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Matchday 30

Quality recoveries & build-up play that offers guarantees

This video illustrates how recoveries can be distinguished not only in terms of their effectiveness, but also their quality. Barcelona record the fourth-most advantageous recoveries in the league, i.e. situations that involve a numerical advantage and where the side in possession has more players ahead of the ball than the opposition.

Given the importance of build-up play in the system deployed by Xavi’s troops, the team’s set-up at the start of the attacking transition is key. This video shows how the Barcelona players react in these situations. It’s worth pointing out that 15% of the Catalan giants’ recoveries put them at an advantage.

It’s your Game

Matchday 8

Elche CF

1 - 0

RC Celta

SUN 03.10.2021

12:00

Season 2021/2022

Estadio Martínez Valero

Atlético de Madrid

2 - 0

FC Barcelona

SAT 02.10.2021

19:00

Season 2021/2022

Riyadh Air Metropolitano

RCD Mallorca

1 - 0

Levante UD

SAT 02.10.2021

14:15

Season 2021/2022

Estadi Mallorca Son Moix

Villarreal CF

2 - 0

Real Betis

SUN 03.10.2021

16:30

Season 2021/2022

Estadio de la Cerámica

Atlético de Madrid

2 - 0

FC Barcelona

SAT 02.10.2021

19:00

Season 2021/2022

Matchday 8

Riyadh Air Metropolitano

Simeone's team, among the sides that unleash the most shots and the unit that concedes the fewest

Matchday 8 of LaLiga Santander features a massive game between two big teams who spend every minute in relentless pursuit of the three points. The home team welcome FC Barcelona to the Wanda Metropolitano, and do so as the team who have covered the greatest distance. From a defensive standpoint, they are the LaLiga Santander side who best contain their opponents, having conceded the fewest shots. Meanwhile, going forward, they are one of the three teams who unleash the most shots. Physically, 'Cholo' Simeone's players are maintaining their capacity to exert themselves repeatedly: they are among the top five teams who have accumulated the greatest number of maximum intensity actions; i.e., sprints at over 28 km/h over a distance of more than 10 metres.

Barça are no slouches either when it comes to attacking potential. At this stage of the competition, they are the team with the highest possession ratio and the quickest to recover the ball, as well as being in the top two on attacking build-up play and boasting the greatest percentage of possession accumulated in the opposition's half. What’s more, their effectiveness in front of goal is outstanding: they are one of the three teams who need the fewest shots to find the back of the net.

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Their combination play is paying dividends

Ronald Koeman's side stand out, among other things, as the team who gain the most distance per possession. In other words, they advance the furthest in each move. They achieve this through their link-up play, a fact reflected by the stat that they are the team in the division who involve the most players in their moves, with a clear objective: to progress towards the opposing goal.

Atleti are not far behind in this regard, as the team who gain the second furthest distance per possession. Los Rojiblancos are one of the five sides who have accumulated the most maximum-intensity actions; i.e., those in which the players move at over 28 km/h.

PLAYER FOCUS

Frenkie de Jong: the thrust and direction of the Azulgrana midfield

The Dutchman is the focal point in the team's midfield. He has become a key player for Koeman and is the LaLiga Santander midfielder who has completed the most dribbles in the first seven matchdays. He is also the most proficient Blaugrana provider, with two assists, and one of the five players in the competition who complete the most passes on average per game.

He is also the midfielder who gains the most distance with his passes for the Catalans, managing to advance an average of 2.44 metres with each pass, having racked up a total distance gained of 430 metres.

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Metric of the Week

Matchday 30

Find out the meaning of each metric

Number of players involved per possession offers clear indication of team’s style

There are a number of ways in which a team’s possession can be defined, with the number of players involved in them being one of the methods that we analyse. This criteria measures how many team members touch the ball during the course of an attacking transition. Teams whose game involves more intricate build-up play and possessions typically feature more players per possession.

As this video illustrates, Real Madrid are the LaLiga Santander champions for the number of players involved per possession, with an average of 3.67 per outing.

HOW IT'S MADE

Beyond Stats offers incredible metrics which go beyond the ordinary in the football industry: it does not limit itself to gathering the data normally used for the standard analyses that reach fans, but goes one step further, collecting a vast amount of in-match information, almost in real time, thanks to LaLiga’ s Mediacoach proprietary tool, that is capable of revealing new perspectives on the game at a deeper level, allowing patterns to be traced and future predictions to be made. 

In every LaLiga stadiums we have up to sixteen high-resolution, fixed perimeter cameras for optical tracking which follow the positions of the players, referees, and the ball on the field of play, collecting the physical and technical/tactical data at the dizzying rate of 25 times a second. These devices permit the integration, through the Mediacoach analysis tool, of two technologies: tracking and eventing. Tracking is based on the positional information collected by the stadium perimeter cameras and allows for the generation of metrics such as distance covered, top and average speeds, and number of sprints. Eventing allows more objective events to be recorded: number of passes, corners, and fouls committed and received, for example. The information captured through tracking and eventing is integrated and stored in the system forming a high-volume set of data. 

The raw data collected is processed for analysis by a multidisciplinary team composed of LaLiga experts in business intelligence & analytics and football analysis, through machine learning and artificial intelligence processes made possible thanks to the Azure technology supplied by Microsoft, which is capable of processing large volumes of data. After processing, an algorithm is generated that permits the visualisation of the metrics that reach fans through Beyond Stats. These statistics allow fans to better understand why their team has won or lost a match, or to benefit from a panoramic view of their performance and expectations, gifting football fans an unprecedented immersion in the experience.