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For those interested in this sort of thing, 'packing' and 'impect' are also interesting to read about, developed in Germany but it still hasn't widely spread in

For those interested in this sort of thing, 'packing' and 'impect' are also interesting to read about, developed in Germany but it still hasn't widely spread into the mainstream like more traditional stats like possession, pass completion %, or meters run. These traditional stats very often do not explain why team A or B actually won the game. Therefore, two new statistical measures were developed, which better explain why a particular team won a game. Packing is the measurement of how many opposition players are beaten by a pass (or dribble or other move). Impect is the number of deep lying defenders beaten, which is obviously more valuable compared to high pressing strikers. The key insight is that defenders beaten, particularly deeper-lying defenders are the measurement needed to identify who is expected to win (and therefore assessing the value of passing players, or defenders). http://bundesligafanatic.com/20160610/impect-packing-the-future-of-football-analytics-is-here/ http://bundesligafanatic.com/20160610/impect-packing-the-fut...

Harvey-Specter 8y ago
That was a really interesting read, thanks for sharing it. > Impect disregards all passes that go backwards or don’t beat any defender. It’s a correct assessment, a pass that doesn’t travel forwards, doesn’t help you score. Can’t argue with that. This is a really odd statement. Plenty of passes don't go forward but absolutely do increase the likelihood of scoring. For example, the final pass here [0] is backwards, might even allow an additional defender time to track back (-1 packing?) but opens up the space required to take a shot and score. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0oihU_fLas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0oihU_fLas
- hinkley 8y ago
  Isn’t a pass going backward about avoiding a defender they can’t get past? Useful backward passes fall into at least two categories. The ones that eventually result in an impect, and the ones that run down the clock at the end of the game.
  - harlanlewis 8y ago
    And a third category, whatever Spain was doing against Russia.
  - Harvey-Specter 8y ago
    > Isn’t a pass going backward about avoiding a defender they can’t get past? Yes, that's basically what I'm saying is bad about the statement that backwards passes don't help you score goals. > Useful backward passes fall into at least two categories. The ones that eventually result in an impect, and the ones that run down the clock at the end of the game. I think this is almost correct, but I think there is a third category: Backwards passes that immediately result in a shot resulting in a goal. In the example video I posted above, the final pass is backwards and is immediately shot into the net. This doesn't increase impect (ie: Messi dribbles past 4 players, then shoots and scores past 3 more, is only impect +4, according to the article).
- mnarayan01 8y ago
  The article looks like it's just a generic sports' journalist reporting on a novel statistical technique, with cross language translation added into the mix for extra confusion. I wouldn't take it too literally. I'd guess that either "Impect disregards all passes that go backwards or don’t beat any defender" would be better phrased as "Impect disregards passes unless they go forward or beat defenders" or the statisticians would defend the original solely in terms of it being a heuristic that makes the problem more tractable. Additionally, your linked example, with #25 picking up the ball in a danger position after a deflection, is the kind of "penalty box slop" that, naively at least, seems extremely difficult to handle analytically.
m_myers 8y ago
I'm not that familiar with soccer stats, but this section needs a reply: > A “shutdown” cornerback like Richard Sherman can be a star in the NFL thanks to interceptions, broken up plays and tackles. “Lock down NBA defenders” like Bruce Bowen and Dennis Rodman can prove their worth with steals, blocks and rebounds. Football has goals and assists, that’s it. Just as in soccer, those "counting stats" are not great measures of defensive ability. The recently retired cornerback Darrelle Revis was regarded as the best defensive player in the NFL from about 2009-2011. Yet he did not rack up interceptions or pass breakups -- in fact, in 2010, he had 0 interceptions and only 9 pass breakups over 13 games. Why? Because the receivers he was covering were never open, so quarterbacks rarely attempted to pass in his direction. Similarly, steals, blocks, and rebounds are only a vague indicator of defensive ability; it's never a bad thing to get a steal or a block, but if you routinely leave your man to try to poke the ball away from someone else's man, you're likely hurting your team overall. The NBA has been working on developing better stats, including deflections (you get your hand on a pass but don't necessarily come away with the steal) and shots defended (you're within a short distance of a shooter). But Darryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets and a well-known stats nerd, has said in a Reddit AMA that no publicly available defensive statistic is useful. Part of this is because all three sports in question are team sports, which means a great deal depends on the defensive scheme. You may not block shots, but is it your job to block shots or to stop the ballhandler from getting near the basket? You don't get tackles, but is it your job to get tackles or to funnel the ballcarrier right into the linebackers? It's extremely difficult for any outsider to determine the defensive effectiveness of a player. The only thing we can offer is guesswork.
- thom 8y ago
  You can begin to measure a player's defensive performance by working out what they allow the _opponent_ to do (or indeed not do), especially in something like soccer with larger play areas and slightly less fluidity of movement. There's a section in the Soccermatics book about an old metric I worked on called PATCH which implemented this quite naively based on defender territory and ball progression, which nevertheless flagged up people like Umtiti before his Barcelona move. Of course there's also stuff like GoalImpact which just tries to apply plus minus to football, but all the old arguments about football being a low scoring game apply here.
paganel 8y ago
> Packing is the measurement of how many opposition players are beaten by a pass (or dribble or other move). This is what the Italians really do well with their "verticalizzazione" (I guess "verticalization" would be the closest English translation, even though I'm not sure that's a word yet), i.e. deep passing when you're (usually) 30 to 50 meters outside the opposing post. For an excellent example see this YT video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWr1tTFt7a4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWr1tTFt7a4) of Sarri's Napoli doing it (Sarri is now Chelsea's coach, that should be interesting).

Harvey-Specter 8y ago

That was a really interesting read, thanks for sharing it. > Impect disregards all passes that go backwards or don’t beat any defender. It’s a correct assessment, a pass that doesn’t travel forwards, doesn’t help you score. Can’t argue with that. This is a really odd statement. Plenty of passes don't go forward but absolutely do increase the likelihood of scoring. For example, the final pass here [0] is backwards, might even allow an additional defender time to track back (-1 packing?) but opens up the space required to take a shot and score. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0oihU_fLas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0oihU_fLas

hinkley 8y ago
Isn’t a pass going backward about avoiding a defender they can’t get past? Useful backward passes fall into at least two categories. The ones that eventually result in an impect, and the ones that run down the clock at the end of the game.
- harlanlewis 8y ago
  And a third category, whatever Spain was doing against Russia.
- Harvey-Specter 8y ago
  > Isn’t a pass going backward about avoiding a defender they can’t get past? Yes, that's basically what I'm saying is bad about the statement that backwards passes don't help you score goals. > Useful backward passes fall into at least two categories. The ones that eventually result in an impect, and the ones that run down the clock at the end of the game. I think this is almost correct, but I think there is a third category: Backwards passes that immediately result in a shot resulting in a goal. In the example video I posted above, the final pass is backwards and is immediately shot into the net. This doesn't increase impect (ie: Messi dribbles past 4 players, then shoots and scores past 3 more, is only impect +4, according to the article).
mnarayan01 8y ago
The article looks like it's just a generic sports' journalist reporting on a novel statistical technique, with cross language translation added into the mix for extra confusion. I wouldn't take it too literally. I'd guess that either "Impect disregards all passes that go backwards or don’t beat any defender" would be better phrased as "Impect disregards passes unless they go forward or beat defenders" or the statisticians would defend the original solely in terms of it being a heuristic that makes the problem more tractable. Additionally, your linked example, with #25 picking up the ball in a danger position after a deflection, is the kind of "penalty box slop" that, naively at least, seems extremely difficult to handle analytically.

m_myers 8y ago

I'm not that familiar with soccer stats, but this section needs a reply: > A “shutdown” cornerback like Richard Sherman can be a star in the NFL thanks to interceptions, broken up plays and tackles. “Lock down NBA defenders” like Bruce Bowen and Dennis Rodman can prove their worth with steals, blocks and rebounds. Football has goals and assists, that’s it. Just as in soccer, those "counting stats" are not great measures of defensive ability. The recently retired cornerback Darrelle Revis was regarded as the best defensive player in the NFL from about 2009-2011. Yet he did not rack up interceptions or pass breakups -- in fact, in 2010, he had 0 interceptions and only 9 pass breakups over 13 games. Why? Because the receivers he was covering were never open, so quarterbacks rarely attempted to pass in his direction. Similarly, steals, blocks, and rebounds are only a vague indicator of defensive ability; it's never a bad thing to get a steal or a block, but if you routinely leave your man to try to poke the ball away from someone else's man, you're likely hurting your team overall. The NBA has been working on developing better stats, including deflections (you get your hand on a pass but don't necessarily come away with the steal) and shots defended (you're within a short distance of a shooter). But Darryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets and a well-known stats nerd, has said in a Reddit AMA that no publicly available defensive statistic is useful. Part of this is because all three sports in question are team sports, which means a great deal depends on the defensive scheme. You may not block shots, but is it your job to block shots or to stop the ballhandler from getting near the basket? You don't get tackles, but is it your job to get tackles or to funnel the ballcarrier right into the linebackers? It's extremely difficult for any outsider to determine the defensive effectiveness of a player. The only thing we can offer is guesswork.

thom 8y ago
You can begin to measure a player's defensive performance by working out what they allow the _opponent_ to do (or indeed not do), especially in something like soccer with larger play areas and slightly less fluidity of movement. There's a section in the Soccermatics book about an old metric I worked on called PATCH which implemented this quite naively based on defender territory and ball progression, which nevertheless flagged up people like Umtiti before his Barcelona move. Of course there's also stuff like GoalImpact which just tries to apply plus minus to football, but all the old arguments about football being a low scoring game apply here.

paganel 8y ago

> Packing is the measurement of how many opposition players are beaten by a pass (or dribble or other move). This is what the Italians really do well with their "verticalizzazione" (I guess "verticalization" would be the closest English translation, even though I'm not sure that's a word yet), i.e. deep passing when you're (usually) 30 to 50 meters outside the opposing post. For an excellent example see this YT video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWr1tTFt7a4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWr1tTFt7a4) of Sarri's Napoli doing it (Sarri is now Chelsea's coach, that should be interesting).