World News – US – Champions League by the numbers: Four statistics that tell the story of day five

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It’s time for the 5th. Champions League matchday. Before the action starts on Tuesday (everything you can see on CBS All Access), let’s take a look at four numbers that tell the story of this week’s major games

It’s an amazing number. Among the players in Europe’s five major leagues who have played at least 300 minutes this season, 268 players have more non-penalty goals per 90 minutes than Messi’s 0. 24. Including penalties in the list roughly doubles Messi’s rate to 0. 47, which is still only 121. is in the big five of Europe. Messi is clearly experiencing a slump in goal as his expected goals are slightly better than his actual goals and are at 0. 60 per 90. The good news is that Messi will score higher in the future. Expected goals predict future performance better than the goals themselves. The bad news is that it even scores 0. 60 xG per 90 is only the 46. Place in the five major European leagues.

This is where Messi is currently meeting. If you blink at the numbers and poke and massage them and tilt that way, you can almost claim that Messi is one of the top fifty goalscorers in the top five leagues in Europe. The same goes for his death, by the way. His expected number of assists, i.e. the number of assists he would have on average given the passes he has played, is 0. 27 per 90, 50. in the big five. This is a far cry from the Messi we all know and love. Maybe this is just a loss of form and his numbers will improve as the season progresses. But at some point, at 33, the world may have to get used to the fact that Messi, great as he was, is no longer the best in the world.

In the five major leagues in Europe, nobody shoots more from the penalty area than Gladbach. Sometimes a number up to 76% can indicate a team is fairly uninspired and relies heavily on throwing clubs and taking competitive headers. You can tell by the number of mediocre teams across Europe like Fiorentina or West Ham who combine high shots in the box, 72. 8% and 73. 6% with the third and fourth highest percentages of headshots at 28. 7% and 28. 1%. However, Gladbach only takes a more modest 21. 1%

If we look at the math differently, we can only look at what percentage of the recordings in the box are headings. For Gladbach, 27. 7% of their shots in the box are headed, which is exactly the average for a team in the big five leagues. Put it all together and you have a team that takes a lot of non-headers up close. And those are the best types of shots. In other news, they currently dominate a group with Real Madrid and Inter Milan and with this week’s result they can beat their ticket to the knockout stage.

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Expected goals and completion skills must be accompanied by a bold warning that past performance is no guarantee of future results. Most players ultimately score close to what xG predicts, and even the best players in the world only manage to increase their reach by around 20% over the course of their careers. While these quirky stats aren’t particularly powerful about who’s going to beat their xG, they can help explain who’s been getting into corners with aplomb lately. This is how it works. Take xG, a measure of shots that is a measure of how likely it is that a shot will score at the point it is hit, and then xG after the shot, which is a measure of how likely it is is that a shot becomes the goal after we already know it is the trajectory (for example, a shot that is off target has an xG value after the shot of 0). . The difference between the two measures is how well a player hit the ball.

This year the hottest finisher in the five major European leagues among the players who have fired at least 10 shots does not play in the Champions League. This is Tottenham Hotspur’s Heung Min son, who did his job in the Europe League on Thursday night and added 2. 29 goals without a penalty for his xG total from hot finishing. But right behind him is Riyad Mahrez from City, who added 2. 07. Right behind Mahrez? Well, that would be Robert Lewandowski with 1. 84 and Luis Suarez with 1. 77 who happened to compete against each other on Tuesday.

Dortmund is perhaps the most stunning team in the world. They have incredibly young attackers on their front, none of Erling Haaland, Jadon Sancho or Gio Reyna is older than 20, while Jude Bellingham is also incredibly young in midfield. What is underestimated about Dortmund is how impressive their defense was. Only two teams in the top five leagues in Europe – Real Sociedad and Athletic Bilbao – receive fewer shots per game. .

Dortmund manages with a strange trick to be both a walking highlight role and a defensive fortress. They keep the ball and pass it on a lot. Nobody plays more passes than Dortmund’s 691 passes per game or completes more than his 603. And despite all this possession, they are « only » ninth in the five major European leagues for shots per game at 16. 11. There is a lot of work to be done to create these climaxes with Haaland, Sancho and Reyna heading towards the goal. Much of that work is holding the ball and moving it around midfield and full-backs. He must patiently wait for the opposing defenses to break before breaking through them at high speed.

One of the added benefits of keeping the ball and patiently checking how Dortmund can do it is that the other team just can’t score if they don’t have the ball. So the big defense numbers. However, one thing to look out for when Dortmund host Lazio on Wednesday is that Lazio are a team that play perfectly without the ball. In the second leg, Lazio were very happy to concede possession despite their home team and only completed 301 passes for Dortmund’s 621. Despite the difference in possession, Lazio still managed 11 shots at Dortmund’s 14 and decisive 1. 75 xG to Dortmund’s 1. 35 in a 3-1 win. Dortmund may be the best player in the world when it comes to using the ball, but Lazio will still be happy to have it and quickly take advantage of it on the counter.

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