Cristiano Ronaldo ~ Your Favorite Player Is So Much Better!! Thread

I don't particularly appreciate the condescension and misdirection.
As a wide player, Ronaldo took on deeper positions on average - to a significant degree. This is as explicit as it gets. You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of football if you think this is an illogical statement.

And you have yet to answer my question and contributed to derailing the convo as is your usual.

 

I am not sure what is condescension or aggression here. Guess the word overwhelmed? It is a pretty normal human emotion and you yourself said it is a tiresome conversation.. but whatever.

It seems I gave myself too overwhelming (lol) task so I am procrastinating on thinking about it so i will just casually ask few questions at the risk of missing the essence.. and probably find the essence in the process.

Btw, correct me if i am wrongly presenting your ideas at any point.

First of all I am curious about your thoughts and ideas on posession based systems opposed to counter attacking systems.

You have been very vocal about futility of backwards and sidepasses in posession based football (primarly in conversation about Xavi but in Messi vs Ronaldo debate as well) so does that mean that strictly valuable actions in midfield are forward (aka progressive) passes and progressive dribbles?

This also touches on your previous comments on Ronaldo being more effective than Messi due to producing more (or as much as Messi) output with less touches and passes.

And more general question I guess, which is better then, counter-attacking style or posession based, more patient style? How do you evaluate which is better? What metrics matter?

Subsequently, (if for the sake of clarity we limit our conversation about Ronaldo and Messi during Ronaldos period in Real), which team was better of the two, Barcelona or Real? The other way to look at that question is to ask who had better team during those 9 years in either teams peak and on average?

And lastly for now (to not overwhelm you), how the depth of Messis and Ronaldos positioning has any bearing on quality and production that youve answered in the first question?

So few questions:

1. What actions in build up and creation matter? What doesnt?

2. Which is better, counter-attacking system or posession-based, patient system? Based on which metrics can that be measured?
(If it depends, on what does it depend?)

3. Who had better team during Ronaldo's 9 years in Real, Messi or Ronaldo? At teams' peak and on average?

4. How does players' positioning depth plays a role on quality and production output?

 

These are interesting questions, but you in football, I am not an idealogue. That means I believe in winning - a method is justified if it brings results.

My discussion with respect to Xavi is the inherent value and difficulty of each action. I am not convinced that some of the passes greatly affect the game state. I am not convinced they represent the best possible option in a game state in offensive terms. I am not convinced that most of what he did could not be replicated by any great midfielder. Albeit, Xavi had qualities such as the reliability of his passing and his workrate in offensive phases that allowed the possession-based system to maintain fluidity. This means he was utilized in a specialized role of ball circulation, which allowed for better quality and longer phases of possession.
I think he and his teams found success when he was deployed in that role in the duration of time that the style/tactics were still fresh and they had the right personnel (all-time great strikers) - but I have seen many more capable midfielders who have more to offer on the pitch than Xavi - hence, my comments.

To answer your questions, it is not a simple yes or no! Tactics change, eras change, teams change. What matter is having the ability to reliably out-score and beat opponents (naturally the litmus test being the toughest ones).
If you look at break downs of goals whether in the Barca era or just in general, very few are coming from beating a low-block. Most goals come from transition (counter-attack) or longshots or breaking down a mid-block (teams adapted to this and became much less frequent after 2011 ish).
More broadly speaking, goals come from crosses and set pieces also.

Today, most teams that are elite are both capable of reliably maintaining the ball, building up, and hurting you in transition. The game is certainly becoming more direct in the last 3-4 years. Even Pep adapted with City.

All elite teams have historically tended to have the ball more than their opponents on average. So we need to define what we mean by possession-heavy. I would say that a team like City is more capable of reliably creating many chances against weaker opponents, while elite teams that are more direct are more capable when there is parity if that makes any sense. That's partly why Pep struggled in CL, but not in league format. Different tactical ball-game.

There is one principle that is true:
A disorganized opponent is easier to score against.
Periods of disorganization occur in
-Moments of transition between game state

This is why gegenpressing was so effective. The theory (and practice being) was to recover the ball in zones proximal to the opponent's net while there is no defensive shape.

So to answer your questions:
Quicker build-ups are generally better. If you can bypass a press efficiently or hurt the opponent before they collapse into a block, the better.

Madrid had the higher peak, Barcelona on average was better during that time span - with the caveat that the League was corrupt and it is difficult to interpret.

And for the 4th question,
Central positions tend to favour more touches. This obviously depends on how a team attacks or their opponent! In some games a CB may have more touches than a midfielder.
But GENERALLY speaking, the most central player sees more of the ball by virtue of being central (in close proximity to the ball more often than other players).

The 4th question would require a whole essay! But for the purposes of this discussion, while there is nuance here, a player that is in a role farther from the net will tend to have less goalscoring opportunity.

 

Cristiano Ronaldo vs Juventus (2018)

• 99 touches
• 3 goals
• 1 assist
• Scored/assisted every goal
• 3 big chances created
• 5/7 dribbles
• 8/8 aerial duels
• Last second tie winning goal
• Scored THAT goal
• Against an elite defence

GOAT🐐 pic.twitter.com/NZ2PN8nl35

— Salam Alaykum Bento (@CR7sLegacy) September 23, 2022

 

I believe in winning as well.

The goal of strategy and tactics are to create as many shots possible as close to the goal as possible, while conceding as few shots as possible.

In that sense, the most valuable actions on the pitch are the ones that make you closer to that goal. (although you didn't state which exact actions these are)

There is no inherently the single, best strategy and tactic because the best choice depends on qualities of squad and qualities of opposition. So there is a pragmatic element to all of it.

There is an important conversation here that I've not seen you talk about. Value and difficutly are two seperate concepts and should not be confused and misevaluated and miscontributed..

It is true that there are many types of actions on the pitch that are extremely valuable to the team and those actions vary in its difficulty of execution.

Some actions are "easy" passes and moves on and off the ball that are essential in achieving the goal previously stated and some actions are more difficult ones requiring a high technical, creative and/or physical ability and also essential in achieving the goal.

BUT, that doesn't mean that necessarly the most valuable actions in the moment are the technically, physically or creatively most difficult actions. Quite contrary, often the simplest passes and moves are the best decision atm.

this means that an ability to simplify game in ones mind and to look for the easiest to execute actions that are still valuable/essential, it is an extremely important aspect of the game (probably by far the most important). So it is a paramount to adopt playing style that utilizes opportunities to make these easy, but valuable and essential actions.

For example, every action that could possibly happen on the pitch falls into this graph.



Actions vary in its difficulty and its value. There are actions that are hard and useless and there are actions that are easy and useless. For example:



We can agree that those should be avoided. You bring no value to your team if your actions are useless no matter the difficulty.

So what we are left with are upper two quadrants.

But here is the thing, if you can make things consistently easier for you, you should. Why would you try to make things more difficult for yourself? To impress who? Engaging in unnecessarily difficult actions and failing at utilizing easy and meaningful actions is not good.

Every player should adopt playing style that puts him in a position to execute easy but meaningful actions AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. Player should be in the upper, right quadrant as much as possible.

Now, some actions indeed are inherently hard and meaningful and will always be like that. Dribbling your opponent one on one at the edge of the box and hitting the top right corner, yes, that is extremely hard and essential.

And yes, Xavi is not the best at those. He somehwat lacks compared to some players at his level and doesn't do those often. This is your whole argument against Xavi. It is valid point. Although it needs to be said that, by no means, Xavi is terrible at dribbling, long passes, shoting, creativity or anything one might call hard and meaningful.

But this perspective ignores the overarching point. There is more to football than difficult actions. 99% of time is spend not shoting from 25 meters, not making bicycle kicks, not dribbling past 3 defenders, but in "mundane" ball circulation and ball progression and this is where the unqinuess and value of Xavi gets glaringly obvious.

As you said, you watch Xavi's highlights and football looks easy. He is making easy-looking passes, easy-looking turns and ball controls, etc. And when thinking about whether Jorginho could do that, the answer is yes so you discredit what he is doing. But the reality is that Jorginho wouldn't be in position to do so, because of the crux of the issue.

The final mastery in football is not being able to perfect your shoting or passing abilities or ball control (if it was, then freestylers would be footballers), it is combining different tools to play simple football. To fully utilize these EASY and MEANINGFUL actions.

And Xavi is imo the best ever at that. He plays simple and effective football. He takes advantage of opportunities to do so. The accumulative value of that across 90 minutes footballl match where most if it is spend in midfield passing the ball around it enormous.

These are some of my thoughts.

I've planned to answer everything in the post but I have not time... i also have several follow up questions on what you've said.

 

"The goal of strategy and tactics are to create as many shots possible as close to the goal as possible, while conceding as few shots as possible."

I strongly disagree with this statement. Football is not Basketball - so strategy in high-level matches is actually not defined along these terms.
Those matches are a problem-solving approach - you look to exploit vulnerabilities, and protect yours. You may be looking to create a very particular type of chance. These are not played on the scale of probabilities, because there are insufficient events in a match for your probabilistic approach to make sense. As I said, football is not basketball. So this is not accurate! This would only be true if a match contained 100s of such events! It's just not in line with actual coaching prep that occurs in the real world. Football is more akin to battlefield/war strategy.

"In that sense, the most valuable actions on the pitch are the ones that make you closer to that goal. (although you didn't state which exact actions these are)"

For the reasons detailed above, this is not an entirely accurate statement!


There is an important conversation here that I've not seen you talk about. Value and difficutly are two seperate concepts and should not be confused and misevaluated and miscontributed..

It is true that there are many types of actions on the pitch that are extremely valuable to the team and those actions vary in its difficulty of execution.

Some actions are "easy" passes and moves on and off the ball that are essential in achieving the goal previously stated and some actions are more difficult ones requiring a high technical, creative and/or physical ability and also essential in achieving the goal.

BUT, that doesn't mean that necessarly the most valuable actions in the moment are the technically, physically or creatively most difficult actions. Quite contrary, often the simplest passes and moves are the best decision atm.

I do not disagree with what you are laying out, but it misconstrues my point. When I spoke of "easy", I meant that other great midfielders that are compared to Xavi could approximatively replicate what Xavi did on the pitch - perhaps not exactly to the same level, but could replicate the demands of his role/post. My point is that his individual actions are not generally efficient / productive. The majority of his possessions contribute to maintaining fluidity of the possession game. I do not deny that Xavi's role as executed was essential to the style of play Barca and Spain produced for a couple years. What I do deny is that he demonstrated the aptitudes and actions of "the best CM or midfielder", because I think a better midfielder would have done a more fruitful and productive job with those possessions.
I actually think Xavi was MORE CAPABLE than what he demonstrated. I think the 2008-09 Xavi is very different to the 2011-12 version. The latter became a parody of himself - obsessed with conservatism to an absurd degree.


But here is the thing, if you can make things consistently easier for you, you should. Why would you try to make things more difficult for yourself? To impress who? Engaging in unnecessarily difficult actions and failing at utilizing easy and meaningful actions is not good.

Every player should adopt playing style that puts him in a position to execute easy but meaningful actions AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. Player should be in the upper, right quadrant as much as possible.

No, this is not the point in football. My criticism of Xavi isn't his lack of flair. There are players who do not have flair - Nedved for example - that I think is better. I am not criticizing Xavi for not attempting very low probability, wow plays. No midfielder actually even plays like that (?maybe Neymar sometimes with PSG?)
I criticize him for not executing meaningfully effective or threatening plays with his possessions.
He is not a problem-solver. And problem-solving ability is a huge asset in football! Probably, the most valuable!

And yes, Xavi is not the best at those. He somehwat lacks compared to some players at his level and doesn't do those often. This is your whole argument against Xavi. It is valid point. Although it needs to be said that, by no means, Xavi is terrible at dribbling, long passes, shoting, creativity or anything one might call hard and meaningful.

But this perspective ignores the overarching point. There is more to football than difficult actions. 99% of time is spend not shoting from 25 meters, not making bicycle kicks, not dribbling past 3 defenders, but in "mundane" ball circulation and ball progression and this is where the unqinuess and value of Xavi gets glaringly obvious.

As you said, you watch Xavi's highlights and football looks easy. He is making easy-looking passes, easy-looking turns and ball controls, etc. And when thinking about whether Jorginho could do that, the answer is yes so you discredit what he is doing. But the reality is that Jorginho wouldn't be in position to do so, because of the crux of the issue.

This is not exactly my criticism of Xavi. I'm not sure Jorginho deserves to be in the same conversation as a Xavi. Nevertheless, Xavi did not have a very long time span as a premier midfielder. He "shone" when there was an unprecedented possession structure where he played centrally.

For example, I do not think that Xavi would have much of a place in modern football. He was useful for a very short timespan where the tactics, players, and circumstances of the era allowed for him to establish himself.

 

I have no idea what you are tying to say and what is there to strongly disagree with.

My statement regarding strategy (and tactics) is about the whole point of strategizing and it is self-evident (although i could have been more precise with terminology).

At no point did I imply in that statement that one strategy is better than the other and the notion of targeting opponents weaknesses and vulnerabilities is very much included in the statement.

To be more precise:

The goal of strategy (and tactics) is to maximize creation of shoting opportunities in favorable situations (zones - usually that means as close as possible) and minimize shoting opportunities in dangerous zones for opponent.

I kind of get your point if you meant that, for example, opponent's goalkeeper is strong in 1v1s, but vulnerable from long distances so a good startegy would be to shot from distance and that goes against my statement of "as close to the goal as possible". But that is nuance and imprecise wording from me. Not a basis upon which someone would say that they strongly disagree.

It seems like you just disagree for the sake of disagreeing. If we cant find common ground on this fundamental aspect of game then there is not point in going further into nuance regarding Xavi and Ronald and Messi.

To be clear this is my logic behind the statement:

1. To win you need to outscore your opponent by definition

2. That means that the goals are:

A) to score as much goals as possible.
B) to concede as few goal as possible.

Nothing to disagree here. That is a "duuuh" moment.

So the question is how to maximize your own chances of scoring goals (also minimize chance of conceding). There are few elements to scoring goal. To score a goal you first have to come close to the goal and create shoting opportunities so logically, to score as many goal as possible means to create as many shoting chances as possiblr.

The other step in scoring goals is finishing, which is important but goes beyond the realm of strategy. Finishing is an individual skill and irrelavant in conversation of the best startegies.

So which is the best strategy?

The best strategy is the one that creates the most shoting opportunities for yourself and concedes the fewest shoting opportunities for an opponent.

For example,

If we have strategy A by team X that results in team X creating 6 chances and conceding 10 chances, but due to excellent finishing by team X's strikers and poor finishing by the opponent's strikers the final result is 4-0.

Then we have strategy B for the same team X and against the same opponent. In this case team X creates 12 chances and concedes 5 chances, but the final result is 2-2 due to variability of finishing.

Startegy A resulted in a 4-0 win and strategy B resulted in a 2-2 draw.

Despite the final results, the strategy B is superior to the strategy A because because it had net +7 chances for Team X while strategy A had net -4 chances for Team X despite the final scoreline.

It is paramount to realize that strategies (and tactics) exist outside of the realm of finishing (and as a whole, outside of individual performance but lets not complicate things too much) and it should be judged based on chances created and conceded.

Probabilities are everyhwere including startegy. No strategy gives you a guarantee. The best one can do is to adopt strategy that gives you the highest probability to win,

Which means gives you the highest porbability to score a lot of goals and concede as few goals,

Which means gives you the highest probability to create a lot of quality shoting opportunities and concede as few qualoty chances.

It is about probabilities.

You can be better in terms of strategy and still lose because of finishing. That is not problem of strategy.

And i repeat, that doesnt mean a single strategy is better across the board against any opponent as weaknesses of opponents usually determine what is the best strategy for that game.

What about that is even remotely worth of "strongly disagreeing"?

 

The goal of strategy (and tactics) is to maximize creation of shoting opportunities in favorable situations (zones - usually that means as close as possible) and minimize shoting opportunities in dangerous zones for opponent.

My point is that at the highest level of the match - say a CL game - strategy and tactics (2 different things as you correctly pointed out) are not articulated around the point you made. In fact, many coaches forego even strongly developing set tactics in the final third.
A strategy could be as simple as ensuring absolute defensive solidity, and trusting an individual of quality to "find solutions".
Coaching staff are not computers, and in fact, many teams adopt strategies that deviate from probabilistic-based models.
Football is a fluid, complex (and somewhat "stochastic" game) that there can be very little REPLICABILITY of events and game-states - which means that the strategies are not directly formulated on that point.
No, I am not disagreeing to disagree - stop accusing me of bad faith and take the time to ponder my argument.

https://www.guidetofootball.com/tactics/

Read that article. As you see, it discusses the concept of "risk" (or threat as I put it). There is no discussion on +/- shot opportunity. Tactics are simply not typically formulated along those lines at the highest level. Do provide an article contradicting me, it will advane the discussion productively.

 

This is a nuance that is fairly obvious, but beyond the number of chances or their distance from goal, there’s also a somewhat independent element of the quality of chances. Let’s say Team A gets 4 chances inside the box at a reasonably close distance but in all instances there’s still defenders in front of the player who is shooting and the GK is set. And now let’s say Team B gets just 1 chance but it is a tap in on an open goal from a reasonably close distance. We’d probably expect Team B to, on average, score more goals because the quality of that one chance is so much better than the quality of Team A’s four chances.

Combined with what @Sexy Beast has otherwise been talking about, this could be distilled into basically saying that teams’ strategy and tactics revolve around maximizing their xG advantage. But, of course, even that is not exactly right. After all, teams know that their players (and the opposing team’s players) have idiosyncratic shooting profiles that do not entirely match up with xG. A player might be an above-average shooter from one area and a below-average shooter from another area. And since you’re actually trying to maximize the goals your team scores rather than the xG they accrue (and the same in terms of minimizing the goals scored against you), your tactics might end up not being xG maximizing because the team might prefer tactics that tend to produce a lower xG shot because they know that their own player will be better at scoring that on average. Same with what you aim to prevent the other team from getting.

Also, to the extent a manager mostly just lets players do their thing in the attacking third, that’s still defined by the general formation and roles given to players, and either way, the players themselves are trying to do this same maximization with whatever they try to do. That doesn’t suggest teams aren’t trying to maximize along these lines, but rather just is a point about how they go about doing that and who they give the decision-making authority on how to do it to.

 

Again, this is inaccurate and is simply not how tactics are formulated. Tactics are not articulated at the high level around a principle of net chance creation. It is simply not how it's done. A team can go 1-0 up, or be 0-0 and shut-down the game and be in a negative state of "goal probability" and yet have a higher chance of winning. Few teams if any actually use xG as a statistic!
In a CL match, there is no principle of high replicability of events and games are not high-scoring - so this is simply not how game theory evolved in the sport - contrary to say basketball.
Again, I ask you to provide a source discussing tactics within the scope of this paradigm.

 

I think you are confusing one thing.

Managers opting out for giving more freedom to attackers in ucl big games (although i am not sure that is true in the first place), is still a strategy and it is still about giving your team the highest probability of winning aka scoring more goals and conceding less.

I think you think of strategy as on-the-board drawn schemes of attacks like in basketball. You pass here, you move here then he passes the ball back, etc.

That is not a strategy

Strategy is an overarching idea on how to win. For example, we have physically stronger midfielders and and a pacey left winger. Opponent has a right fullback who is slow and liability in defense, so generally we aim to win the 2nd balls in the midfield and put our left winger into open space.

That is an example of strategy. Ideas on how to generally defend and how to generally attack.

Going into more depth in a sense of constructing a mechanism of attack (movements, overlaps, positioning) that enters the realm of tactics. How-to..

Regarding pribability. Strategy still aims to give you the hoghest probability of winning even if that means being more free-flowing and spontaneous.

Also that is true of all games. Mechanistic, robotic approach to games as in assigning overly-specified roles to each player is bad. Van Gaal and Unai Emery are guilty of that.

Article actually echoes my words but ive also went step further in theorizing what makes you score more and concede less.

Of course but for the sake of clarity i remained at the theoretical level assuming that chances are of equal quality and all players have the same profile.

This steps into the realm of pragmatism.

There is also more to that when introducing weaknesses of opponents, tempo of the game, calculations in terms of result needed, etc.

I refrained from using the word xG because i know he would go on a tangent that xG is flawed.

 

If a team shuts down the game and as a result concedes more chances than theyve created then that shuting down was a wrong strategy it just that it moght have worked because strategy is only one part of winning. Others are individual performances (skills, nerves under pressure) and ultimately luck..

 

This happens all the time in football, what are you talking about?
If you read the first xG article, it will explain to you why you cannot really compare cumulative xG of two teams to determine who had the best win probability - because you accumulate xG differentials differently according to game state.
This is basic game theory. Football tactics are not articulated around a shot generation differential probability theory. I have asked you to provide a reference, because this is clearly not accurate...

Again, football is not basketball! This is not a high-scoring / high-event type sport!!

 

Outscoring an opponent is NOT the same thing as "the point of tactics and strategy is to maximize shot differential".

 

I feel like there’s just a disconnect here in what is being talked about. Like, it should be quite uncontroversial that the goal of teams is to maximize the chance that they’ll outscore the opponent.

Obviously, there’s some nuances to that. So for instance, your goal in a second leg of a tie might not be to outscore the opponent if you’ve already outscored them a bunch in the first leg. Or if you’re a much weaker team and just trying to get a draw then you may be maximizing for that instead of maximizing for winning. Or you’re ahead in a match and just trying to hold your lead. But, in general, teams are aiming to maximize the chances that they’ll outscore an opponent. And in those instances where they’re not, they’re largely just trying to minimize the chances that the other opponent will outscore them. So it’s very similar anyways. The point of football is to score goals and not concede goals, so obviously teams’ aim is to do exactly that, with a finger on the scale of one side of the equation sometimes depending on the score at the time.

It seems to me that this is all @Sexy Beast is saying, and I just don’t really see how it’s arguable in the slightest.

I’m not really sure what the objection here is. Obviously it can’t be to the basic concept, since the basic concept is categorically correct. It feels like the point being made is just that football is a really fluid game in which there’s almost infinite potential game states and you can’t plan detailed strategy for every little thing that arises. Of course that’s true. But I’m not sure how that relates to the general point being made. In no sport does a team’s overall tactics account for every little thing that might happen, nor do the tactics never change as the game state changes. You have general tactics for different game states (including whether you’re ahead or behind, but also other things as well), and at an even more micro-level the players themselves adjust for the essentially infinite minor permutations that arise in the moment. That’s true of football and every other sport. At all points, though, the tactics and actions of the players have the goal of getting a result, and that result depends on scoring goals and not conceding goals. That’s what it’s all about. Teams and players are trying to score goals and not concede goals in order to get a good result, and all their actions are built around that aim. The only big football-specific nuance is that draws exist and two-legged ties exist, so there’s actually sometimes a distinction between trying to win and trying not to lose.

But regardless of exactly what result a team is trying to achieve, it is always going to rely on trying to maximize goals scored and/or minimize goals conceded, since that’s just how the game works. And since goals are inherently scored and conceded through goalscoring chances, obviously teams are trying to maximize and minimize those, since those are how you score and concede goals. This feels like something that should be easy to agree on. Saying basically “Yeah, but if a team is ahead, then they play to hold that lead instead of necessarily to score more” is true but is missing the general point here. Teams in those scenarios are still optimizing around goalscoring chances—it’s just that what they’re doing is optimizing with the aim of minimizing the other team’s effective goalscoring chances, rather than trying to maximize the net goalscoring chances.

_________

Tl;dr: See below

So maybe the objection is to the idea that teams are always trying to maximize net goalscoring chances? That’s a fair objection, because sometimes teams are ahead (or just playing for a draw) and mostly just trying to minimize the other team’s goalscoring, and sometimes a team is behind late and are mostly just trying to maximize their own goalscoring chances. So it’s not always about net goalscoring chances, because sometimes the aim of achieving a result requires a finger be put on the scale of one side of the equation even if it doesn’t optimize net goalscoring chances. But at a more general level, it’s still always about maximizing goalscoring chances and/or minimizing goalscoring chances conceded in some way.

 

The fact that it happe s all the time is not the proof of being it the optimal strategy.

At every point in the game, the best strategy is to maximize goal differential. Period.

That doesnt mean teams will opt for the best strategy as it requires the most skills and organization (obviously, that is why it is the best) and in already favorable situations teams opt for subpar, but still good enough strategies that will get the job done like preventing opponent from creating chances at the sacrifice of chance creation

This no way, shape or form contradicts the statement about goal differnetial. The best strategy remains to keep scoring goals and not conceding.

You k ow what is better than having 1-0 lead? Having a 2-0 lead, or 3-0 or 4-0..

Opting for subpar strategy is a pragmatic choice teams will usually choose in favorable situations.

But make no mistake, the strategy to just defend often backfires sort of proving the point it is not the best strategy. By dropping deep and defending, you lose the threat of attacks which give opponent more freedom to attack with greater number of players.

For example, City took on a pragmatic choice of defending the lead against Real in 2022 semi final and it backfired because it allowed Real to attack more effectively while until that point and in general Coty was much better team and if they continued there own style, real would keep having no answers to it.

Regardless of pragmatic approaches that managers might go for in certain situations, that has no bearing that the best strategy remains the one that maximizes goal differential.

 

You're philosophizing, not describing actual football theory. It does not happen all the time - at least not to a degree that obviates this sort of approach (I only gave you one example) - otherwise people would have stopped a very long time ago.

You made an overarching statement about how football tactics and strategy are articulated/developed at the high level - and it is not accurate.

 

I guess I don’t entirely agree with this. I do think there’s game states that exist in which teams rationally depart from purely maximizing net goalscoring chances.

For instance, let’s say Team A is ahead of Team B by 3 goals. Team A’s aim at this point is to not be outscored by 3 goals the rest of the way. Obviously, scoring more would help them do that. But it may be that the way to maximize the chances of not being outscored by 3 goals the rest of the way isn’t actually to try to maximize for net goalscoring chances, due to the variability in scoring goalscoring chances. Like, if you try to maximize net goalscoring chances, you may have to play in a more open way where both teams get more goalscoring chances, and due to variability in finishing that might actually have a higher chance of resulting in you being outscored by 3 goals than if you just tried to minimize chances conceded.

So, to put some numbers on the above, let’s say the following is true: Team A is ahead by 3 goals and can maximize net goalscoring by playing with Tactic A.

In Tactic A, there’s a 10% chance of scoring 3 more goals than the opponent the rest of the way, 15% chance of scoring 2 more goals than the opponent; 20% chance of scoring 1 more goal than the opponent, 30% chance of scoring equal goals as the opponent the rest of the way, 10% chance of being outscored by 1 goal the rest of the way, 10% chance of being outscored by 2 goals, and 5% chance of being outscored by 3 goals. On average, you'd expect to outscore the opponent by 0.35 goals the rest of the way with Tactic A. But, given the game state where you're ahead by 3 goals, the actual important thing is that you have a 95% chance of winning the game, because there's only a 5% chance of being outscored by 3 goals the rest of the way.

Now let's take Tactic B, where you instead try to minimize goals scored by the opponent. This tactic will result in a less open game and therefore less variance in the two teams' scoring the rest of the way. It will not maximize net goalscoring chances though, and will actually make your team do worse on average than Tactic A.

In Tactic B, there's a 2.5% chance of scoring 3 more goals than the opponent the rest of the way, 5% chance of scoring 2 more goals than the opponent the rest of the way; 10% chance of scoring 1 more goal than the opponent; 50% chance of scoring equal goals as the opponent the rest of the way; 20% chance of being outscored by 1 goal the rest of the way, 10% chance of being outscored by 2 goals, and 2.5% chance of being outscored by 3 goals. On average, you'd expect to be outscored by the opponent by 0.2 goals the rest of the way with Tactic B. But, given the game state, the important thing is that you have a 97.5% chance of winning the game, because there's only a 2.5% chance of being outscored by 3 goals the rest of the way.

In this stylized example, we’d be smart to choose Tactic B, even though it is worse for maximizing net goalscoring, because it is better for retaining that 3 goal lead. (Note: Of course, if this were the first leg of a two-legged tie, then we’d choose Tactic A instead). And we could posit a similar example in which a team is behind a lot late in a game—they’d perhaps optimize their chances of a comeback by using tactics that actually are so attacking that they’re bad from a net goalscoring perspective, but do nevertheless maximize the chance that they’ll make the comeback.

 

Or play for a draw.
Or play to not concede.
Or play to survive an initial onslaught and try to strike late in the game.
Or play for set-pieces.
Coaching staff do not approach CL matches in the manner delineated by @sexybeast. They absolutely do not.

 

Yeah I mean I think you can tell I agree with this to a decent extent. But I do think that at a more general level it is clearly true that the game is about maximizing goals scored and minimizing goals conceded, perhaps with a finger on the scale for what element of that is deemed more important at times given the game state.

And by the way, I’d say stuff like “play for set pieces” and “try to strike late in the game,” is just part and parcel with optimize for goals scored and conceded. That’s just a description of how a team might think it is best to do that, given the personnel they have and the opponent.

 

Psg had 4-0 lead against barcelona in the first leg 2017. 4 goals is a lot and in the same context they tried to just not concede 4 goals. It sounds easy. Doesnt it? So they defended. Compeltely changing their strategy from the first game. How well did that go?

You cant neutralize opponent by just defending. Not trying to create chances is not a viable solution. The threat of goalscoring is a form of defending. If opponent realizes that you are not seriously trying to create chances, it is taken advantage of.

In pragmatic sense, when you have a lead that is enough you want to shut the game down. Make opponents xG 0 and if necessary your own xG 0.

Pragmatically good enough, in theory maximizing xG differntial is still better in that scenario as well. And practically speaking even necessary..

Lets put it this way.

You are 3-0 up. Have a 3 goal cushion.

From that point onwards, which strategy would give you a higher probability of winning:

A: strategy that produces 0.25 xG - 0.25 xG

B: strategy that produces 3,00 xG (for team in question) - 0.25 xG

Strategy B is still better although it could be argued redundantly better, but it is better.

But redundance is considered in the term pragmatic.

Therefore strategy A might be pragmatic, but it is not the best in theory.

Regarding your example. This is another point about xg differential.

Having a 2 xg difference is not the same and it doesnt give you the same probability of winning precisely because of the reason youve said about variability of goalscoring.

For example. Performance of: 2 xG - 0 xG is better than performance of: 4 xG - 2 xG. Despite both having the same 2 xG differential.

In a scenario where you concede 2 xG, you would need to score more than 4 xG to give you the same chances as the other performance.

Because 2 xG difference is not really as big in the second scenario as it is in the first scenario.

An extreme example would demonstrate that very easily. For example performance of 14 xG - 12 xG is up for graps for anyone and not particularly impressive performance or strategy despite the same 2 xG.

Also i am not sure in validity of percantages you gave for tactics. Is it possible for there to be a tactic that distributes percantages of those outcomes in that way or is it arbitrary.. we can make up any numbers in that sense but do tactics really distribute percantages that way...

There is more things to say like that, but going into nuances really deters conversation from the overall point. You want to have strategy that maximizes chance creation and minimazes conceding chances.

All of that Ive mentioned for one simple reason, to create a common ground based on which we can evaluated certain types of actions. To give a context to what we mean by value when we say valuable actions and theorize which actions are the most valuable and which are less valuable.

We can talk about nuance and "exceptions" till the end of time. Nothing is black and white.

 

Yeah, ultimately, I agree this is mostly a sideshow. We should be able to agree on a common ground in which the value of actions comes down to how they affect the chances of scoring a goal and the chances of conceding a goal.

 

If you refer to my post, that is what I said. Ultimately, you need to score more goals than you concede, but that is a different proposition than maximizing net shot differential in a probabilistic manner as the underlying bedrock of football tactic and strategy development.

 

You are arguing about the exception, and even then the example is not accurate. The answer to the PSG example is not that PSG should have scored more - they probably should have just defended a little better. But there's no point in splitting hairs over a single example.
We are not discussing philosophy or how you WOULD LIKE teams to play - we are describing how they actually play.

 

If a football match was played over 1000 minutes, you would be correct @Sexybeast, but you cannot scale down a strategy that would work over a 1000 minutes, to a 90 minute match which has far fewer, and non-replicable events.