to a goal.

To the contrary, a team’s probability of scoring goes up as it strings together more successful passes. The implication of this statistical about-face is that maintaining possession is important in soccer.2 There’s a good relationship3 between a team’s time spent in control of the ball and its ability to generate shots on target, which in turn is hugely predictive of a team’s scoring rate and, consequently, its placement in the league table. While there’s less rhyme or reason to the rate at which teams convert those scoring chances into goals, modern analysis has ascertained that possession plays a big role in creating offensive opportunities, and that effective short passing — fueled largely by having pass targets move to soft spots in the defense before ever receiving the ball — is strongly associated with building and maintaining possession.

I'd be interested in seeing the analysis done more thoroughly.  Presumably, you have to have a good team to be able to string together a bunch of passes and maintain possession (bad teams who try to string together a bunch of passes turn the ball over).  So, while the analysis that Reep made was flawed, I'm not sure the opposite argument is sound either.  Ultimately, if you are in a position on the field, you have a few broad choices: make a short pass, make a longer pass, dribble, or shoot.  And I guess the real question is that if that position is somewhere in your own side of the pitch, or if you are a goalie with the option of a short pass deep in your own zone or a long kick to the middle of the field whether the benefits outweigh the risks.  The analytics on such a thing would be difficult to carry out and confounded as hell.  But I would be interested in reading the book referenced:

https://www.amazon.com/The-Numbers-Game-...0143124560

Can those who know more about soccer than I do offer their thoughts?

BC