2024-12-08, 11:53 AM - Word count:
Season 17 again saw dominant performances from Reykjavik United and Schwarzwälder FV, I’d like to take a closer look at some of the stats from last year and speculate on portions of their team or tactics which contributed to their success. We’ll start at a high level look at the table:
![[Image: image.png]](https://i.ibb.co/HpHt3wr/image.png)
In league play the pair clearly differentiated themselves in goal differential. Let’s look at how that depended upon their ability to score versus their ability to defend. For the below chart I am using expected numbers, expected goals for (XGF) and expected goals against (XGA).
![[Image: image.png]](https://i.ibb.co/VtV2M1w/image.png)
What struck me most about this pair of statistics was that while the variation between teams with respect to XGF was relatively muted, there was a significant difference in the ability of Reykjavik and Schwarzwalder to prevent XGA compared to the other teams (for all of this I think we can set Sao Paulo aside, their highly experimental season last year is its own beast – though appears to be paying dividends in season 18 thus far).
![[Image: image.png]](https://i.ibb.co/j5BsbLP/image.png)
Another way to see this striking difference is to look at the number of shots allowed by each team. The correlation between shots allowed and XGA was 99.6% (98% excluding the high leverage observation USP), suggesting that a huge share of the variation in XGA can be explained by the teams ability to stop shots. We could also have looked at the abilities of keepers or defense to block shots, or to reduce the quality of the shots allowed, but lets explore this dramatic difference more for now.
One way shots could be kept in check is to do a better job of maintaining possession. If you have the lion’s share of the ball, the other team doesn’t even get the chance to think about shooting.
![[Image: image.png]](https://i.ibb.co/bbwsWvq/image.png)
We can see that Schwarzwalder excelled in this area, but Reykjavik actually allowed their opponents more possession than they claimed. And we can see some other standouts possessors of the ball who had middling or even poor measures for XGA (when looking at Tokyo and Hollywood). So while possession may contribute to the defensive effort, and has its own benefits to other aspects of team performance it doesn’t seem to explain the strong suppression of shots allowed enjoyed by the pair of table toppers.
Let’s look at the tactics employed by the two teams. Reykjavik used their 4-2-3-1 in all of their matches this season, while Schwarzwalder experimented more, though the 5-1-4 shape was used in roughly half of their league matches.
![[Image: image.png]](https://i.ibb.co/9q9kZrr/image.png)
While the shapes might have changed only slightly (or not at all over the season) its harder to confirm how some of the instructions changed over the course of the season. But two things that jumped out at me were the mentality and the ‘invite crosses’ instruction. The ‘meta’ for FM24 may be well known and I think various teams have embraced or abandoned certain elements of what they feel is the predominant strategy. While many of the employed instructions are shared league wide, the balanced mentality and invite crosses instructions stand out as a pair that are not (and only jointly applied in the case of these two clubs for the majority of the season). The invite crosses instruction in particular I think is interesting. Earlier versions of FM described this with regard to the defensive width of the last line of defense, and maybe that’s a better way to think of it. SO far in S18 I've seen an uptick in the number of clubs employing invite crosses.
Normal caveats apply about this being only an observation, there is not enough data to say this is a significant result only a possible area for teams to further explore as they try and find their preferred strategy, or invite further discussion. It also needs to be mentioned that these changes don’t occur in a vacuum they depend upon the team and may affect other outcomes. Perhaps these great performing teams can use a more balanced mentality because they have the more creative individual players that can still generate chances sitting back. Or perhaps inviting crosses is not punishing because they have the jumping reach in their backline to win those duels. In any case I hope you enjoyed taking a look at some of last season's stats and exploring an era of dominance (that may be in a state of flux?)
In league play the pair clearly differentiated themselves in goal differential. Let’s look at how that depended upon their ability to score versus their ability to defend. For the below chart I am using expected numbers, expected goals for (XGF) and expected goals against (XGA).
What struck me most about this pair of statistics was that while the variation between teams with respect to XGF was relatively muted, there was a significant difference in the ability of Reykjavik and Schwarzwalder to prevent XGA compared to the other teams (for all of this I think we can set Sao Paulo aside, their highly experimental season last year is its own beast – though appears to be paying dividends in season 18 thus far).
Another way to see this striking difference is to look at the number of shots allowed by each team. The correlation between shots allowed and XGA was 99.6% (98% excluding the high leverage observation USP), suggesting that a huge share of the variation in XGA can be explained by the teams ability to stop shots. We could also have looked at the abilities of keepers or defense to block shots, or to reduce the quality of the shots allowed, but lets explore this dramatic difference more for now.
One way shots could be kept in check is to do a better job of maintaining possession. If you have the lion’s share of the ball, the other team doesn’t even get the chance to think about shooting.
We can see that Schwarzwalder excelled in this area, but Reykjavik actually allowed their opponents more possession than they claimed. And we can see some other standouts possessors of the ball who had middling or even poor measures for XGA (when looking at Tokyo and Hollywood). So while possession may contribute to the defensive effort, and has its own benefits to other aspects of team performance it doesn’t seem to explain the strong suppression of shots allowed enjoyed by the pair of table toppers.
Let’s look at the tactics employed by the two teams. Reykjavik used their 4-2-3-1 in all of their matches this season, while Schwarzwalder experimented more, though the 5-1-4 shape was used in roughly half of their league matches.
While the shapes might have changed only slightly (or not at all over the season) its harder to confirm how some of the instructions changed over the course of the season. But two things that jumped out at me were the mentality and the ‘invite crosses’ instruction. The ‘meta’ for FM24 may be well known and I think various teams have embraced or abandoned certain elements of what they feel is the predominant strategy. While many of the employed instructions are shared league wide, the balanced mentality and invite crosses instructions stand out as a pair that are not (and only jointly applied in the case of these two clubs for the majority of the season). The invite crosses instruction in particular I think is interesting. Earlier versions of FM described this with regard to the defensive width of the last line of defense, and maybe that’s a better way to think of it. SO far in S18 I've seen an uptick in the number of clubs employing invite crosses.
Normal caveats apply about this being only an observation, there is not enough data to say this is a significant result only a possible area for teams to further explore as they try and find their preferred strategy, or invite further discussion. It also needs to be mentioned that these changes don’t occur in a vacuum they depend upon the team and may affect other outcomes. Perhaps these great performing teams can use a more balanced mentality because they have the more creative individual players that can still generate chances sitting back. Or perhaps inviting crosses is not punishing because they have the jumping reach in their backline to win those duels. In any case I hope you enjoyed taking a look at some of last season's stats and exploring an era of dominance (that may be in a state of flux?)
