Where Goals Come From: How Do You Train The Killer Pass?

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Where Goals Come From: How Do You Train The Killer Pass?

Introduction

In our last article, Jamon introduced the concepts of the “killer final balls” that lead to the best goal conversion rates - those types of key passes that are the most efficient and dangerous. More specifically, the two most “deadly” types of passes in this sub-category are through-balls and cutbacks. As is always the case with this series, our purpose is to create a framework which is actionable and applicable to teams- theory has very little meaning for us.

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Where Goals Come From: Playing the Killer Final Ball

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Where Goals Come From: Playing the Killer Final Ball

This is the third article of Season Two and tenth overall article in a series of articles and videos in the Where Goals Come From project from Jamon Moore and Carl Carpenter.

In our last article, we discussed how Expected Goals (xG) helps us evaluate the quality of the shots that a team takes and concedes. That evaluation can happen with individual shots, with a full game, several games (looking at trends), and over the course of a season. As we know from Season One of this series, the type of shot a player gives us a good indication of the typical Goal Conversion Rate (GCR), starting with the very effective shots from Through balls and Cutbacks. We have twelve types of shots in total in our framework, including penalty shots, across five different categories.

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Where Goals Come From: Using past goals to create future goals

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Where Goals Come From: Using past goals to create future goals

The outline for this article is going to be:

  • If you’ve heard about or looked at xG in the past but either 1) didn't see its utility or 2) didn't know how to make it useful, we want to help with these scenarios in this article and upcoming articles.

  • xG is always improving, so regardless of what you saw or read about a few years ago, it is much better now at evaluating individual shots because of better and more data.

  • Not all xG values from various sources are equal because there is not equal access to the data points and data volume, and because data providers, clubs, and analysts have varying ideas on how to value shots and optimize their models.

  • There are other stats and metrics that are not talked about as much as xG but can also be very useful in addition to or along with xG. Some may be better suited to your audience.

  • xG helps us answer the quality question about a shot, and we'll be talking about improving shot quality utilizing xG and other tools throughout this season. Without xG, shot quality becomes highly subjective and experiential.

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Where Goals Come From: What It Takes For Teams To Be Elite

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Where Goals Come From: What It Takes For Teams To Be Elite

This is the first article of Season Two and ninth overall article in a series of articles and videos in the Where Goals Come From project from Jamon Moore and Carl Carpenter.

Season Two Introduction

In the eight articles of Season One of the Where Goals Come From project we demonstrated how “progressive pass” goals make up 40% of the goals scored in professional soccer.

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Where Goals Come From: Training for Progressive Pass Finishing

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Where Goals Come From: Training for Progressive Pass Finishing

This is the seventh article in a series of articles and videos in the Where Goals Come From project from Jamon Moore and Carl Carpenter.

Now that we have inundated you with progressive passing data, videos, and presentations, now comes the time where I provide examples of how to create these types of opportunities in matches by applying these attacking principles to training. This is the part which is the most important to me personally: it’s easy for us to theorize and analyze what successful teams do well and identify these as the top levels of the game, however, the goal (no pun intended) of the Where Goals Come From project is ultimately to impact clubs and coaches to incorporate this framework into their strategy and game models.

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Where Goals Come From: Putting Balls into the Box

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Where Goals Come From: Putting Balls into the Box

This is the fifth article in a series of articles and videos in the Where Goals Come From project from Jamon Moore and Carl Carpenter.

Data providers and analysts have long talked about successful passing “into the box” and shots that come from it, however, until now, we are not aware of a framework for providing context of how to separate “good, better, and best” of these situations other than location as identified by Expected Goals (xG), particularly one that can be used at all levels of a football club. In our estimation, this does not make the information very actionable for players. Expected Goals on their own do not provide a way of telling us the situation that created a shot.

As we are demonstrating in these “Where Goals Come From” articles, situational context matters a great deal. It’s not just the type of pass, but details such as the direction of the pass, the speed of play, the number of defenders between the ball and goal, the height of the pass, the quality of the reception (first touch), the location of the goalkeeper, and much more.

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Where Goals Come From: How The Best Teams in MLS Pass

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Where Goals Come From: How The Best Teams in MLS Pass

This is the fifth article in a series of articles and videos in the Where Goals Come From project from Jamon Moore and Carl Carpenter.

By now, readers of the Where Goals Come From project will be very in tune with the benefits of progressive passing in soccer, both from a data and tactical perspective. Within these last few weeks you’ve probably noticed a trend about the scope of progressive passing and its effectiveness throughout all levels of men’s and women’s football, furthering its importance within the game as a means of scoring goals (you know...where goals come from).

However, as American Soccer Analysis, we would be remiss to not put one specific league under the microscope and take a deeper look: in this case, Major League Soccer. In doing so, I’m going to look at the various tactical schemes the “defining” teams of the past three seasons in MLS have used to find success. These teams are:

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Where Goals Come From: Passing in the Final Third

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Where Goals Come From: Passing in the Final Third

This is the fourth article in a series of articles and videos in the Where Goals Come From project from Jamon Moore and Carl Carpenter.

In case you missed it

A companion article to this one

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Where Goals Come From: The Five Progressive Passes

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Where Goals Come From: The Five Progressive Passes

This is the third article in a series of articles and videos in the Where Goals Come From project from Jamon Moore and Carl Carpenter.

Parts one and two:

A companion article to this one:

In part one, we showed how teams that score more goals per game and per season use progressive passes to set up shots that are more likely to be scored than other types of shots, regardless of league or level in the professional game. Teams that concede fewer goals over time generally start by conceding fewer goals created from progressive passes. To maximize goal differential, clubs should focus on areas that have the biggest impacts.

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Where Goals Come From: Tactical Progressive Passing Movements

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Where Goals Come From: Tactical Progressive Passing Movements

This is the second article in a series of articles and videos in the Where Goals Come From project from Jamon Moore and Carl Carpenter. Read part one on Where Goals Come From.

Scoring goals in soccer is hard. Broadly speaking, in the elite European leagues, most matches have no more than three goals per game. This scarcity in goal scoring is the reason why metrics such as Expected Goals (xG) have gained such a foothold amongst the analytics (and increasingly the general) community: anything to gauge the value of a team’s chance creation is gold dust.

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