New approach to assess who is better: Valuing Player Actions in Soccer + Messi vs Ronaldo answered

Discussion in 'The Beautiful Game' started by Sir_Artur, Sep 20, 2019.

  1. Sir_Artur

    Sir_Artur Member

    Nov 21, 2014
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    Full article of the evaluation: https://people.cs.kuleuven.be/~tom.decroos/reports/kdd19_tomd.pdf It is 11 pages.

    What this approach haves and others lack is it assesses value to each and every possible action, evaluates each of them independantly from a standard criterion while each action is evaluated depending on the position the action was taken in. To distinguish it from other statistical methods, I can give you this example:

    (1)A random side pass that neither improves nor worsens the position under no pressure is reflected as 0 (zero) points while in other outright statistical methods it may serve to your pass accuracy percentage. Likewise, a (2)pass that advances the ball into a more attacking locations are evaluated as +0.01 at least and maybe even more. (3)A pass that was given by eliminating defenders is evaluated differently with giving the passer more points. In traditional statistics all (1), (2) and (3) would equally contribute to your pass accuracy and that is all.


    According to this news: https://tribuna.com/en/realmadrid/news/3444688/ (I do not know how authentic it is.) Messi's VAEP score is 1.21 while Ronaldo's is 0.61
    According to the research, Lionel Messi has a higher VAEP score [1.21 per game] than Cristiano Ronaldo [0.61 per game]. On the other hand, we are much more interested in how Eden Hazard measures up to the Portuguese. KU Leuven say that based on their last seasons at Chelsea and Real Madrid respectively the two were almost evenly matched.
    The Belgian is a bit higher than Ronaldo as Eden managed to get a 0.61 per game VAEP score. However, we shouldn't see Hazard as a replacement for the ex-Madrid player. Thing is, Eden is just a completely different player. Lotte Bransen of SciSports has offered a clear explanation which separates our current and the previous No.7 man:


    "Hazard and Ronaldo have a similar contribution, although there are clear differences. Ronaldo is a classic scorer. His value is mainly determined by his good shots. Hazard is more involved in the game. His value is more spread over passes, dribbles and shots.

    "We can, therefore, conclude that Hazard is a good reinforcement for Real, but he is not a direct replacement for Ronaldo. Real Madrid will have to use a different playing style," concluded the specialist.

    And according to this article: https://www.givemesport.com/1498790...-the-lionel-messi-vs-cristiano-ronaldo-debate (I do not know how authentic it is) One of the researchers of the research stated the following:

    We see a trade-off with most football players: either they make a lot of actions with a less high value - that's the case with Paul Pogba, for example orr you have players who are less likely to hit the ball, but who have a big impact. That is typical of strikers like Harry Kane, Mohamed Salah and Ronaldo. Messi is exceptional in this area: the Argentinian has a very high number of actions and they also have a high value

    In my opinion Messi was, since probably beginning of 2013, obviously better. How will this analysis be viewed? How do you see it?
     
    Danko repped this.
  2. Danko

    Danko Member+

    Barcelona
    Serbia
    Mar 15, 2018
    I saw this before the other day. Good post!

    There are many different methodologies to analyzing player value and almost universally Messi wins over Ronaldo. Will that satisfy all fans? Of course not.
     

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