Category · 34 articles
Long-form analysis, built from the raw event data.
These are the longer pieces — the ones that start with a question (Is home advantage really fading? What does a World Cup actually look like in the numbers?) and answer it by pulling thousands of events and letting the distribution speak.
Each deep-dive carries the chart, the table, the source and the as-of date, with the method written out step by step so you can reproduce it from the published data. No vibes, no cherry-picked single games — just the data, aggregated honestly and visualised clearly.
After a European night, English clubs took 1.56 league points a match against 1.62 expected. Within the same club and season the gap is -0.024: not measurable.
United take 22.6 shots a game and have 5 points. Across 2025-26, a club's five-game shot count predicted its next results better than its points did.
Home and away split the first 40 matches of 2026-27 evenly, yet the shot, corner and card columns keep the home edge. Plus a decade of home-advantage data.
Last season a club's finishing and saving rates at halfway said nothing about its second half. Four rounds into 2026-27, those rates explain most of the table.
All 380 games of 2025-26, resampled: after three matches a club's passing already agrees with the rest of its season at 0.76. Points sit at 0.39, cards at 0.27.
Three rounds in, the Premier League is calling 1.65 more fouls a match than last season and booking fewer of them per foul. Neither number clears the noise.
Two rounds in, who you drew explains a quarter of the Premier League table. Correcting for it re-ranks nine of fifteen clubs not at all.
Matchweek two split matchweek one's heists: Ipswich paid theirs back 2-5, Hull stole again, and 10 of the season's 15 winners have had under half the ball.
Matchweek one's ten box scores, audited: six of nine winners had under 50% possession, and shots on target called seven of the nine results.
All 380 matches of 2025-26, replayed: the table agreed with May at 0.43 after one game and crossed 0.75 only around game ten.
The 2026-27 Premier League tracked from completed matches only: goals per game, draws, home advantage and the shots-on-target rule. No predictions — just data.
In decided 2026 World Cup games, the team matching or beating its opponent on shots on target won 70 of 80, and 24 of 28 knockouts.
Headers were 18% of 2022 World Cup goals, taken from half a foot shot's distance — and open-play headers converted three times better than set-piece ones.
All 64 penalties of the 2022 World Cup: in-game kicks scored at 74%, shootout kicks 63%. Where they went, who saved them, and what 2026's shootouts inherit.
World Cup keepers saved 69% of on-target shots in 2022, but 84% of weak ones and just 33% of big chances. A chance-by-chance census of every save.
Chance quality at the 2022 World Cup was wildly unequal: half of all open-play shots produced just 18 of 152 goals, while the top 5% accounted for 28%.
All 64 results of the 2022 World Cup by stage, and whether knockouts really get cautious: chance quality per shot was near-identical.
Across 1,178 open-play foot shots at the 2022 World Cup, volleys converted at 15.2% and half-volleys at 10.4%, both beating settled shots' 9.8%.
Across 1,430 open-play shots at the 2022 World Cup, only 34% forced a save or went in — the most common outcome is missing the target entirely (37%).
At the 2022 World Cup, shots from outside the penalty box were 37% of all attempts but produced just 8% of the goals — 2.3% conversion against 15.6% inside.
Every non-penalty 2022 World Cup shot, sorted by xG and checked against reality: 0–5% shots scored 2.6% of the time; 'big chances' of 35%+ went in 58.9%.
At the 2022 World Cup, headers and feet converted at almost the same rate (11.1% vs 10.5%) — but only because headers come from higher-quality positions.
Tracing every 2022 World Cup goal to how the possession began: set pieces originated 30% of non-penalty goals, open play 46%; counters converted at 17.9%.
Mapping when 2022 World Cup goals went in: the second half produced 61% to the first half's 39%, and stoppage time is wildly productive.
Using StatsBomb's end-location data for every goal of the 2022 World Cup, we map exactly where inside the goal frame the ball crossed the line.
Using StatsBomb shot data for all 64 matches of the 2022 World Cup, we compare every team's goals to its xG. Finishing skill, hot streak, or luck?
Using StatsBomb's free shot data for all 64 matches of the 2022 World Cup, we map where every shot was taken against where goals were actually scored from.
Argentina controlled the ball, France did the chasing, and the xG told its own story: the 2022 final's pressing, possession and chances, from StatsBomb data.
The cutback — a ball pulled back from the byline to an arriving runner — produces some of the highest-value chances in football. The geometry behind it.
Football quietly went from three substitutes to five. How deeper benches reshaped late-game tactics, squad value, and who controls the closing minutes.
The most dangerous moments in football come right after a turnover. Why counterattacks produce higher-quality chances than settled possession.
Crossing feels like attacking; the data says it’s mostly inefficient. Why the average cross is a low-percentage play, and when it actually makes sense.
The penalty is the most studied shot in football: near-identical every time, converted about three times in four. The geometry and the keeper's bind.
A data-driven primer for the first 48-team World Cup - the new format by the numbers, and what recent tournaments tell us about goals and favourites.
