didz
Full Member
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- May 17, 2014
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- 3,993
The whole narrative of Liverpool utterly dominating the game hinges entirely on the fact that people just focus mindlessly on xG and other blind stats like that.
If a player has a free run at the keeper but doesn't manage to get a shot off in the end because the ball is just exactly nicked from him in the last nanosecond, it doesn't count as a "chance" in the statistics. It doesn't register in the xG figure. Meanwhile, a toothless shot from 50 yards out that would never go in will count as a chance in the eyes of xG. Which one was actually the bigger threat? Just because Real Madrid don't mindlessly hoof the ball goalwards every time they have the opportunity doesn't mean they aren't creating chances. Meanwhile, that's what Liverpool do, and that means the stats make it seem as though they dominate games much more than they really do.
Possession was exactly 50/50. Liverpool were only actually close to scoring a couple of times, but they kept taking wild, aimless shots at goal. Any team can do that. It's not a sign of being the better team; if anything, it can mean the opposite: they were unable to create proper chances so they just hoofed the ball in the direction of the goal anytime they could, hoping for the best. Meanwhile, Real Madrid had a number of highly threatening runs on goal that simply didn't happen to end with shots because they were intercepted at the last moment. If you let stats dictate your interpretation of a match, instead of whatever actually happens on the pitch, I guess I can see why you would think Liverpool were toying with Real Madrid.
Watching the game, at no point did I feel like Madrid were hanging on for dear life. They were just absorbing the pressure and playing on the counter while they focused on overcoming Liverpool's bullheaded, inhaler-fuelled aggression. It was more reminiscent of Mike Tyson's iconic swaying from side to side while his opponent flails wildly at him, missing. At the end of the day, Madrid scored two goals, one of which was ruled out on a silly technicality. Liverpool didn't score at all, and it's not as if Courtois had to make a dozen world-class saves. It's hardly the first time Madrid have a lower xG than their opponent but win by being more clinical. They've been doing that throughout the entire tournament. It's literally their style of play.
Sums up my view pretty nicely.
They had an xG of 2.19 from 24 shots - that's an xG per shot of 0.09. They would have had to do something pretty special to score and fair enough, Mane almost did. But it's almost like nobody told Liverpool that Courtois was pretty good!
Meanwhile Real Madrid were always looking for the extra pass, and ultimately won the game due to Trent going full AWB at the back post. The sort of panicked, uncoordinated defending for the offside(?) goal was not something you saw from Madrid anywhere on the pitch. Blood&thunder versus calm heads usually goes to the latter in finals.
xG is all well and good, but if your sample size is exactly one game, you need to go a little deeper and apply context.