Kylian Mbappe | PSG

[Brwned]

Every single statistic is flawed when used in isolation. Nonetheless, "goal:match ratio" is a superior indicator of a striker's goalscoring ability compared with "total goals scored." This is similar to the “batting average” popular in cricket. What surprises me so much is that while batting averages are the most frequently used metric to judge a batsman’s abilities (instead of total career runs), goal:match ratio is rarely mentioned within footballing circles. The beauty of the statistic is in its simplicity and doesn’t require any complex machine-derived computation.

"Total goals scored" is a measure of a striker’s “longevity”, or the frequency of the team’s participation in a certain competition. For instance, Real Madrid's omnipresence in the Champions League heavily skews that statistic in favour of their players.

An example I frequently give is that of Raúl’s. Raúl is considered by many to be one of the greatest strikers of the modern generation (more so by people obsessed with statistics)! He would even be in the top-five modern strikers of many people's lists. The general argument is that he scored a whopping 400+ career goals and several major trophies. I followed his career closely in the '90s and the 2000s and know for a fact that he was an extremely average left-footed striker. I think he couldn't score >25 League goals his entire career. Some people may not like it, but he's not even half the striker Karim Benzema is. And Benzema himself barely manages to scrape into the list of elite strikers.

The "total goals scored" metric is extremely misleading, but if you calculate the ratio, things become clearer:
Raúl: ~0.4, Benzema: ~0.55.

If people don't like the ratio in decimals, the fraction can be expressed in percentages and read as 40, 55, etc. And do this for elite goal scorers and the statistic really shines through: Messi : ~78, Ronaldo: 73, Lewandowski: 68, Mbappe: 63, Haaland: 73.

Alternatively, (goals+assists):match ratio could be used to determine an attacking players goal contributions per match.

ffs the condescension mixed in with the analysis is incredible.

Sir Alex watched him pretty closely too. There were was a point when he thought he was the best player in the world, and while that wasn't a universal opinion, it certainly wasn't a ridiculous one. Calling him average is without a doubt ridiculous.

'Raul is so difficult to play against when he starts taking up the positions he did tonight,’ said Ferguson.

‘He always seems to be an outlet for them and we never contained that part.

‘We know Zinedine Zidane and Luis Figo are great players but we could have handled that. Raul was very difficult.

‘My only hope is that he doesn’t like travelling. Failing that, we will stop him coming into the country for the second leg.

‘Real Madrid have bought some great players over the last few years but, at the moment, Raul is the best in the world.’

 

[NasirTimothy]

Yes. Better fitness, coaching, nutrition, etc

They very much are. Fitness in particular makes a big difference

I don’t think this is true (that players are ‘better’ now), but if it is, how does that explain more goals? If the players are better now then surely the defenders would be better also?

Improvements in fitness or quality wouldn't drive goal figures upwards though. If anything, they are likely to cancel out the numbers going up, as the easy goals are harder to come by. Or to give a real example, if the average CB is quicker or stronger, Mbappe or Haaland score fewer from simply burning past players.

I think the main trends driving all these goal records are set out nicely in Brwned's post. It's primarily about more games between teams that are relatively richer than their opposition, when compared to the resource gap between teams in the 80s and 90s. And, as you said, the game is more tilted towards attackers, be it more favourable refereeing, quicker pitches and superclub fans no longer accepting defensive football.

Agree, this all makes sense to me

 

[Cascarino]

If you look at Benzema in a bit more detail it paints a more intuitive picture.

While he's scored a boatload of goals, he hasn't been scoring at an exceptional rate: Ruud, di Stéfano, Eusébio, Puskás, Muller and others scored at a much higher rate. For example if Ruud played as many CL games as Benzema, he'd have scored over 100 goals at that rate.

While Benzema was exceptionally good at a young age, it is one of the dominant themes of this generation that players are playing at their peak for longer.

And due to the nature of super clubs, if you're playing for one you're more or less guaranteed to play 5+ CL games a season: the last time Benzema didn't was when he was 19. For contrast, Gerd Muller was 27 when he first played 5+ European Cup games in a season (naturally he scored 11 goals in 6 games).

And due to the expanded nature of the competition, it's much easier to play a lot of games: Benzema had 5 seasons where he played 10+ games, which amounts to more CL matches than Muller ever played, while Muller had just one season when he managed 10 games.

And we're in a high scoring era: 2019-20 was the highest scoring European Cup since 1976. It wasn't an aberration either, in the last 5 seasons there's been an average of over 3 goals per game. During Ruud's time with us it was 2.6, during van Basten's time with Milan it was 2.7, even during Muller's time which is associated with no-mark Eastern European teams it was only 2.96 goals per game...and again because of the nature of superclubs, the goals have been oriented much more towards their strikers rather than the opposition's.

So more games, more goals, and more skewed results create a slightly misleading statistical story. The likes of di Stéfano, Muller, Eusébio, Puskás would easily have hit over 100 goals if they managed over 100 games like Benzema, Lewandowski or Zlatan.

Great post.
Stats sometimes creating a misleading narrative is a real problem and very hard to avoid. I’ve sometimes parroted something I’ve read or heard that at face value seemed to make a cognisant point, but years later being given context that changed things.

 

[Drygon]

If you look at Benzema in a bit more detail it paints a more intuitive picture.

While he's scored a boatload of goals, he hasn't been scoring at an exceptional rate: Ruud, di Stéfano, Eusébio, Puskás, Muller and others scored at a much higher rate. For example if Ruud played as many CL games as Benzema, he'd have scored over 100 goals at that rate.

While Benzema was exceptionally good at a young age, it is one of the dominant themes of this generation that players are playing at their peak for longer.

And due to the nature of super clubs, if you're playing for one you're more or less guaranteed to play 5+ CL games a season: the last time Benzema didn't was when he was 19. For contrast, Gerd Muller was 27 when he first played 5+ European Cup games in a season (naturally he scored 11 goals in 6 games).

And due to the expanded nature of the competition, it's much easier to play a lot of games: Benzema had 5 seasons where he played 10+ games, which amounts to more CL matches than Muller ever played, while Muller had just one season when he managed 10 games.

And we're in a high scoring era: 2019-20 was the highest scoring European Cup since 1976. It wasn't an aberration either, in the last 5 seasons there's been an average of over 3 goals per game. During Ruud's time with us it was 2.6, during van Basten's time with Milan it was 2.7, even during Muller's time which is associated with no-mark Eastern European teams it was only 2.96 goals per game...and again because of the nature of superclubs, the goals have been oriented much more towards their strikers rather than the opposition's.

So more games, more goals, and more skewed results create a slightly misleading statistical story. The likes of di Stéfano, Muller, Eusébio, Puskás would easily have hit over 100 goals if they managed over 100 games like Benzema, Lewandowski or Zlatan.

Why are you completely ignoring the fact Benzema spent most of his prime in a system with Cristiano as their main goalscorer?. Never mind that Benzema rarely took penalties and free-kicks to inflate his numbers.

It's meaningsless to discuss Benzema's career numbers without context

 

[Brwned]

Why are you completely ignoring the fact Benzema spent most of his prime in a system with Cristiano as their main goalscorer?. Never mind that Benzema rarely took penalties and free-kicks to inflate his numbers.

It's meaningsless to discuss Benzema's career numbers without context

I think if you read the rest of the discussion you might have understood the context better. The question was about goalscoring, not about how good he was as a player. I think Benzema as an all-round striker is brilliant, and the fact he could exist as the main main and as a supporting act for that length of time is an incredible feat. He's clearly a better striker than someone like van Nistelrooy, and he's also clearly a worse goalscorer.

 

[MrEleson]

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It’s the history of the Tottenham

 

[H10]

 

[Sayros]

201 career goals at 23 years old and 150 goals (in 196 games) at PSG, only 6 goals behind Zlatan's PSG total (in 180 games) which would put him at second all-time behind Cavani's 200 goals (in 301 games).

 

[RooneyLegend]

201 career goals at 23 years old and 150 goals (in 196 games) at PSG, only 6 goals behind Zlatan's PSG total (in 180 games) which would put him at second all-time behind Cavani's 200 goals (in 301 games).

ridiculous

 

[Gehrman]

201 career goals at 23 years old and 150 goals (in 196 games) at PSG, only 6 goals behind Zlatan's PSG total (in 180 games) which would put him at second all-time behind Cavani's 200 goals (in 301 games).

He might not quite be at prime Messi and Ronaldo in terms of overall ability but he's going end up with an insane amount of goals in his career.

 

[Ladron de redcafe]

201 career goals at 23 years old and 150 goals (in 196 games) at PSG, only 6 goals behind Zlatan's PSG total (in 180 games) which would put him at second all-time behind Cavani's 200 goals (in 301 games).

He and Haaland will be neck and neck in the golden boot races over the next decade. I wonder where each will rank (all time) by the time they're done. The frightening thing about Mbappé is that he's getting better.

 

[awop]

He and Haaland will be neck and neck in the golden boot races over the next decade. I wonder where each will rank (all time) by the time they're done. The frightening thing about Mbappé is that he's getting better.

Will be interesting to see if they avoid playing together in Madrid for the time being. 3 or 4 seasons together would heavily slow down one of them (probably Mbappe).

 

[Ladron de redcafe]

Will be interesting to see if they avoid playing together in Madrid for the time being. 3 or 4 seasons together would heavily slow down one of them (probably Mbappe).

And that's why I don't think we'll see both there. Neither would be happy coming second best to the other.

Mbappé has repeatedly talked about his balón d'or dream and it makes it more difficult to get those individual trophies if you're sharing the stage with someone close to your level. "The Ballon d'Or is a goal for any player who aspires to be the best"

 

[Sayros]

He might not quite be at prime Messi and Ronaldo in terms of overall ability but he's going end up with an insane amount of goals in his career.

He just needs to be as fortunate as those two have been with injuries to get in the neighborhood at the rate he's going, and that's going to be far from a given but so far he's been doing well staying relatively healthy outside of a few knocks here and there, he has played an absurd amount of games since the start of his professional career between club and country.

 

[Idxomer]

The next Ballon d'Or winner.

 

[jderbyshire]

Did he celebrate against his future club?

 

[Trex]

He's a top player, I'll place him around Salah level, he might be young but weather he can go from that to Messi or Ronaldo level isn't guaranteed.

 

[Annihilate Now!]

Some fecking goal that

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

Did he celebrate against his future club?

Of course. Why would he not celebrate?

 

[ti vu]

Difference maker tonight.

PSG is better team overall even at if we're talking about collection of individual quality level. Tactical PSG also in control. However, without Mbappe, PSG would have not been able to beat RM.

 

[Oly Francis]

Difference maker tonight.

PSG is better team overall even at if we're talking about collection of individual quality level. Tactical PSG also in control. However, without Mbappe, PSG would have not been able to beat RM.

Nobody knows that. Of course he's great but PSG would play differently without Mbappé. PSG once beat Real 3-0 under Tuchel without Neymar and Mbappé, i'm not saying he doesn't make the team better or that we would have won without him but assuming what would have happened if this or that is pointless.

 

[RedRonaldo]

He has been everywhere and bossing the game for PSG like not others.

 

[Who's Kissing Cameras?]

Special special player.

 

[predator]

That backheel by Neymar was mad but the finish by Mbappe - wow.

Also the way he won the penalty, the way he feints by way of using a side foot decoy is something I've never seen before.

 

[ti vu]

Nobody knows that. Of course he's great but PSG would play differently without Mbappé. PSG once beat Real 3-0 under Tuchel without Neymar and Mbappé, i'm not saying he doesn't make the team better or that we would have won without him but assuming what would have happened if this or that is pointless.

Without Mbappe, this very game PSG lack penetration. Di Maria this season is much worse than that game in 2019.

In that game, RM went top heavy with Hazard, Bale, James started to support Benzema in attack. Adding Kroos being passenger it was almost one man midfield. That line up was asking for trouble because even without Mbappe and Neymar, PSG was still very capable with possession, and transition. Even after the first goal, RM still half arsed defending and left space in midfield because their super star didn't ass to track back properly. RM deserved the humiliation for their arrogance.

Tonight game however is different. Ancelotti clearly acknowledged superior quality and prepare to defend for a draw. Doesn't commit players on the attack. Vinicius Jr rarely got a support run from Mendy leaving Benzema often being the one supporting Vinicius, and no one to occupy PSG CBs. RM had zero attack and out ball. Why? Despite being cautious, Mbappe was the sole player making RM nervy. RM was scared of Mbappe pace and directness, they don't want to commit man forward, and self impose slow tempo to keep up. Take Mbappe out, playing differently would be a huge sign relief for RM. PSG doesn't have a big forward like Haaland to switch the tactic, nor they were as strong with set piece, corner like with Thiago Silva, and a bit nuisance from Meunier and Choupo Moting. That kind of game would highly likely end up a deadlock which RM wanted.

 

[432JuanMata]

Has 13 assists this season too.
Really is the all round player.

 

[Sayros]

Saw this stat, and pretty shocked CR7 was 27 already when he was at 32 goals in the CL, it shows you just how nuclear he went in the competition afterwards, and the kind of pace Mbappe is on so far.

 

[11101]

He has these games where is completely unplayable. I still think he can be neutered a bit by some defenders but with his pace it's incredibly hard to do.

I see two weaknesses personally. His control isn't perfect, if a defender is in his face as he receives the ball he will often lose it. Then, he needs to run at you. A quick defender who doesn't commit to a tackle can keep him away from goal.

 

[Gehrman]

He has these games where is completely unplayable. I still think he can be neutered a bit by some defenders but with his pace it's incredibly hard to do.

I see two weaknesses personally. His control isn't perfect, if a defender is in his face as he receives the ball he will often lose it. Then, he needs to run at you. A quick defender who doesn't commit to a tackle can keep him away from goal.

Every player can be stopped really. It's just really difficult with him. His composure is excellent. Might not be the next Messi in style, but he'll be dominating Ballon Dors in the future.

 

[RedRonaldo]

Saw this stat, and pretty shocked CR7 was 27 already when he was at 32 goals in the CL, it shows you just how nuclear he went in the competition afterwards, and the kind of pace Mbappe is on so far.

Yeh crazy isn't it, only managed 32 goals at age 27 (average only 3-4 goals per season), and then went on to score another 114 goals more the next 10 years (average 11-12 goals per season)

 

[Ladron de redcafe]

Every player can be stopped really. It's just really difficult with him. His composure is excellent. Might not be the next Messi in style, but he'll be dominating Ballon Dors in the future.

I agree. He's sensational when on form. Neymar was and is close to unplayable when on form but Mbappé reminds me of prime Messi and R9 when he's in top form. It's another level of frightening dominantion.

He has openly talked about his desire to win balón dors and it isn't question of whether he'll win. The question is how many balón d'ors he'll win.

 

[Ladron de redcafe]

Has 13 assists this season too.
Really is the all round player.

He is much more than a goalscorer. His overall play is on another level, and his impact on matches goes beyond scoring. Even if you don't factor in his assist totals, his penetration has created so many chances for PSG and for France.

 

[GlasgowCeltic]

Is there any chance he stays?

 

[horsechoker]

Is there any chance he stays?

PSG get desperate and offer him €2 million a week

 

[RoyH1]

Is there any chance he stays?

With the amount of money being offered, I cannot imagine his family not being tempted. I'd also imagine that he's under a lot of pressure from the entire French football community.
I think PSG messed up with getting Messi in the club. Mbappé wants to be the main man and with Neymar/Messia round the spotlight will never be on him. Whereas at Madrid he'd come right up from the bat an be the main star. Benzema has shown that he has no problem leaving the limelight to others. If PSG hadn't given in to the Messi temptation I think their chance of getting Mbappé would have been greater.

 

[awop]

With the amount of money being offered, I cannot imagine his family not being tempted. I'd also imagine that he's under a lot of pressure from the entire French football community.
I think PSG messed up with getting Messi in the club. Mbappé wants to be the main man and with Neymar/Messia round the spotlight will never be on him. Whereas at Madrid he'd come right up from the bat an be the main star. Benzema has shown that he has no problem leaving the limelight to others. If PSG hadn't given in to the Messi temptation I think their chance of getting Mbappé would have been greater.

I don't think Messi coming made any difference. The message for a long time was "we're never losing Mbappe on a free" and for all we know Messi renewing at Barca with a shady deal was almost done. The ridiculous Real offer to buy him straight away and the following refusal was a PR fight. In the short term they stood up to Florentino and any big club trying to buy their player. Getting Messi was just a nice bonus and a way to attenuate Mbappe's future departure. Madrid won't wait another year without signing anyone, if he stays he's basically gifting his dream to Haaland.

 

[11101]

With the amount of money being offered, I cannot imagine his family not being tempted. I'd also imagine that he's under a lot of pressure from the entire French football community.
I think PSG messed up with getting Messi in the club. Mbappé wants to be the main man and with Neymar/Messia round the spotlight will never be on him. Whereas at Madrid he'd come right up from the bat an be the main star. Benzema has shown that he has no problem leaving the limelight to others. If PSG hadn't given in to the Messi temptation I think their chance of getting Mbappé would have been greater.

I don't see him staying. He knows his ambitions cant be met in France and I think that's bigger to him than any salary offer PSG could make him.

 

[Oly Francis]

I don't see him staying. He knows his ambitions cant be met in France and I think that's bigger to him than any salary offer PSG could make him.

What's his ambition? We'll see how it goes in the 2nd leg but it's hard to hide the fact that Real Madrid is at the end of a cycle. The only thing that could make him stay in Paris for 1 or 2 extra years is if he thinks Real won't be able to compete in the CL anytime soon.

La Liga is declining for a couple of years now, and this season it's been a total shitshow. I'm not sure that his ambition can be fulfilled by winning La Liga in the worst era in decades while being eliminated early in the CL. It's obvious this Real Madrid team needs a full rebuilding, otherwise they'll fall short every time they face a decent opposition. I mean they were totally dominated by a PSG with an very average Messi, a bad Di Maria, and Danilo/Paredes in the midfield.

 

[Pretzels81]

PSG get desperate and offer him €2 million a week

Desperate? Neverending oil money from Q.

 

[TheReligion]

Is there any chance he stays?

Less than zero