A compelling match analysis plays a vital role in placing a winning bet. Statistics can provide the information you need to determine your chances of winning a bet. Spending a few minutes to gather as much information as possible about a soccer match before placing a bet should be part of your betting routine.
Soccer coverage is filled with meaningful data to build essential tools that hold predictive power. However, basing a team's strength on goals scored or conceded is not accurate enough due to few goals.
Before you begin your analysis, you need to understand the typical soccer statistics and their meaning. Also, you need to find a good sportsbook. OddsShark.com can help you find the right bookie for you.
Soccer Stats Explained
Per 90s
It may only be a simple modifier, but it is essential when analyzing player stats. They normalize even basic statistics such as assists and goals to match the number of minutes a player plays. In most cases, a player's stats are only counted as raw numbers or on a per-game basis. However, if a player is a regular starter or coming on a sub late in the game, these numbers can differ.
You cannot underestimate the Per 90s stat's importance on the attacking end of the pitch. It is easy to miss players good at creating shooting opportunities and goals for themselves or their teammates as subs. If you look at their raw or per-appearance numbers while they are productive, you may think they are mediocre players.
Shots
The number of shots a team concedes and takes is a fair predictive measure of future success. In the early days of soccer analysis, analysts used tools like PDO and Total Shot Ratio to predict future success from past shots.
The few goals scored in soccer matches pose a challenge to soccer analytics. Basing a team’s strength solely on goals conceded or scored doesn’t give enough insights to make precise predictions.
However, the difference between the shots taken and conceded by a team can help you determine its attacking and defensive prowess. You can use shots to evaluate forwards since good attackers typically take many shots.
Possession
The possession statistics for great teams tend to be high. Good teams usually have good players within their ranks who can accurately pass the ball to other equally good players. But playing a possession-based soccer-style does not make them a great team per se. Many clubs, such as Atletico Madrid, play under a system focusing on defending without the ball and an effective counterattack.
These teams stay at the pinnacle of European soccer by optimizing their tactical and personnel options to execute that style effectively. Their low possession statistics do not inhibit their performance based on basic and advanced metrics.
Teams in international tournaments are formed by nationality as opposed to professional planning. It would be best if you understood that cohesive units are better fits than collections of talents. Apart from top soccer teams like Brazil or France, who are happy to keep possession, most teams with smaller talent pools favour conservative positioning. Therefore, you should avoid judging average teams at international tournaments by their ball possession stats.
Expected Goals
Expected goals is the ultimate tool for predicting future performance. Its concept is simple. Assign each shot a value depending on its likelihood to be a goal instead of counting shots. Looking at the expected goals scored or conceded is better at determining future outcomes than looking at shots or goals.
But which is the best way to evaluate a shot’s chance of becoming a goal? Analysts consider several facts, such as the angle and distance the ball is shot from and the part of the body taking the shot. For example, kicked shots result in more goals than headers, whether the shot resulted from a set-piece or open play.
Because most soccer-related stats focus mainly on on-ball events, other factors like defensive positioning are challenging to quantify. The data does not consider the positioning of the defence and the keeper.
However, intelligent xG models overcome this by factoring in the attack’s speed and the type of pass leading to the shot to get more information about the gameplay. Nothing beats xG when it comes to a pure predictive modelling perspective.
Non-Shot Based xG
One shortcoming of xG models is that they are based entirely on shots. They ignore possessions ending up in other types of outcomes, including turnovers or incomplete passes. Although xG works even with those actions, other more advanced models can complement the information.
Quick identification of teams exhibiting higher or lower xG numbers than their other stats will offer a more accurate prediction of the team’s performance. It primarily entails modelling passing, including the amount and type of passing that teams are doing on the attacking end of the pitch.
The data is then used to determine how regularly the passing should lead to shooting opportunities rather than how regularly it leads to shots.
xGChain
xGChain aims to extend the concept of xG backward to players involved in creating the shots measured by xG. One of the significant obstacles facing xG is that it is only helpful for the players taking shots. Its measurements do not capture the input of midfielders directing play and orchestrating attacks.
The xGChain moves the xG backwards long the possession chain. Every shot becomes the total of the chain of events leading up to it. This guarantees credit to the players winning possession back and playing the passes that ultimately lead to a shot several actions later. It is more about isolating individual players responsible for a performance than forecasting team performance.
It will help you determine a lineup’s strength or the impact of a player’s injury on the team’s performance.
H2H and Lineups
One key element in pre-match analysis is the history of the match. Games pitting the same teams against each other may look similar, especially over a long period. Sometimes, identifying only one unique feature might be enough to ensure you place a winning bet. It could be anything ranging from goals, fouls, cards, corners, strategy and playing style.
Most online players underestimate the importance of a team’s lineup in pre-match betting and analysis. Before placing your bet, always research the playing teams’ personnel and their starting lineups for a particular match. Find out if the star players are making an appearance, who is on the bench, and whether the manager has decided to field youngsters instead of dependable older players.