Soccer Statistics

by .Taylor on Nov 7, 2009 3:21 PM PST

I'm a pretty big soccer fan. My little sister plays Tier 1 select soccer, so I'm constantly getting to watch high level (youth) football. But, honestly, I'm not very knowledgeable about player evaluation in soccer, especially of the statistical variety. I understand possession time and goal/assist tallies, but I'm well aware that the eyes of the onlooker can sometimes deceive.

Is there anywhere I could learn or read about soccer stats (soccermetrics)? Would be much appreciated!

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I would also like to know what stats to look for

in looking around a bit I did stumble on this, which I’m sure most of you already knew about but could be of interest to those who didn’t.

by stupidquestions on Nov 8, 2009 3:02 AM PST reply actions

Soccermetrics

Is actually the name of a site that gets very technical on the issue of statistical analysis in soccer.

But I wouldn’t say that statistical evaluation of youth players is the right thing, because the stats that Beane and others are using in the EPL are not available in 99% of pro-leagues, let alone for youth sides.

I use a number I call productivity to measure individual offensive prowess. It is the number of points (2*Goals+Assists) divided by minutes played multiplied by 90. A number over 1 is darn good. You can also use on target percentage (SOG/Shots) to judge a player’s shot effectiveness.

When substitutions and lineup shuffling are plentiful a stat like +/- can gain use. Because it should capture the smaller things that help a team score/prevent scoring that don’t show up in a box score like assists and goals.

Raw player evaluation is tough though. Unlike in baseball there are no uniform set of tools for which soccer scouts look. I’ve been talking this over with a few people around the sport and I’ll see what I can discover.

For me I would look at on-ball and off-ball speed/pace, vision in passing, touch/receiving of the ball, dribbling skill, shooting, off ball runs, positional defense, man to man defense and team communication.

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by Dave Clark on Nov 8, 2009 8:07 AM PST reply actions

Thanks! Good stuff.

by stupidquestions on Nov 8, 2009 11:24 AM PST up reply actions

Possible soccer stat?

As a baseball fan who loves stats I’ve always tried to think of ways of gauging soccer numerically. So I’ve kind of thought of a baseballish type approach. It’s just an idea I’ve had for awhile but would be hard to implement.

The first thing would be to make a statistic called something like “Touches” similar to “at bats” in baseball. And then categorize what a player does when he does get a touch. Such as forward pass, lateral pass, back pass, shots (and subset goals), lose ball to opponent, lose out of bounds, get fouled, etc. And from that you could see how offensive or defensive minded a player is. Thoughts?

by Scrupio on Nov 8, 2009 9:04 PM PST reply actions

All of those are tracked in the EPL

Dribbling distance as well.
Forced/Unforced turnovers

MLS just doesn’t have the technology to get that data for every team and for every game, that or they aren’t releasing those numbers. Imagine if Pitch F/x was still behind closed doors, or Win Expectancy couldn’t exist because Fangraphs and Studeman couldn’t get the data?

So we have a very limited set of data with which to work for MLS. So I’m trying to do what I can. The good news is that they use Elias. So we know that more can be done.

But one of the things that I have learned from following baseball and stats. If they don’t correlate to wins, I don’t really care.

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I am not a Fan
I am a Sounder
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by Dave Clark on Nov 8, 2009 10:20 PM PST up reply actions

It seems like there might be a market for a stat company like BIS or something to keep track of things like this...

Although with soccer, stats like this will be much less accurate about player evaluation than baseball stats are. That’s just due to the nature of the game. However, I think that advancements in soccer statistics could vastly improve general fan knowledge about players, teams, and soccer in general; as it has with baseball.

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by lailaihei on Nov 8, 2009 11:37 PM PST up reply actions

There are such companies, it's just that their data is proprietary at this time.

BIS is technically proprietary too.
Anyway, the Sounders get statistical data from some company or other, so this stuff is used by clubs – it’s just that it’s rarely seen by people like us. Which is a shame.

by marc w on Nov 9, 2009 11:48 AM PST up reply actions