Which is harder scoring or creating chances?

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Interesting convo taking place on twitter between Fabregas and Owen.

I think creating chances is harder.


 

WeePat

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Of course the only example Owen brings up is the 5 yard pass, 30 yard screamer.
 

Zlatattack

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How hard is a tap in? Ask all the strikers who never seem to be in the right place to tap them in.

If creating goals is not that difficult then why aren't strikers always picking up the ball deep, dribbling past the midfield/defence and then finishing?

Fact of the matter is, they're both equally important. If you don't create chances, you don't score. If you don't score, then chances created alone don't win you points.
 

Dante

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Of course creating is more difficult. Just look at the numerical output differences between the most talented assisters in the world versus the most talented scorers.

Owen is right to say that lumping them together is bollocks. But for the opposite reason to what he's suggesting. If anything, you should be applying a multiplier of x2 to assists when comparing scoring/creating against each other. And if we're being totally fair, x0.5 to penalties.
 
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padr81

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How hard is a tap in? Ask all the strikers who never seem to be in the right place to tap them in.

If creating goals is not that difficult then why aren't strikers always picking up the ball deep, dribbling past the midfield/defence and then finishing?

Fact of the matter is, they're both equally important. If you don't create chances, you don't score. If you don't score, then chances created alone don't win you points.
Depends whose tapping it in. Kane easy, Benteke, impossible.
 

Glorio

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Depends on the assist and the goal.

Having great numbers in either is hard work either way, and I'm unsure you can necessarily weigh having great numbers in one more than the other - especially considering you're relying on someone else to make your assist (not just chance creation) count.
 

horsechoker

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Depends but they are both vitally important to winning.

Unless players starting scoring from solo runs
 

giorno

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Considering the two tend to go hand in hand and in fact can't be separated, it's kind of a pointless argument. Like the chicken and egg

Not surprising michael owen is the one that jumped in :lol:
 

Beaucoup

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RVP's goal against Aston Villa is a great example of the assist being just as important as the finish.
 

amolbhatia50k

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You know what's the rarest - players who have those advanced decision making abilities, who see play developing as I happens, who in an instant make the right choice leaving you surprised by the said choice. It's subjective but those are the ones I find hardest to understand because it's seems impossible.
 

MTF

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It's not easy to finish, and the best strikers both finish the easy ones and score goals they had no right to. But creating is clearly the more challenging of the 2... almost everything done while in possession of the ball by any player on the pitch is an attempt to contribute to chance creation. Getting a chance requires a sequence of good decisions and execution, be it passes, movement or dribbling. Finishing a chance is just one decision and shot to be executed well.

Even if we're just going with assist vs goal, one way to think of it is: is the margin you have to get it slightly wrong greater on an assist or on a shot on goal? I'd argue on the assist. There's a narrow range in which you need to place a pass or a cross for it to not be intercepted or not be beyond the reach of your target entirely. The goal is more generous an area than that, especially if you're already in the box. Many goals in the box go in despite not being too far away from the keeper because at certain ranges the keeper's reflexes just aren't quick enough to react.
 

tomaldinho1

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Surely Fabregas is right for the very simple reason that goals are way more common than assists?

Goals & Assists Season 2020-21
Goalscorers246
Credited Goals894
Own Goals36
Assisting Players232
Total Credited Assists622
 

OleBoiii

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There's a reason for why xG often predicts the winner and why parking the bus is such a viable tactic. If you don't create lots of chances, then you're not gonna score a lot of goals. A team that creates 6 clear-cut chances per game but has mediocre finishing is probably gonna be more successful than teams that only create 2 or 3 clear cut chances but has good finishers.

Ultimately the top teams are gonna have both good creators and finishers, though. At the highest level both are equally important and difficult. But if I was the manager of a midlevel team and was offered either a great finisher or a great creator, I'd take the latter any day of the week.
 

Zlatan 7

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Football is about scoring goals. Goals are clearly harder in my opinion. Even a tap in you have to be in the right place.

you can score a goal without an assist.
You can’t have an assist without a goal.
 

dal

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Surely Fabregas is right for the very simple reason that goals are way more common than assists?

Goals & Assists Season 2020-21
Goalscorers246
Credited Goals894
Own Goals36
Assisting Players232
Total Credited Assists622
Well it depends how the assists are measured of course but all statistics and sample sizes aside then in a game of football if the number is the only measure then you’re probably right.

Obviously you have to look at it in context. The goals scored is higher maybe because of pressing defenders (defenders assist = no assist I assume) then creating the chance for yourself.

If everything had an equal degree of difficulty then you would be right but obviously it doesn’t.

You can’t really analyse it statistically in the true scientific way, the best way to do this is for 10 football experts to watch a game over the course of the season and rank the assists and goals out of 10 by way of difficulty considering everything we usually consider, opposition difficulty, skill level etc.
 

dal

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Football is about scoring goals. Goals are clearly harder in my opinion. Even a tap in you have to be in the right place.

you can score a goal without an assist.
You can’t have an assist without a goal.
So that means it’s harder to get an assist.
 

Ibi Dreams

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I'd trust Fabregas more given that he assisted a lot and also scored a lot, even playing false 9 at times? Owen was pretty much just a finisher

But ultimately I don't really think you can say one is harder than the other.
 

ChaddyP

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You know what's the rarest - players who have those advanced decision making abilities, who see play developing as I happens, who in an instant make the right choice leaving you surprised by the said choice. It's subjective but those are the ones I find hardest to understand because it's seems impossible.
Also as rare is players who have advanced movement in and around the box that make it incredibly hard to predict and still always in the perfect place to score.

Point is both are similarly important and tge transfer market seems to agree as the top player prices tend to be even with striker and creative players
 

Blackwidow

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Just a practical example

The best goalscorer of the last 2 years combined with the best assistant - blind understanding. Sometimes it is a great assist where it is just on the plate for the other - sometimes both acts are great - sometimes it is an easy assist and a spectacular goal.

 

roonster09

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Both are harder, you can always come up with scenarios and specific examples to show which is easier or which is tougher. In general both are hard, creating chances in the box with so many defenders is as hard as player losing his marker in the box and score.
 

BusbyMalone

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An interesting convo taking place involving Michael Owen? Not having that

Also, I don't think he really has a point. Surely there is no answer to this question. We're delving into the territory of "how long's a piece of string" There are so many variables at play, that it's impossible to have a definitive answer. It's just a nonsense fecking question, basically.
 

OleBoiii

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A good assist generally requires a lot more precision than a good goal, that's for sure. The goal doesn't move and once you're within a certain distance there is only so much the goalkeeper can do if you're reasonably precise.

The hardest part about scoring a goal is everything that happens before you take the actual shot. The movement, anticipation and balance to readjust your body for the shot. That is what separates strikers from the other players on the pitch. Anyone can beat a goalkeeper inside the 16-yard box if they have all the time in the world.

Assisting on the other hand, is all about precision, timing and vision.

Both are impressive feats. They are unquestionably the two hardest things to pull off. I personally rate assisting/creating big chances to be marginally more impressive, but it's not much between the two.
 

Eli Zee

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Creating chances is harder... if you're creating a chance all the scorer has to do is kick the ball accurately. If you're dribbling and then scoring, the dribbling is considered creating a chance and harder than the finish / last touch / shot
 

El Jefe

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I want to say creating chances but surely its scoring goals.

There are more chances created than goals scored. Fabregas could create three goal scoring opportunities in a game and that wouldn't be seen as anything so special. If Owen was to score a hattrick that's a lot more meaningful.

Now is it easier to be Fabregas or Owen is another question but goal scoring is definitely harder.
 

JPRouve

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It depends on what one considers finishing. For example, I believe that a striker movement is part of creating, not part of scoring because the timing and sharpness of the run creates a potential goalscoring opportunity. So in my book creating is more difficult because rare are the players that can consistently find themselves in goalscoring situations, rare are the players that have the skills to pass the ball or even spot that their teammate is in a goalscoring position.
 

rcoobc

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Sometimes, often, the thing that makes the goal possible is neither the goal nor the assist.

30 yard cutting pass to the 1st striker, 1st striker taps it to the 2ns striker who slots it home

The 30 yard cutting pass got the goal but doesn't get credited.
 

rcoobc

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I'd trust Fàbregas up front more than Owen in midfield
 

JPRouve

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Sometimes, often, the thing that makes the goal possible is neither the goal nor the assist.

30 yard cutting pass to the 1st striker, 1st striker taps it to the 2ns striker who slots it home

The 30 yard cutting pass got the goal but doesn't get credited.
But the 30 yard pass is part of the creation? I don't think that the question is limited to the last pass.
 

charlenefan

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I want to say creating chances but surely its scoring goals.

There are more chances created than goals scored. Fabregas could create three goal scoring opportunities in a game and that wouldn't be seen as anything so special. If Owen was to score a hattrick that's a lot more meaningful.

Now is it easier to be Fabregas or Owen is another question but goal scoring is definitely harder.
Ah but is Fabregas creating 3 chances only for the recipient to mess them up because Fabregas is just more talented than the finisher? Imagine Fabregas feeding Danny Welbeck for example

The only person who really knows the answer to this question is Messi tbh :lol:
 

GatoLoco

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Creating chances is harder... if you're creating a chance all the scorer has to do is kick the ball accurately. If you're dribbling and then scoring, the dribbling is considered creating a chance and harder than the finish / last touch / shot
The scorer who puts himself in a position to score is also creating the chance. The notion that only the guy on the ball is creating the chance is very wrong and sadly very extended among Internet fans.
 

JPRouve

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The scorer who puts himself in a position to score is also creating the chance. The notion that only the guy on the ball is creating the chance is very wrong and sadly very extended among Internet fans.
And to me that's why creating a chance is harder because it generally requires more than one player taking the right decision, at the right time and even then the quality of chances varies. Good chances are very difficult to create.
 

bsCallout

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What a bizarre debate. Just to join in I would say scoring is harder.

Edit: A chance created relies on a good goal scorer on the end. Lots of chances created(that could be assists) don't end with a goal, because it's not that easy to put it in the net.
 

Oranges038

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you can ask plenty who are in the right place as well
Few things funnier in football than seeing someone miss an open goal.

With regard to this, it's a chicken and egg situation really. Without the players to create the chances the goalscorer doesn't score as much, without the striker there in the right position the chances go begging.