The drunken Joe who reduces football in its entirety to only goals is still orders of magnitude better than the one who doubts that goals are even valuable in the first place. Now you can try to twist what I said but good luck with that. You can barely string two coherent sentences together without leaning on ChatGPT and your spelling looks like a car crash in slow motion. If I truly believed assists or pre assists held absolutely no value in football, I wouldn’t have spent my time two pages ago posting all of Cristiano’s assists and pre assists to a certain player. But that’s not what I believe. The main point of contention is what does it means to be ‘clutch’ Clutch ability in football is synonymous with goalscoring and goalscoring is the only universally recognised measure of clutch ability. That’s what it is and that’s exactly what I said. If you don’t want to take it from me you can take it from OPTA How Gakpo has become a clutch player for Slot and if you don’t want to take it from OPTA you can take it from Squawka Who are the most “clutch” goalscorers in football? - Analytics FC And if you don’t want to take it from squawka you can take it from your beloved ChatGPT ————————- —————————— And if you don’t want to take it from your beloved ChatGPT you can take it from the many dozens of articles written by random analysts and journalists who have attempted to clearly define exactly what it means to be ‘clutch’ in football. One of them is here and with your internet access I’m sure you can find many more Defining Clutch in Football – Soccer Politics / The Politics of Football So what do you want to do? Redefine football? Fine do what you want but call it something else. What you should knuckle into your head is the following Football is played with a ball made of polyurethane, before that it was leather and before that inflated animal bladders. Every single team fields 11 players on the pitch a compromise of 1 goalkeeper and 10 outfield players each with a defined role, yet all united by a single objective which is to score more goals than the opposition. It’s very simple, it can be elegant to some and some even like to call it the beautiful game. Yet somehow some ‘analysts’ feel compelled to completely drown it in pseudo logic and arbitrary metrics as if calculating pre assists to the nth decimal changes the one universally recognised truth Goals decide matches and goals scored under pressure decide legends. Pure and simple Sayonara Hideous Beast
Define the word clutch in general, outside of the football. There is a difference between goals and being the last guy who touched the ball before the ball went in. "Scoring goal" and "goal" are not the same. Scoring is important, but so is everything else. Whether it is a final or not, the relative values of scoring, passing, etc. do not change. So you are wrong with what you said previously.
So now sexy beast has turned into a tap dancer You ask me to define clutch outside of football? Why would I do that when we’re talking about football. But f*ck it let’s do it to make you happy Clutch is a sporting term and it generally means delivering under pressure when it matters most. And in football there is only one act that directly and conclusively changes the scoreboard and that is putting the ball in the back of the net. Being the tap dancer that you are, no doubt you will try to hide behind the dictionary definition of ‘clutch’. Words adapt their meaning to the sport. Just like ‘drive’ doesn’t mean the same thing in golf as it does in basketball. Or pitch doesn’t mean the same thing in baseball as it does in football. In football the act of being ‘clutch’ is synonymous with scoring goals when your team needs it. You then say “there’s a difference between goals and the last guy who touched the ball.” Yes genius that’s literally why goalscorers exist. The whole act of finishing under pressure is what defines the moment as clutch. As for your “scoring is important but so is everything else” line I don’t disagree that everything else is important but something merely being “important” isn’t the same as something being “clutch. Pressing is important, passing is important, marking is important but none of them are clutch. Goals are the only universally recognised measure of being clutch in football and that is the difference you keep on tap dancing round. And for your claim “that the value of things doesn’t change between a final and a random league match” You are completely wrong Context changes everything. A World Cup final goal or a Champions League final goal doesn’t carry the same weight as a goal scored in November vs Burnley or Getafe and history proves it every single time. Finals are rarer, the stakes are higher and the psychological pressure is immense. Goals in these moments carry unmatched weight. By every rational standard be it scarcity, consequence, psychological weight or legacy goals in finals cannot carry the same weight as goals in ordinary matches. To say otherwise is to strip football of its drama, it’s stakes, and ultimately it’s meaning. Please remind me the last time Roberto Baggio looked like this after failing to complete a dribble vs Lecce or after his ‘pre assist’ was not converted into a goal vs Bari. Please remind me the last time Lionel Messi cried like this after his BCC wasn’t converted by Luis Suarez in a game vs Getafe. And the sheer irony is that they looked this depressed after failing to score the most ‘inferior’ type of goal. And that is a penalty. You see the problem with you and nerds like you is that you live in spreadsheets when the game is played on grass and before that it often used to be played on pitches that resembled mud baths.
"Clutch is a sports term that refers to the phenomenon where athletes excel under pressure, commonly known as "in the clutch". These moments typically occur later in the game, and involve plays that significantly impact the outcome of the game." This is the definition of 'clutch' within sports (source from Wikipedia Clutch section). A play that significantly impacts the outcome of the game; in games like basketball, this can be blocks, rebounds, or 3-pointers, but it is quite different in football. The most common way a player can significantly impact the outcome of a football/soccer game is via goals; there's no debate about that, but there is a lot of nuance and discussion about what that might be, so I think the real question is how big is the gap between the impact of playmaking and the impact of a goalscorer when your team is under pressure? and, for me, the impact of a scorer is far more significant then a player. At least, this is my perspective.
So you're saying G/A is more a product of team dynamics than individual performance right? I want this to be very clear because I'm going to build my whole argument based on it. I agree that football is a team sport and teammates performances can affect a player performance but you're overemphasizing it. G/A by definition is by definition a direct measure of goals a player scores and assists he provides. Those are individual actions even if enabled by teammates. A player who consistently finish chances or delivers key passes is demonstrating individual ability regardless of who sets them up. A teammate pass or finish can help but the player's ability to convert or create is what counts on G/A. GC% on the other hand depends on the teammates ability to score without this player's involvement. If a player scores 30 goals and assists 10 in a season, that number holds whether his teammates scores 40 or 80 goals without his involvement. So again, this stat isn't about the player, it's about his teammates. Again, I agree teammates influence G/A by converting or creating chances but that doesn't mean it doesn't depend on the player. For example: two players can receive the same number of chances but score different number of goals depending on their goalscoring ability. Also the same striker can receive the same number of passes from different players but score different number of goals depending on the playmaking ability of who made the the pass. So G/A reflects mostly a player individual performance especially in a large sample size. Let's assume that player A plays for a super stacked team and player B plays for an underdog. But despite this, both had 20 G/A. You would say that player A had his stats inflated by his teammates but player B's ability to achieve this same number despite weaker support shows his individual brilliance. That shows G/A is more about the player's individual performance than you claim. You're overstating football's collective nature to downplay individual contributions. A lone striker scoring despite limited number of chances demonstrates individual impact. The crux issue with GC% is it's not based on individual performance, it's based on teammates' performances
GC% is a tool designed to measure teammates performances by showing their goalscoring contribution without this player involvement. It's not designed to directly compare individual performance. A player's low GC% shows his teammates higher contribution and vice versa. I agree, worse teammates can reduce a player's out put but GC% isolates teammates performances, not player's own goals.
Again, GC% shows teammates' productivity, not player's productivity. If teammates score more goals without the player's involvement, the GC% is low. If teammates score fewer goals without your involvement, the GC% is high.It's quite simple to understand that this is the purpose of the metric. In all the examples you gave, the determining factor was not the player, but his teammates.For example: you said that the highest GC% of Mbappé's career was playing with Messi and Neymar This is because Messi and Neymar produced fewer goals when they played with Mbappé. It's not that Mbappé has played better in these seasons. Messi and Neymar have produced fewer goals in these seasons. In other words, The determining factor for Mbappé's high GC% was not the goals he contributed, it was the low number of goals his teammates scored. It's the same with Messi at Barça and Argentina. The determining factor in Messi's GC% wasn't Messi himself. It was how much his teammates did without relying on him. And so on. Regarding Bald Man and Carnevalle I was speaking in the context of if they produced more goals without Maradona's involvement, Maradona's GC% would be lower. Again, this statistic isn't about Maradona, it's about Maradona's teammates.
This is a simplistic and very limited version of what really happens on a football field, and it’s so simplistic that it’s actually wrong, because yes, a well-placed pass can be worth more than a goal (Messi to Molina in the Netherlands game), a player who dribbles past 5 opponents and gives a pass for another to tap the ball into the net is an action that’s worth more than the goal itself, or even a pre-assist can be worth more than the goal. If a player takes the ball at midfield, dribbles past 5 defenders, and scores in a clutch moment, that is obviously a goal of great individual value because the player is generating that action by himself. There are goals that have more value than others, a long-distance shot is also a goal with great individual value. Now, if you have a play where the whole team, through passing, creates the goal opportunity and the striker is just the last link pushing the ball under the net, then it’s the team that was clutch. The vast majority of goals in football are highly collective plays where the credit is distributed among everyone.
You define words because within a definition of words you have all the answers. Definitions matter. That is how you avoid logical pitfalls and half-assed analysis that succumb to biases, and uncover the truth. Goals are indeed the objective of football. Scoring more and conceding less. It is literally the goal of football - to score goals. But there is a big difference between goals and goalscoring. They are not interchangable with each other. Goals are the only thing that matter in football, but providing a final touch, aka finishing, is only a part of the equation. Clutch play is any action under high stakes (do or die moments) that drastically swings chances in favor of your team. Either by increasing chance of scoring (or finishing it) or stopping opposition from scoring. There is no reason that the definition of clutch would prevent for such things as a clutch save for example. Gk making a remarkable save in do or die moment completely falls under definition of clutch you yourself posted here. Saying that clutch only refers to scoring is categorically wrong. Clutch is not synonymous with scoring. This is further debunked by a simple hypothetical scenario where in 95th minute of a world cup final, with scoreline 2-2, a player dribbles past 3 players and squares the pass to a teammate for an open net tap in. Clutch action in this play is the dribble and pass, not the tap in. So you are categorically wrong, and the insistance on scoring being the only clutch category is ridiculous. I will say tho that scoring is usually the most imporrant aspect of football overall, but this doesnt warrant for the leap that clutch = scoring. It is not. No. Again, finals are played under the same rulebook, with the same game mechanics and dynamics. The "objective" value and importance of each skill and aspect of football within the game mechanics of the sport do not change based on context of the tournament. Football is played exactly the same way no matter if it is final, or r16 or friendly match. The context of match itself in narrative and tournament does not change relative value of each skill or fame dynamics. It might add pressure and intensity of each moment that players have to dela with, but value of each skill is always the same within the same rulebook. The rulebook of any sport determines what skills matter or dont matter and the rulebook is not changing for finals and tournaments. So scoring is not more improtant in finals than in any other game. It is equally important across the board. Defined by the game mechanics itself.
There are several problems: each action has a different degree of individuality (some goals are more valuable than others), and each player has a different situation. Hypothetical case: Messi at Barcelona: 1.5 G/A p90 and 65% GC. Messi at Eibar: 0.75 G/A p90 and 75% GC. Messi is the same player, but why is he generating less than before? Because in the case of goals, at Eibar he would receive fewer chances to score and, on top of that, those chances would be of lower quality (less xA received, so to speak). And on top of that, many of the key passes Messi gives to his teammates would be wasted because they would miss more than if he played in a stronger team. So even if Messi fulfills his role perfectly, his “raw numbers” would be half of what they could be at Barcelona. You also have to consider that some goals are more individual than others. It’s not the same to pick up the ball at midfield, dribble past 5 opponents, and score, as it is to just tap the ball in from close range—a tap-in is a much more collective goal. A separate data point I found some time ago, which is related to individuality: I wanted to measure how “meritorious” players’ goals were, and I found an interesting pattern. Players from the 80s and 90s had (in proportion to their total goals) many more goals of high individual value, like receiving the ball outside the box or scoring long shots. You see this in Maradona, Platini, Zico—even center forwards like Ronaldo or Romário had lots of goals where they received the ball outside the box (Maradona, while at Napoli, was only assisted inside the box 5 times). On the other hand, when you analyze more modern football, the proportion of tap-ins increases, and the total number of goals scored by teams increases. From my point of view, this happens because teams are better and collective plays are more effective than before, but at the same time they are more collective goals. What do I mean by this? Playing in a great team increases the number of goals a player scores, but at the same time, those goals are more collective. In other words, if Messi played at Eibar, he would have half as many goals as at Barcelona, but a large proportion of those goals would be more individualistic actions.
So you are clutching at straws with a hypothetical scenario that hasn’t occurred in the 95 years of the World Cup tournament actually existing Imagine the 95th minute of a World Cup final and it’s tied 2-2. A player beats 3 defenders squares it perfectly and the striker misses the open net. According to your own definition the dribble and pass were ‘clutch’ but the only thing registered is that the team didn’t score. That proves ‘clutch’ only exists when the ball actually goes in. Which in turn proves that clutch ability is synonymous with goalscoring.
The word design is misleading. It is a simple arithmetic. It doesnt measure teammates performance. It measures how well player contributed to overall goal tally of his team. It indirectly compares it to teammates performance. That is improtant distinction. Gc% is role-blind. There are obviously things that need to be understand about football before you can put gc% value in a proper context. That is not a problem tho. It is rather obvious that you will not comapre right fullbacks gc% directly with striker's. It doesnt isolate teammates performance. There are multiple factors and effects going on. It is also not given that if palyer has better teammates will mecessarly result in decrease in gc%. There is such thing as synergetic effect, because they play im the same team and we measure not just goals but assists and so on. Introduction of a great teammate can indeed result in higher gc% for both because if other player is scorinf goals, you cma assist it and both end up with greater gc%. Gc% is NOT a zero sum game. If we only measired g% that would be a huge issue - what you are talking about, because teamamte scoring more NECESSARLY means you have lesser pie (the zero sum game), but when you consider assists (espeically non opta assists) and pre-assists, this is not a zero sum game. Teammates can complement each other and both can be better off in the end. If you are a greta playmaker with high gc%, adding another great player to the team that is a world class goalscorer, might not result in decrease of gc%, but in an increase for the playmaker as his passes end up being scored more. So this idea that if teammates are performing better that that MUST result in decrease in gc% is not true at all. As i said, there are multiple factors and effects going on simulataniously. Reducing it to a zero sum game analogy you are forcing, is short sighted. It is also not straightforward with the dependancy argument because some palyers respond better when their team depends on them more. Some can not handle it. So it is not true that if a palyer has 50% gc% in a superteam with great players, that if we remove these great players (and in effect increasing dependancy of the player in question), that his gc% would necessary would rise to 60% or whatever. Some players are better when things heavily depend on them and some palyers are better with less spotlight. You are making simplistic conclusions out off only few observations and effects you identified of many that actual exist. And how they interwind is not linearly. Which is what you are proposing.
Imagine player scores in 95th minute for 3-2, but the opposition scores another two in the enxt two minutrs for 4-3 and wins world cup. So the goal for 3-2 wasnt clutch becazse it didnt swing the tie. Outcome doesnt change if player has performed in a clutch moment or not By the definition provided, there is no mebtion of outcome and needing to be "a win". If player plays 4 world cup finals in his career and in each final he scores for a lead in dying minutes but each time his team eventually loses and he ends up with zero world cups. So that player is not clutch because he never carried his team? Player can control his actions and anything else is out of his control. It doesnt define whether he is clutch or not. Winning and outcome dont define clutchness. It is performance under pressure. Everything else is irrelavant. Outcomes, goals, etc. Does player make plays that are of big value unde pressure.
But it depends on each situation, it’s not as simple as saying that if you have better teammates, they’re going to reduce your GC%. Mbappé, for example, was greatly boosted because Messi and Neymar, and also Di María, being excellent creators, generated many high value plays that Mbappé took advantage of. But the difference was in the level of his teammates, not in Mbappé himself. If a player receives a higher number of opportunities with a high xA, he will be able to score more, and he can’t do that if he has a weak team. There can be situations where a player’s GC% is even boosted by having better teammates. That’s why it depends on many factors and can’t be simplified.
Very reductive statement. Those two achieved because they sought to be their best - records were a byproduct, not the goal.
The obsession with goals in football community and other sports is simply down to being the easiest to identify who scored a goal for any (casual) viewer. And it is the easiest to quantify by counting. Seeing a nuance of value for every action requires actual understanding of what you are watching. Obsession with goals is the line of the least resistance in football. That is really it. People desire certainty and answers, yet typically dont want to think because it is hard to think, so they dont.. the obsession with goals is result of this phenomenon
The obsession with goals is because it is literally the purpose of the game. You're essentially patting yourself on the back for having some high-level understanding yet you don't seem to understand the purpose of the game itself is to score the goals. To state that people are obsessed with the purpose of the game and proffering that it portrays some disordered approach to thinking about the game is so logically inconsistent it's genuinely remarkable. The entire structure of the sport is organized around scoring goals. Every play has an intended end point - a goal. To criticize people for focusing on the literal objective of the game is fundamentally absurd, by literal definition. It's like criticizing fans of chess for being "too obsessed with checkmate". The best players in history (Pele, Maradona) are known specifically because of their goals. You take away Pele's goals at the World Cup and Maradona's goals in the 1986 World Cup and they are no longer considered the best players. It is logically incoherent to argue that focusing on the primary purpose of an activity represents a misunderstanding of the same activity.
If that was true. If football was just about ability to "score goals" teams would have 11 striekrs in the team. Typically they have only one. Why? Why teams, if scoring is all that ultimately matters, waste time on 4/5 midfielders, wingers, defenders, etc? Why? Serious question. Edit: There is a difference between goals and goalscoring. Read my posts to carlito as i am not going to write it again..
Chess analogy is actually great. There is such thing as checkmate patterns. Finding right moves to end the match. And that is obviously improtant skill. If you dont have it, you can never win, no matter how good position you create for yourself. But the opposite is also true. No matter if you are perfect at finding checkmates, if you can never come to position where checkmate ison the board, you will not win. It is a perfect analogy. Goal in chess = to checkmate Scoring = finding a checkmate pattern when it is on the board That is different
There is more to the sport than goals but they are secondary to the primary purpose. They are a means to the end, to score. To subordinate or even attempt to equivocate the primary purpose (the activity’s telos) to secondary purposes is a fundamental disordering of the value creation within the game.
No it is not a primary purpose. To score goals and to not concede as a ateam is the only purpose (objective) of playing football. You are simply confusing act of finishing with goals itself. Finishing is a final touch of chain of events that constitute a goal. Finishing is still, id argue, on average the most important skill (individually) in this chain of event, but that doesnt equate finishing with goals. It doesnt equate finishing with the purpose of football. Edit: to avoid this confusion, goalscoring should simply be called scoring (to remove a word goal from the word). As assisting is not goalassisting but just assisting.
To score more goals than your opponent is the primary purpose of the game. The purpose is the same, to score goals. You can dance around the truth all you want but luckily for the rest of us the definition of the game is easily available online. From Wikipedia, “The objective of the game is to score more goals than the opposing team by moving the ball beyond the goal line into a rectangular-framed goal defended by the opponent.”
You are contradicting your own words and i said loterally what wiki quote sajd. I said "no" to your comment because you injected the word "primary" which is false. It is not a promary purpose. Primary implies a secondary etc purpose. Ther eis only one objective in football -> the wiki quote. Thus is different from an act of finishing/scoring that palyers do on the pitch. This is what i say.