‘Expected Threat’ (xT): dribbles, passes and carries

We discover the most threatening players from various leagues around the world through passing, dribbling and dribbling, the three game situations that create threat.

Published:22/06/2022

At the end of the season, there are many metrics and visualisations that we can use to find out which players are among the best in each championship. Depending on the game situation or the position we want to look at in depth, we will use some metrics or others. For some time now, to measure the threat that a player generates beyond goals or assists, we have been using Expected Threat (xT), which will tell us how often a player carries the ball by passing, dribbling or carrying to areas of the pitch where the probability of scoring a goal is higher, excluding set pieces.

As we have explained in other texts, this metric, which measures the threat that players create when they have the ball, by moving the ball from an area where the probability of scoring a goal is very low to an area where the opponent may feel seriously threatened with a scoring chance. With this concept in mind, it is more likely that wingers, forwards, attacking midfielders and deep midfielders will have a greater role in the game and therefore a better ratio and productivity in this metric.

In order to best visualise the possibilities of this statistic we will select three different competitive contexts: Top-5 European leagues, Eredivisie and Argentinian Primera Division. At the same time, we will use the scatter plot to relate the Expected Threat (xT) to different statistics related to the creation of danger: ball progression through passing (Top-5 European Leagues), ball progression through driving (Eredivisie) and completed dribbles (Argentina).

By pairing the Expected Threat (xT) metric with different game situations we can get a more detailed picture in different tactical contexts.

Top – 5 European leagues

It is always very useful to visualise this with a comparative, both at the level of enhancing statistics and using many players of one or several positions in several specific leagues. On this occasion, because of the way the game is played in the big European leagues, rather than in other countries, we have chosen ‘Ball progression by passing’ to see which players progress with the pass and generate the most danger among attacking midfielders, wingers and strikers. Lionel Messi, Benjamin Bourigeaud and Bruno Fernandes generate great danger with their passing. If we had chosen dribbling instead of passing, we would find Vinicius or Mbappé very close to the top right corner, where those who generate the most danger and progress with passing converge.

Eredivisie

Given the particularities of the Eredivisie, with a more open game and a higher and more disorderly pace, it is more interesting to know who progresses the ball more through carrying as a statistic to complement the Expected Threat (xT). In this sense, there are very specific profiles, which in turn show a great superiority in generating danger through driving: Dusan Tadic, Antony, Sinisterra or Götze.

Argentina

Continuing with the style of play of each league, in Argentina it is interesting to know who generates threat through dribbling, where a new U-20 talent emerges in the recently started new season of the Primera Division: the ‘xeneize’ Exequiel Zeballos, far above the rest of players who appear and stand out (Sebastián Villa, Julián Álvarez or Matias Godoy), who we already highlighted in a recent text among the best U-20 Argentinean talents.

We are Driblab, a consultancy specialized in the statistical analysis of players and teams; our work is focused on advising and minimizing risk in professional football decision-making in areas related to talent detection and footballer evaluations. Our database has more than 200,000 players from more than 180 competitions, covering information from all over the world. Here you can learn more about how we work and what we offer.

Autor: Alejandro Arroyo
For Análisis de Jugadores we also recommend you:

Club Tijuana and Driblab sign partnership agreement

Club Tijuana Xoloitzcuintles de Caliente and Driblab sign partnership agreement

Driblab welcomes Bram van Barneveld, former Company Director at InStat, as Sales Director for Northern & Western Europe

Driblab welcomes Bram van Barneveld, former Company Director at InStat, as Sales Director for Northern & Western Europe

driblabPRO, updated to eight languages after Japanese translation

We deployed driblabPRO in Japanese, the eighth language in which our scouting platform is now available to all our clients.

Club Necaxa and Driblab sign partnership agreement

Club Necaxa and Driblab sign partnership agreement

Budapest Honvéd FC and Driblab sign partnership agreement

Budapest Honvéd FC and Driblab sign partnership agreement

FC Dallas and Driblab announce a strategic partnership

FC Dallas and Driblab have announced a strategic partnership aimed at improving player performance and scouting.

Sky Sport Italia: il miglior portiere nelle uscite alte (Italian)

Sky Sport analizza i due portieri del Milan in base alla loro capacità di uscire e di intercettare i cross: Mike Maignan risulta essere il miglior portiere d’Europa in questo aspetto, grazie alla nostra metrica “Precisione aerea”.

Driblab, speaker at RFEF courses

In a new edition of the Higher University Course of Sports Management of the Real Federacion Española de Futbol (RFEF), Driblab’s CEO, Salvador Carmona, taught a module to future sports directors.

Driblab and Sports Data Campus renew partnership agreement

Driblab and Sports Data Campus renew partnership agreement.

The most remarkable players of Copinha 2023

We highlight the most outstanding talents of Copinha 2023.

Driblab

Información corporativa

Somos una empresa con sede en Madrid fundada en 2017 por Salvador Carmona y Cristian Coré Ramiro. Desde nuestros inicios nuestro trabajo se ha centrado en el análisis estadístico de datos para ayudar a los clubes en la planificación deportiva. Somos una consultora big data que ofrece servicios personalizados para cada cliente y defiende un modelo de gestión mixto y una comunicación constante para acompañar el día a día de las instituciones. Nuestro punto fuerte es la más amplia cobertura disponible en número de torneos profesionales y juveniles. Para más detalles, póngase en contacto con nosotros.

Colaboramos con:

           

Hemos aparecido en: