The world of women’s football has been growing a lot in the last decade, but we can see another innovative progression after the Euro 2022 in England. We are now at a crossroads in women’s football where investment is growing all across the board, which also means that the margins are becoming smaller and details are much more important.

This is also the case in the world of analysis. How do we make sure that our players/teams/leagues have that edge over the competition? It means analysis in the margins and that also means looking at theoretical concepts and the practical outcome. I wanted to do this whilst looking at the NWSL in the United States in the 2022 season.

The metric I have chosen is goals added (G+) and the player I have chosen for this case study is Sophia Smith. Smith is an exciting talent and it would be interesting to me to see how she does in this specific metric that adds value to each action in terms of the ultimate goal: scoring goals.

DATA

This is a data analysis of Sophia Smith’s season in the 2022 NWSL, but it also focuses on the overall performances of players in terms of goals added. The database contains all players with minutes in the 2022 NWSL season with an emphasis on attacking and creative players.

The data was collected on November 14th 2022 and has been collected from American Soccer Analysis, who have calculated their own data in terms of expected goals, expected passing and goals added — the latter is what we will focus on.

SOPHIA SMITH

• Name: Sophia Smith
• Date of birth: 10–08–2000
• Nationality: American
• Position: Attacker
• Current club: Portland Thorns
• Previous clubs: Stanford (Y)
• International: United States(27 games)

Sophia Smith was drafted in the first round of the 2020 NWSL draft and has played for Stanford before. In Portland, she has grown into a full senior international in the US team, as well as a seasoned player in the NWSL. In 18 games in the 2022 NWSL season, she managed to score 14 goals and give 3 assists, meaning that she was involved in 1,31 goal contributing actions every 90 minutes.

She has been instrumental into Portland Thorns’ championship in 2022 and has scored many important goals in the process. In this analysis we want to find an answer to the question: how much value does she bring to the team and the league, by assigning values to her actions with the theory of goals added (G+).

GOALS ADDED

American Soccer Analysis created the goals added metric to assign values to each action into an attacking phase or defensive phase. They explain it like this on their website:

“Goals added (g+) measures a player’s total on-ball contribution in attack and defense. It does this by calculating how much each touch changes their team’s chances of scoring and conceding across two possessions.

For example, at the moment a player receives the ball at midfield, their team might have a 1.5% chance of scoring on that possession but also a 1% chance of conceding on the next possession. That situation isn’t very valuable. But if they play a throughball from there into the final third, their team is now in a much better situation and might have a 6% chance of scoring and only a 0.5% chance of conceding. The pass would be worth the difference in their team’s situation before and after it, or (0.060–0.005) — (0.015–0.010) = +0.050 goals added.

Goals added only looks at the likelihood of goals. It doesn’t give players any credit for actually scoring. So a striker will be rewarded for finding space to receive a pass in a good position and may earn some shot value for turning a possession into a shot on target, but that value won’t change depending on whether the goalkeeper saves the ball. This keeps the model from assigning too much importance to finishing, which statistically is almost random, and instead rewards actions that consistently lead to goals.”

If you want to read more about it, you can read it on the American Soccer Analysis website, here and here.

Goals added can both work in attacking sense as in defensive sense, but we will only focus on the attacking one. The reason why we have chosen for that is that we want to measure the value of the attacking actions of Sophia Smith in the chain of events toward the likelihood of scoring a goal.

Goals added can be divided into the following categories:

1. Shooting: how much does shooting contribute to goals added?
2. Receiving: how much does receiving the ball after a pass contribute to goals added in the whole chain?
3. Passing: how much does passing the ball (+receiver) contribute to goals added?
4. Dribbling: how much does dribbling, take-ons and carrying the ball contribute to goals added in attack?
5. Interrupting: how much do interceptions, tackles, blocks, clearances, recoveries, and contested headers contribute to goals added?
6. Fouls: fouls committed and received

These categories will feature in the data analysis and visualisation that will be done below.

ANALYSIS

Before delving into the actual analysis, it’s important to make sure that the database is representative of the quality and level of the league. A player with 900+ minutes will be more representative than someone with 50 minutes in the 2022 season. Our complete database consists of 286 players of which goals added is recorded/collected.

This means that we have made a cut-off in terms of minutes. We have made it the equivalent of 5+ games and decided to take 500 minutes played as the minimum. This means that our database shrinks from 286 players to 196 players who are eligible/representative for our research.

In this analysis we will first refer to the goals added (G+) in relation to the minutes played to show the representation. After that, we will refer to the specific aspect of goals added to the total goals added.

In the scatterplot above you can see the total of goals added in relation to the minutes played. The average minutes played are 1603 minutes and the average of goals added is 0,08 goals added.

With goals added we measure the actions that contribute to the likelihood of a goals scored, but it definitely looks at multiple actions in comparison to expected goals. If we look closer to Sophia Smits we can see she has above average minutes with 1945 minutes, but has the highest goals added of the whole NWSL in the 2022 season with 7,8 goals added over the whole season. What does this mean? In the whole season, her attacking actions have contributed to the likelihood of 7,8 goals being scored.

In the scatterplot above you can see the shooting (G+) in relation to the total of goals added. The average shooting (G+) is 0,02 and the average of goals added is 0,08 goals added.

Sophia Smith scores very high on the goals added metric as shown above, but she also is by far the best in accumulating shooting (G+) with 1,85 shooting (G+). The next player coming close to her is Alex Morgan with 1,18.

In the scatterplot above you can see the receiving (G+) in relation to the total of goals added. The average receiving (G+) is 0,02 and the average of goals added is 0,08 goals added.

Sophia Smith scores very high on the goals added metric as shown above, but she isn’t the best in the metrics of receiving (G+). She has 1,92 receiving G+, which is the second highest in the database after Alex Morgan. Taylor Kornieck (1,91) and Ashley Hatch (1,86) follow closely.

In the scatterplot above you can see the passing (G+) in relation to the total of goals added. The average passing (G+) is 0 and the average of goals added is 0,08 goals added.

Sophia Smith scores very high on the goals added metric as shown above, but she doesn’t score high in the passing (G+). In fact she scores below average with -0,01 and there are many players scoring higher than her on the passing (G+) in the 2022 NWSL season.

In the scatterplot above you can see the dribbling (G+) in relation to the total of goals added. The average dribbling (G+) is -0,04 and the average of goals added is 0,08 goals added.

Sophia Smith scores very high on the goals added metric as shown above, and she scores very high on the dribbling metric as well. She is second after Mallory Pugh, with 3,12 dribbling G+. The high number indicates that this is a significant part of her total goals added.

In the scatterplot above you can see the interrupting (G+) in relation to the total of goals added. The average interrupting (G+) is 0,08 and the average of goals added is 0,08 goals added.

Sophia Smith scores very high on the goals added metric as shown above, and she scores quite high on the interrupting (G+) as well with 0,61 interrupting G+. 20 players score higher than her, meaning that she is in the high average for this metric.

FINAL THOUGHTS

With goals added we can assign values to attacking actions within a chain of events for every player. We can see that Sophia Smith has 7,80 G+ in total, but these are mostly generated in shooting, receiving and dribbling. Passing isn’t as impactful and interrupting is in the high average.

From this information, we can say that her threat and contribution going forward, mostly come from her shots, where she receives passes, and her ability to dribble/carry the ball — which makes her one of the highest performers in these metrics. Overall, she scores highest with 7,80 G+ in the 2022 NWSL.

We have played 10 games in the Dutch Eredivisie in the 2022/2023 season. Perhaps it’s too early to talk about crucial performances and measuring quality depending on this season alone, but we can look closer to some players and how their first impression is in this season. One of the players I was anxious and excited to see, was Xavi Simons at PSV.

Under Ruud van Nistelrooij, Xavi Simons has been instrumental in their success in attack as well as providing creativity in the opposition’s half. It has been 10 games in the season, but next to the wonderful Gakpo, Simons has played a huge part in how PSV conduct their attacks.

We will use data and video to illustrate how Simons has done in the Eredivisie 2022/2023 so far and we will focus on the attacking positions.

CONTENTS

1. Biography
2. Seasonal stats
3. Ball progression
4. Key passing
5. Shooting
6. Assists
7. Final thoughts

Biography

• Name: Xavi Simons
• Date of birth: 21–04–2003
• Nationality: Dutch
• Position: Attacking midfielders
• Contract expires: 30–6–2027
• Current club: PSV
• Previous clubs: Barcelona (Y), PSG (Y), PSG
• International: Netherlands U21 (2 games)

Xavi Simons is a wildly interesting player for PSV. Characterised as an midfielder with good on the ball abilities in passing and carrying, the young Dutch player also plays in the number 10 role or as a winger. Yesterday in the game against Arsenal we even saw him briefly as a striker. To make a long story short, he is a versatile attacking talent and is taking the Eredivisie by storm.

Seasonal stats

In the pizzaplot above you can see how Xavi Simons is performing against all midfielders in the 2022/2023 Eredivisie so far. This pizzaplot doesn’t give us a definitive judgment on how he performs, but gives us a stylistic overview of his data profile.

We will go into details for the specific stats later for the absolute data, but in this part, we will look at how well he is doing in certain metrics and what that tells us about his playing style.

What we immediately see is that he scores really high in the attacking metrics, especially on goals (99th percentile), xG (99th percentile), assists (94th percentile), and progressive runs (91st percentile). This tells us that he is very attacking-minded for a midfielder.

When we look closer to what he can do when we look at the more attacking profiles compared to wingers, attacking midfielders and strikers – we can see some interesting stuff there too.

When we look at this comparison we can still see how high Simons scores in goals per 90 (93rd percentile), xG per 90 (91st percentile) and in shots per 90 (86th percentile). This indicates that his participation and style in attacking, is quite present in the attacking phase of the game.

Ball progression

The modern attacker isn’t only concerned with dribbling and crosses — but he/she also needs to be comfortable on the ball and progress play from it.

In the scatterplot above you can see the progressive metrics of progressive passes per 90 and progressive runs per 90. Simons does quite well here as he scores jjust above average in the progressive passes metric, and quite comfortably above average in the progressive runs metric. There are a few players better in progressing the ball, so he isn’t elite in this regard.

Dribbling

DRIBBLING

So how decent is he with the ball on his feet and going into the 1v1s? In other words, how many dribbles does he have per 90 minutes and what is his success rate?

If you look at the graph above you can see that he 4,75 dribbles per 90 in the Eredivisie so far, in which he scores above the average. When we look at the successful dribbles going with that number of dribbles, he has 50,78% – which is above average, but he doesn’t excel in it.

Xavi Simons is decent at dribbling, but how does he do that? You can see that in the video below.

KEY PASSING

Every player makes passes in a game, but which passes actively contribute to the progression and construction of an attack? You can see some of these metrics in the beeswarmplot below.

As you can see in the graph above, Simons scores in the average to high average in almost every metric. There is not one significant metric where he doesn’t score as well. However, he scores excellent in the assists per 90 metrics.

As you can see in the heat map of passes above, Simons does the majority of his passes on the edge of the attacking third and in the middle third. As we see here is that he passes the ball overwhelmingly in the central areas and zone 14, so he also can go to the right and left – as he floats throughout the final third.

What’s interesting is how he makes key passes. He scores in the high average, but the intent of his through passes does tell a lot about how he can help in an attack.

SHOOTING

Simons does often come in the position to shoot, but how does he do in the quality of shooting?

In the shot map above you can see where Simons has conducted his shots in the 2022/2023 Eredivisie season so far. He had 25 shots of which 7 went in goal. 88% of his shots were on target and he generated a total xG of 4,43 — the latter meaning that he is overperforming with +2,57.

Apart from shooting in the box, he loves to shoot from just outside the penalty area – on the edge of it. It indicates that he loves to come into zone 14 and execute shots from there.

ASSISTS

Not only did he score a lot in the Eredivisie, but he also provided 3 assists during the season. In the video below you can see his assists during the season in all competitions.

FINAL THOUGHTS

It was quite a surprise that Xavi Simons made the move to PSV from PSG and it wasn’t on loan. For many people, he was the academy player that hadn’t shown his quality yet for the senior sides. I think it’s fair to say that he has made an impact with PSV in the Eredivisie so far.

It’s very early in the season, but it looks like Xavi Simons can lead an attacking formation next to Gakpo and have a meaningful goal contribution in doing so. He will be one of the best players in the league soon and perhaps his path in Europe’s elite will be open again.

A disappointing result for Dutch football last night was when PSV lost their game against Rangers and failed to qualify for the Champions League. Not only will we see PSV in the Europa League, but it has also increased the likelihood that Cody Gakpo might make a move to the Premier League.

In this article, we will look closer to his 2021/2022 Eredivisie season with PSV.

Cody Gakpo has been instrumental for PSV in attacking in the 2021/2022 season and was one of the focal points in the attack. He can be considered as a great finisher, but also a top creator amongst his peer in the Eredivisie. An exciting talent who is ready for that next step.

We will use data and video to illustrate how Gakpo has done in the Eredivisie 2021/2022 and we will focus on the winger position as well as the striker position.

CONTENTS

1. Biography
2. Seasonal stats
3. Positions/roles
4. Ball progression
5. Dribbling
6. Expected threat
7. Key passing
8. Shooting
9. Assisting
10. Expected goal contribution
11. Comparison with Antony
12. Final thoughts

BIOGRAPHY

• Name: Cody Gakpo
• Date of birth: 07–05–1999
• Nationality: Dutch
• Position: Left winger/striker
• Contract expires: 30–6–2026
• Current club: PSV
• Previous clubs: PSV (Y)
• International: The Netherlands (7 games)

The question is when we look at Gakpo: what profile does he have? He is good at scoring goals and providing assists. He is good in the air and can link up pretty well. These things might suggest he could do a fantastic job as a striker.

But, if we look at the game he played in domestic competition — the 5–3
Supercup win in the Netherlands — he was more winger with playmaking abilities. He collected the ball in the middle third, dribbled, and made a run down the line. and then won the 1v1 against the right full back. After he had done that he would either cut inside or go the line — providing crosses to Guus Til — who scored twice on a good cross from Gakpo.

Then, we could also argue that in the same game he has shown striker’s instinct. After the Ajax goalkeeper couldn’t handle a shot from distance, Gakpo moved quickly to get the rebound and score a goal. If this says anything, it is that we should put him in one or the other box. We should celebrate his diversity and versatility on the pitch.

The big question is, how will he fit in at a team like Manchester United? And do they really need him? With Ten Hag, Manchester United have started to play a different brand of football and there’s something in particular asked from the wingers and the strikers.

He is not a pure winger, but a modern winger with playmaking skills and that can come in handy at Manchester United. He is a whole different player than Antony for example, but both have their qualities. While Antony is more direct in his play and wants to draw defenders to get that 1v1 going, Gakpo will try to involve more teammates and use a passing style of play to get to the optimal positions to great a goalscoring opportunity.

SEASONAL STATS

If we look at this specific pizza plot, we can say a few things. But before we turn into the meaning, it’s good to stress that this mostly gives us a stylistic idea of the player rather than a definitive performance one.

What we can see is that there are three metrics in which he scores under the 86th percentile: shots on target %, head goals per 90, and successful dribbles %. In all the other metrics he scored in the 86th percentile or higher. In the xA per 90 (96th percentile), assists per 90 (98th percentile), goals per 90 (92nd percentile), and progressive runs per 90 (91st percentile) — he really shows why he is spoken about so much.

In the image above you can see how Gakpo compares to his peers on the data metrics selected. The average is in blue and Gakpo in red. Gakpo is better in all but two metrics. In the metrics of head goals per 90 and shots on target % — he scores under average.

Positions/roles

In the image above you can see the positions in a 4–2–3–1 where Gakpo can play. He is the best suited for the wide midfield/wingers role, where he needs to make runs down the line and in doing so provides passes for the attackers in PSV side or cut inside and shoot himself. He can also play the striker role in this formation with movement to the wide areas.

In the image above you can see a 4–2–3–1, but he can play as a wide midfielder in a 4–4–2, 4–5–1 or 4–1–4–1 too. If you play with three attackers in a 4–3–3, he will play higher up the pitch as a left winger.

BALL PROGRESSION

The modern winger isn’t only concerned with dribbling and crosses — but he/she also needs to be comfortable on the ball and progress play from it.

In the scatterplot above you can see the progressive metrics of progressive passes per 90 and progressive runs per 90. Gakpo does really well here as he scores above average in the progressive passes metric, and above the progressive runs metric. There are only a few players better in progressing the ball.

DRIBBLING

Gakpo is excellent at dribbling, but how does he rank to others in this metric?

In the scatterplot above you can see how well the player are scoring in terms of volume of dribbling and the success rate of those dribbles. As you can Gakpo has the most dribbles per 90 of all the attackers, and while he hasn’t the highest percentage of completed dribbles — he is in the top tier for both these metrics.

EXPECTED THREAT (XT)

The basic idea behind xT is to divide the pitch into a grid, with each cell assigned a probability of an action initiated there to result in a goal in the next N actions. This approach allows us to value not only parts of the pitch from which scoring directly is more likely, but also those from which an assist is most likely to happen. Actions that move the ball, such as passes and dribbles (also referred to as ball carries), can then be valued based solely on their start and end points, by taking the difference in xT between the start and end cell. Basically, this term tells us which option a player is most likely to choose when in a certain cell, and how valuable those options are. The latter term is the one that allows xT to credit valuable passes that enable further actions such as key passes and shots. (Soccerment)

So how does Gakpo contribute to attacking threat in the Eredivisie?

If we look at all these actions we can see Gakpo is the second on the list of highest xT generated throughout the season via carries. He has an xT of 2,00. Only Tavsan (2,66) is better.

KEY PASSING

Every player makes passes in a game, but which passes actively contribute to the progression and construction of an attack? You can see some of these metrics in the beeswarm plot below.

As you can see in the graph above, Gakpo scores quite high above average in almost every metric, only not the passes to the final third. He scores excellent in the assists per 90, xA per 90, and passes to the penalty area per 90.

What’s interesting is how he makes key passes. He scores in the high average, but the intent of his through passes does tell a lot about how he can help in an attack.

SHOOTING

In the scatterplot above you can see the metrics of shots per 90 and expected goals per 90 combined. as you can Gakpo scores above average for both metrics, with only a few player scoring above him.

When we look at the expected goals and the actual goals we see that he averages 0,46 xG per 90 and 0,53 goals per 90 — this means that he is slightly overperforming on his xG.

Gakpo does sometimes come in the position to shoot, but how does he do in the quality of shooting?

In the shot map above you can see from where Gakpo has conducted his shots in the 2021/2022 Eredivisie season. He had 81 shots of which 12 went in goal. 35,8% of his shots were on target and he generated a total xG of 10,52 — the latter meaning that he is overperforming with +1,48.

Apart from shooting in the box, he loves to shoot from the left side inside the penalty box. More than half of his shots come from this area.

ASSISTS

In the scatterplot above you can see shot assists and expected assists combined. A shot assist is a pass that leads to a shot. This can lead to an actual assist but it doesn’t always have to. As you can Gakpo is in the top 3 in both these metrics, with Mahi and Tadic trumping him in one of the metrics.

Not only did he score a lot in the Eredivisie, but he also provided 12 assists during the season.

As you can see he has an expected assists number of 0,37 per 90 and while others do score better on that front, he has an actual assist number of 0,53 per 90 — which means he is overperforming quite significantly per 90 minutes.

EXPECTED GOAL CONTRIBUTIONS

If we look at the expected goal contributions per 90 minutes we can see something very interesting. Gakpo is expected to contribute to roughly 0,82 goals per 90 minutes. Which in this case makes him one of the more complete strikers, because he seems to be equally good in finishing as in creating — which makes him a rather unique player.

COMPARISON WITH ANTONY

Frequently spoken about is the comparison between Gakpo and Antony. While they are two very different players and Gakpo likes to engage more in passing and Antony more in 1v1s — it’s interesting to see what their output is. Gakpo scores better in the data on all but two metrics: progressive runs per 90 and shots per 90. In all the other data metrics — Gakpo scores higher.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Cody Gakpo has had a great season with his PSV, but there is always the question of whether he can show in the top domestic games or in Europe. And, rightfully so. Domestically, however, he has become a very prolific player in both goals and assists. He also poses a great threat to any defence with his pace, 1v1s, and dribbles.

In terms of providing and contributing directly to a goal, he does really well with his goals and assists. Will he be the answer to Manchester United’s woes on the flanks? Probably not, but he will provide squad depth that will absolutely contribute to their attacking play.