Team Playing Style Graph

There are hours left for the start of the new season, and some leagues have already started.

What does it mean? It means new contents!

Today I am here to share one of my new content with you.

The playing styles of teams!

In this blog post, I will briefly explain the graph and the metrics in the graph.

Understanding the playing style of both teams after a match is an important starting point for post-match analysis. Especially while doing this, it is very significant to take into account the approaches of the teams in their past matches. Knowing how the general situation in the league provides an extra perspective. When these factors came together, I decided to make the above graph.

There are 3 components in each metric that we need to understand.

First, each metric has a horizontal bar in the middle. Each of them is divided into 10 pieces and they have different color tone. This is a distribution of the metric figures created according to the matches of the last season of the relevant league. Thus, we have an idea about the general structure of the league.

The two diamond-shaped dots on the horizontal bar show the home and away team’s approaches to the current match.

There are also small dots at the top and bottom of the horizontal bar. Each point (the top is the home team, the bottom is the away team) represents past games.

Now let’s move on to the meanings of the metrics.

Territory Control

Domination of the Center of the Final 3rd: The ratio of the number of accurate passes made in the middle of the Final 3rd to the number of accurate passes made by both teams in that zone. The detail here is that for which team this figure is calculated, it becomes the defensive 3rd for the other team.

Domination of the Wide Areas of the Final 3rd: The ratio of the number of accurate passes made in the wide areas of the Final 3rd to the number of accurate passes made by both teams in that zone. The same important detail is the same for this metric.

Domination of the Center of the Pitch: The ratio of the number of accurate passes made in the center area of the pitch to the number of accurate passes made by both teams in that zone.

Attacking

Shot Volume: Number of shots/number of completed passes in the opponent’s half.

Touch In Opponent’s Box: Touches in the opponent’s penalty area/Touches in the Final 3rd.

Run with the Ball: Possession adjusted progressive run. Since this figure is higher in counter-attacking teams, I adjusted it according to ball possession.

Passing

GK’s Passes Preference: Did the goalkeeper make more short passes or long passes? (Long pass: An attempted pass of 25 yards or more)

Build-up Passes: Did the teams go for progressive passes in their half or not?

Passes In the Opponent’s Half: How many passes towards of opp’s goal every 100 passes? Did they circulate the ball or did they always think of the “forward”?

Flank Play: In what percentage of the passes to the final third zone did they prefer the wide areas?

Crosses: Number of crosses made for every 100 passes made on the opponent’s half.

Defensive

Defensive Line: Average x location of defensive actions. (Blocks, Interception, Ground Challenge, Clearance, and Ball Recoveries)

High Press Intensity: Passes Per Defensive Action (PPDA)

Proactive Defending: Possession Adjusted Defensive Actions (Interception, Foul, Successful and Unsuccessful Tackle, Foul)

Aerial Dominance: Aerial duel win percentage. I know this data is not about playing style. However, I thought it would be useful to see it together with some other data.

Extra Information

Whether a metric number is more or less is related to that league. For example, if the highest PPDA reached in a game in the 21/22 season is 4.5, the upper limit is set as this number. However, before this process is implemented, outliers with z-scores lower than -3 or greater than +3 were removed.

Thank you very much for taking your time to read my post :)