All passes are equal, but some are more equal than others.
Anyone who’s played the game understands intuitively that existing soccer stats such as possession, shots and corners are limited at best and misleading at worst.
These are the stats from the second leg 2010 Champions League semi-final between Barcelona and Inter Milan.
Barcelona won the match 1-0. Inter won the tie 3-2 and proceeded to the final.
In another game, 52% possession, 18 shots and 7 corners against 48% possession, 14 shots and 5 corner kicks seems like a close encounter.
Except it wasn’t. Germany beat Brazil 7-1.
Anyone who’s run a fantasy team has rued the injustice of a crucial but unacknowledged N’Golo Kanté interception.
Or a Mesut Özil through ball that takes out three defenders before being cut back by Alexis Sanchez for an Olivier Giroud tap in.
Özil was the architect, but the spoils go elsewhere.
That’s about to change.
German defensive midfielders Stefan Reinartz (formerly of Bayer Leverkeusen) and Jens Hegeler (currently at Hertha Berlin) used to get frustrated at their roles as unsung heroes. So they’ve done something about it.
They’ve introduced beating opponents – or ‘packing’ – as a new, objective metric that measures the quality of a moment in play, whether it be passing or dribbling.
For example, how many players does Messi ‘pack’ with this through ball to Angel Di Maria? I count five, possibly six.
In defence, a team wants to keep the score against them as low as possible.
The system also measures how good players are at receiving the ball, so we now know that Italy’s Graziano Pellè was the best target man at the Euros, collecting balls that took out an average of 82 players per game.
It’s just a shame about his penalty.
For me, packing represents a great jump forward. I’m looking forward to finding out if they have plans to back test the metric and prove a long-term correlation between sending defenders packing and winning a game.
Don’t bet against it.
Packing: The Essentials
- Packing was invented by former Bayer Leverkeusen teammates Stefan Reinartz and Jens Hegeler.
- It is a system that assigns numerical values to effective moments of play.
- The more players that are taken out by a pass or dribble, the higher the score.
- The total number of opponents out-played by a team is called the Packing Rate.
- Real Madrid’s Toni Kroos was the most successful ‘Packer’ at the Euros, taking out an average of 82 opponents per game.
- It was first used as an on-screen metric during the Euros by German broadcaster ARD.
- The software is being developed by Cologne-based company IMPECT.
How Impect Evaluated The Euros
Best Packing: (outplayed opponents in total – average on 90min)
1. Toni Kroos 84
2. Tamas Kadar 76
3. Martin Hinteregger 64
4. Jerome Boateng 60
5. Mats Hummels 56
6. Granit Xhaka 55
Best Impect: (outplayed defenders in total – average on 90min)
1. Eden Hazard, Ces Fabregas 9
3. Kevin De Bruyne, Andres Iniesta 8
5. Toni Kroos, Antoine Griezmann, Joao Moutinho, Jan Vertonghen, Daniel Sturridge 7
Best Pass Receiver: (outplayed opponents as pass receiver in total – average on 90min)
1. Graziano Pellé 82
2. Mesut Özil 66
3. Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Nolito 64
5. Morata 62
6. Olivier Giroud 58
7. Cristiano Ronaldo 57
What do you think of packing? Flawed hype? Big step forward? Fullproof metric? Let me know in the comments below.