These are loaded sentences that take time to break down. You say you dont blindly follow stats, but then say Kimmich is creating more based on stats and conclude that "Kimmich is just the superior player." You are starting from the premise that stats are trustworthy source and a reasonable refernce point for this or that and then turn the table to disaprove otherwise. When pointed out that you are doing that, you agree stats are unreliable and then continue with the same premise. Stats are not the starting and end point. They are nothing different but another set of osbervations. The only thing stats are useful for is counting because humans are terrible at approixmating large numbers. Isnt it possible that numbers that these website measure are simply not correct or a gold standard? What is xA? xA is accumulated value of all passes by a player that uses xG to calculate it. For example, you are on the record disagreeing with xG saying stuff like headers are overvalued by xG, etc. Yet this thought slips by you the moment discussion moves away to a slightly different direction. Funny enough, Kimmich is a primary set piece taker for Bayern and it is quite likely a good chunk of his "xA" is generated from crosses to the same headers you say are overvalued by xG. Furthermore, do you have a break down of Kimmich's and Pedri's xA per each pass or do you have any information on how exactly is this xA for each pass calculated? You talk about observations being subjective and biased, hence the need for "objective" stats, yet you have no insight into how it is measured or calculated. You have no way of verifying any of these passes or validity of final stat. You are simply putting your trust in these observations being complete, nuanced and accurate So it is better to blindly believe number spit out by a random, unknown method than to trust your own eyes and meticulous osbervation? Because that is exactly what you are doing here, fully putting your trust in the unverifiable and unknown formula. There is no way you can verify and stand behind that number. That is a blind trust. If we think critically, we can come to realization that "creating" is not just passes player makes. There is clearly much more to creating that can not be quantified. For me, creating is any action that creates more favorable circumstances for team via pass, hesitation, movement, turn, ball carrying, dribbling, change of pace. Creating is the moment when situation on the pitch is stable, procedural, ordinary possession and then momentum shifts forward through disruption of oppositions defense. Causing any kind of disruption that puts your team in favirable position is the point. Players who do that, and do that in high impact areas are the best creators that pose the highest threat. Those players who can change momentum and make things happen. The typical goal sequence is this: Things are stable -> creating an opportunity and favorable situation -> capitilazing on opportunity. Put differently: Possession -> creation -> finishing. Flaw in stats is the idea that every nuance can be categorized in a finite number of simple categories. It is not possible. And since the final statistical metric (such ss xA) is a product of incomplete and imperfect categorization, it is wrong by few orders of msgnitude. Any slight error in a single, initial observation is perpetuated across a bigger sample size. A bigger sample size doesnt make xA more correct, it makes it more wrong because the error is introduced every single input.
"Stats Perform’s expected assists (xA) model measures the likelihood that a given pass will become a goal assist. The model rewards players who pass into dangerous areas, regardless of whether the receiver takes a shot or not." https://theanalyst.com/2021/03/what-are-expected-assists-xa/ A player having a ton of xA is likely passing into dangerous areas where the best choice is to shoot. You can say that creation is more than this and I will agree but yet that means Kimmich is creating more via passes than Pedri does via dribbling + passes. You're blaming Kimmich for being the set piece taker at Bayern but that's not a blame. He have merit for being it. If Pedri isn't Barça's set piece taker it's a blame on him, not on Kimmich. I just looked at opta and Kimmich has created 0,25 open play xA p90 while Pedri has 0,27. So yeah, Pedri created 0,02 xA more than Kimmich from open play
How does it mean that? Where is dribbling or anything even more nuanced mentioned? xA is not just pass into dangerous area. It uses multiple variables in an unknown way, to assign expected value for each pass.
I said, "Kimmich generates more xA via passes than Pedri does via passes and dribbles combined," and this is notable because Pedri dribbles significantly more than Kimmich. Dribbling, especially in midfield, is often used to break defensive lines and create better passing angles or opportunities. In theory, a player who excels at both dribbling and passing should be well-positioned to generate high xA, since they can both create and exploit dangerous situations. However, if a player like Kimmich, who relies almost entirely on passing, still produces more xA, it suggests that he is creating assist-worthy situations through other means. This could include superior positional awareness, quicker decision-making, or playing in a system that enables higher-value passes. Therefore, rather than relying on dribbling to open up space, he may be accessing similar or better outcomes through efficiency and tactical positioning. That doesn't mean dribbling is less valuable, but it does show that high xA can result from different skill sets — and in this case, Kimmich's passing is effective enough on its own to surpass what Pedri achieves with a more varied on-ball approach.
This conversation is coming to a natural end. There are few things to finish it off: 1. Stats are in no way immune to bias and mistakes. They are observations as well. What they represent is not (objective) reality, but a certain, arbitrary framework on what reality is supposed to be. It is easy to get lost in statistics and hallucinate meaning out of it. 2. None of that about xA matters regardless, because I have never claimed Pedri has been more impactful player or a better creator than Kimmich this season. I said that Pedri's ceiling of impact is higher. He doesnt have to have higher xA this season for that to be true. I am not sure what is confusing about that. The same way I can say Yamal is a better dribbler than Mbappe ever was even tho he didnt have dribbling stats to back that up. Then 3 months later, dribbling stats follow the inevitable. Yamal didnt become much better dribbler all of a sudden. You simply dont understand my point about stats and abilites and impact. I am not Nostradamus. This wasnt some crazy prediction. I merely state patterns I've seen many, many times and dont need convulated stats to confirm the obvious. Yamal has repeatedly shown patterns of elite dribbling abilities that can scale before stats showed that. It wss just a matter of time and circumstances before it was put together formally. And the obvious to me is that Pedri plays in relatively high impact areas, with more attacking freedom and flair, is extremely intelligent and versatile, has exceptional mentality and work rate as well as top tier technical abilities. His ceiling of impact is comfortably higher than that of Kimmich. Pedri will be an all time midfielder if things dont go sideways for him. I will leave it with this interesting data: And video:
You’re mistaking proximity for primacy. The claim that Pedri’s ceiling of impact is inherently higher than Kimmich’s rests on a simple visual bias—he plays closer to goal, so the assumption follows: more decisive zone, more decisive actions, more potential impact. But that’s not logic—it’s aesthetic intuition dressed up as analysis. Let’s be clear: high-impact actions don’t occur in a vacuum. They depend on structure, stability, and sequencing. You can’t thread a killer ball if your midfield collapses under pressure. You can’t dribble in zone 14 if the ball never gets there. And you certainly can’t “unlock” a defense if the match has already been tilted out of your control upstream. Kimmich, at his best, doesn’t just touch the ball—he touches the tempo. He modulates the rhythm of a team like a conductor. He reduces entropy. He conditions the entire tactical environment in which others operate. That’s not less impact. That’s layered impact. If Pedri has a higher ceiling, it’s only within a definition of impact that already excludes what Kimmich does best. In that case, you’re not measuring impact—you’re redefining it to guarantee your conclusion. You’ve built a house with no foundation and are calling the ceiling higher because it’s floating. So no—I don’t accept that Pedri’s best game necessarily out-impacts Kimmich’s just because it’s flashier. The kind of player whose performance lifts ten others simultaneously has a different kind of ceiling—less photogenic, maybe, but no less decisive. You don’t need to see it on the scoreboard to know who made the scoreboard possible.
Messi vs Yamal in Barça Youth Goals Per Game Totals by division What’s interesting is that Messi scored twice as many goals as Yamal in the youth ranks, and in their first 100 official games for Barcelona’s senior team, Messi also doubles Yamal’s goal tally. We’ll see if this trend continues...
https://tribuna.com/en/news/fcbarce...ring-record-with-barcas-youth-teams-revealed/ Yamal actually scored at a better rate than Messi at lower age groups. At a certain point he switched positions from false nine to the right wing, which may partly account for the drop-off. (Certainly he's never shown the same poaching instinct Messi did from that position while playing for the first team.) He also ultimately skipped more age groups faster. I'd be interested in seeing those same tables with ages attached.
Players with more big chances created than Michael Olise 2024/25 in the top 5 European leagues since 15/16: Messi 15/16 (37) Messi 19/20 (36) Messi 18/19 (34) De Bruyne 19/20 (33) End of list. @Sexy Beast @lessthanjake
I don't think anyone'd deny his finishing has been subpar. These numbers appear grossly out of line with other stats sites' though, for the record. WhoScored has him at -2.7 for the league* and +.28 in the Champions League. SofaScore's even narrower, at -.52 and +.7, respectively (a net positive for these specific competitions). These numbers will have been somewhat worse before Sunday's game, but not by nearly enough margin to properly explain the gaps. The only reasonable way to account for these discrepancies would be for Yamal to have racked up staggeringly wasteful numbers in his seven domestic cups appearances -- games in which he actually scored four times, and which other sites don't even provide XG stats for. (It's also vaguely possible to arrive at broadly similar numbers by using WhoScored's stats and adding his Euro 24 XG (-1.51). Disregarding that the math's still quite unlikely to hold-up on any level, that would, of course, be an extremely disingenuous practice. Seasonal stats obviously should not include pre off-season numbers.) *73rd in the top five leagues by the metrics suggested in the tweet, or over twelve times worse than sixth. https://www.whoscored.com/players/480249/show/lamine-yamal https://www.sofascore.com/player/lamine-yamal/1402912#tab:statistics
Yeah, I don't know who's the data provider for DataMB but other sources like Opta, Understat, Fbref, SofaScore, WhoScored, have him at -1.25 xG underperformance. At the moment yamal is a below average finisher
1924178729728655763 is not a valid tweet id Almost correct Mohammed salah 24/25 has scored 22 non penalty goals in all club competitions along with 23 assists Lamine Yamal 24/25 has scored 18 non penalty goals in all club competitions along with 25 assists
Difference is Mo Salah over performed his xG in +3.86 while Yamal underperformed his in -1.25 meaning an average random finisher would do better than him. Barça created so much this season to his third option for finish that Yamal managed to score only 3 less npg than Salah who is the focal point of Liverpool
Fraud ? Ronaldinho in La Liga 2004/05 September 0 non penalty goals October 0 non penalty goals November 0 non penalty goals December 0 non penalty goals January 2 non penalty goals February 0 non penalty goals March 0 non penalty goals https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/ron...ieler/3373/saison/2004/plus/1#google_vignette Brazil soccer star Ronaldinho denies ties to company accused of scam | Reuters Ballon dor fraud + Crypto fraud = Fraudiniho
He actually scored a non penalty goal against the best defense of the century (Chelsea 04/05 with prime Cech, Terry, Carvalho, Makélélé, etc...)
That’s a cheap shot Your tweet mentions nothing about the champions league That best defensive record “of the century” was in the premier league btw Do you know a player called Benedict Saul McCarthy? You definitely know him now He played only 33 minutes vs Chelsea btw ‘Benni’ the striker scored 10 goals in 66 la liga games https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benni_McCarthy Sometimes accidents can happen even against great teams
Just for a bit of added ‘spice’ Ronaldinho wasn’t even the only Brazilian player to score against the ‘impenetrable’ Chelsea 2004/05 in the champions league http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/4068153.stm Building your entire case on one non penalty goal scored in a competition we are not even discussing is not the way to go forward We are either discussing about La Liga(the content of your tweet) or we are discussing about the champions league. You have to pick And if we are discussing about the champions league then I will be forced to inform you that Lamine Yamal scored 5 non penalty goals in the 24/25 champions league Ronaldinho has never scored more than 5 non penalty goals in a champions league season in his entire career
I would divide the players into GOAT candidates, generational players (those who dominates the selection of the year in the decade), very good players, average players, bad players. No GOAT candidates seem to have emerged yet, but it's still too early to talk about Yamal. In terms of generational players, Yamal is a clear candidate. I'd put Jude Bellingham on that list. I rate the English player very highly. For me, he's a more professional, injury-free Gullit. I think Pedri can reach that standard and he's in the right place. He's at a great club and Spain has a great generation. Mbappe is a generational player, but not a GOAT. So you have 3 or 4. A generational player is one who is in the team of the season every year. I would put Haaland as a very good player, but not generational. Vini Jr, Saka, Leão, are all very good player, not generational. I want to see more of Olise and Wirtz. They need more seasons and shine against strong teams. Fabregas also put up impressive numbers, but he couldn't take it any further. Those are my two pennies this season on players aged 21-26.
I was looking and just like Yamal, Ronaldinho averaged 4 shots per game in 04/05. Imagine 7 months making 4 shots per game yet you score only 2 npg lol very poor shooting by both