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Thrown to three lions in a Roman arena - UKR v ENG

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    I think what you can also learn from this is that football has too many variables for moneyball to be of any use and that xG is a pile of horseshit.

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      Moneyball makes for an interesting strategy to build a Football Manager save around, and that's about it.

      Originally posted by Rogin the Armchair fan View Post

      Not half as much as it did for Brazil in 2016.
      I found their group stage exit as amusing as anyone, of course, and I'm sure the fans were excited to see them in competitive action in front of their own eyes, but I don't think the USA can really be considered a home venue for Brazil ...

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        It would be quite amusing if UEFA said that because of the huge spike in Covid cases in England that they will move the final to a country with far fewer cases (which is everywhere else in Europe basically)

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          Originally posted by Sean of the Shed View Post
          I think what you can also learn from this is that football has too many variables for moneyball to be of any use and that xG is a pile of horseshit.
          Well, I think 1.31 vs 1.29 for England against Germany is a fair assessment. It was a close game.

          xG has been shown to be a handy enough indicator in the case of a large sample size, such as all the games played by all the clubs over the course of a league season.

          Obviously a finals tournament is a much smaller sample size.

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            Originally posted by scratchmonkey View Post
            I think England's low amount of attempts is an indicator of both how much they're looking to control the match and also how they've never had to chase a result. Also that the chances that they're getting are high-probability/falling to high-level players.
            I think the other thing is that this England side is not very prone to taking long range shots. Whether this is due to tactics or the individual players, I'm not sure. Probably both.

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              Yes they aren't panicking and trying to force anything. Against Ukraine there was that one shot from Kane that was saved. I can't remember many other goal attempts. The last half an hour was about running the clock down, not giving the ball away and avoiding injuries and cards.

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                Didn't Spain have low attempt numbers in 2010 and 2012?

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                  Originally posted by scratchmonkey View Post
                  I think England's low amount of attempts is an indicator of both how much they're looking to control the match and also how they've never had to chase a result. Also that the chances that they're getting are high-probability/falling to high-level players.
                  One thing I've noticed and been really impressed by is that England aren't taking very low probability long shots at goal or swinging in easily defendable crosses. They may not be creating very many chances but those they do create are really good ones. Definitely an emphasis on quality over quantity.

                  In the past, Gerrard or Lampard would have been regularly shooting from 30 yards, hoping to score a wonder goal and England's fullbacks and centre halves would have been pumping meaningless highballs into the box for a half fit Owen or Rooney to fight two massive defenders for.

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                    Originally posted by Tratorello View Post

                    In the past, Gerrard or Lampard would have been regularly shooting from 30 yards, hoping to score a wonder goal and England's fullbacks and centre halves would have been pumping meaningless highballs into the box for a half fit Owen or Rooney to fight two massive defenders for.
                    AKA Determination football

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                      Although that shot from Lampaard against Germany did cross the line by about a metre, in fairness.

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                        Originally posted by anton pulisov View Post
                        Although that shot from Lampaard against Germany did cross the line by about a metre, in fairness.
                        Now if VAR...

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                          Originally posted by Sporting View Post

                          Now if VAR...
                          You mean goal-line technology... ;-)

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                            "xG is shit" sounds a lot like the baseball die-hards over here who complain about how nerds have ruined a fine manly sport with their numbers and dorky eyeglasses.

                            I'm skeptical as to how useful it can be in terms of predictive forecasting for individuals; it can be pretty useful in terms of looking at a team and figuring out what's going on, two examples that spring to mind are Brighton of last year, where they should have scored a boat-load more goals than they did, now, that still leaves you in the situation of "are we not scoring enough goals because we're unlucky or are we not scoring enough goals because our players aren't good enough" (it's the latter) and it's still something that would be borne out just by watching them, you can see what's going on without going into calculations. The other example would be Liverpool and Manchester United the year where Mourinho got United to finish second -- United was the most overperforming team by xG, Liverpool the most underperforming. And regression to the mean followed, with United sliding down the table and Liverpool putting in what would have been a title-winning performance in almost every other year.

                            ETA: And of course, it has its most important application, which is in Football Manager, it makes it easier for me to tell my team that they really did alright and it's okay that they lost 3-nil because we had a higher xG, these kinds of games just happen sometimes.
                            Last edited by scratchmonkey; 05-07-2021, 23:22.

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                              xG is shit. Though not as shit as xA.

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                                I haven't paid much attention to analytics in football, but do pay a lot of attention to baseball analytics. There is a similar stat in baseball XWOBA (Expected Weighted On-base Average). For me, it's mildly useful in that people can tell if batters are having unlucky at-bats. They hit the ball hard but the ball keeps finding defenders. Baseball is a much more stat-friendly sport because good pitchers can locate the ball in quadrants where batters are likely to miss or hit the ball directly at defenders (that's not unlucky). Stats can tell us what batters do and what defenders do in comparison to other defenders. The sport is much more static. Football is much more difficult because players are always in motion and goals don't happen very often. We would only say that an attacker is unlucky if a keeper makes a truly exceptional save. Of course, players can improve, but I don't know if XG is going to explain anything that we don't see with our eyes. When Aubameyang was purchased by Dortmund, I thought Dortmund's scouts were crazy. His strike rate with Saint-Etienne was horrible. Then he came to Dortmund and was a world beater. I guess XG could have told us that he should have scored more but he was the one missing. Of course, the percentage of misses to goals scored when goals could have been scored would be a stat that would more neatly summarize his problems versus my anecdotal claim that his strike rate was poor. But whatever stat would be applied might ignore the midfielders and wingers who were feeding him or what he was expected to do in terms of pressing or dropping back.

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