phl_fc

phl_fc t1_ixwim2g wrote

538 kind of had a point about this a while back on an analytics article about the value of speculative shooting. What they found is that long range shots are usually worth taking because it at least gives you a chance for something good to happen, and that passing the ball around probably isn’t going to improve your chances enough to make up for not taking your shot. They argue that a high volume of low quality shots is a better strategy than trying to pass the ball into the net.

They were looking at the xGA stats for the percentage chance of scoring from every area of the field and saw that passing the ball around to try to get a higher xGA didn’t make up for the volume you could get from lots of lower percentage shots.

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