2014

The Top 25 Bundesliga Scoring Leaders - 2014

By admin | May 19, 2014
2014

The Top 25 Bundesliga Scoring Leaders - 2014

Welcome to scoring contribution week! Sounds exciting, doesn't it? Like ooooo, look at that sexy scoring contribution. No? You may have clicked the wrong link. For everyone else, the deal is this. Now that the season is over, I can finish crunching all the numbers and take a look at who provided the biggest contribution to goals and assists per 90 minutes in each major league in Europe. (To pre-empt Twitter questions: Yes, I will also include the Eredivisie). Why look at Scoring Contribution? Because some of us... okay mainly me... are agnostic about whether a person scores a goal or contributes the pass that leads directly to that goal. Football is a complicated game, full of a tremendous number of moving parts. Focusing on just the guys who get the final touch before the goal can be misleading, but combining goals and assists seems to lead to the best evaluation of overall attacking contribution that we can find right now. Additionally, it's not abstract like key passes and shots on target per 90 or anything - this just counts goals and passes that lead to goals. Simples! For time's sake, I am not going to spend a ton of time on analysis in these pieces, though you can expect to see me refer back to them regularly throughout the summer. Instead of detailed analysis, for right now you will get radars. And gifs. And animated gif radars. The Top 5 Bundes_Top_NPGA90_2014 If you don't like the gif version, I have broken out each of the top 5 into their own radars below. More information on the new radars can be found here. Also, you will notice I have added the stats grid for the radars in the bottom left now. Red numbers are bottom 5%, green numbers are top 5%. High levels of dispossessions and dribbles are highly correlated. A few quick notes:

  • Ribery? Still really good. Also still kinda injury prone. How much will he fall off as he continues through his 30s? We'll find out.
  • I had literally never heard of Sven Schipplock until I started playing with these numbers a month ago. Hoffenheim players may need some sort of tax on their offensive numbers to make them compare to the rest of the world.
  • Re: Mandzukic... the chances that Bayern create for him are absurd. Conversion rate? Bonkers. Shots on target rate? Bonkers. Combine those with a reasonable number of shots and you will end up with one of the best goal rates in the league. He's good, but I have questions about whether he'll be this awesome elsewhere. Also, he turns 28 in two days. Caution is warranted.
  • Sidney Sam... 2.5M Euros. Schalke are stuntin' and flossin' and savin' they money and they hella happy that's a bargain, bitch.
  • Marco Reus allegedly has a £30M release clause that becomes active in 2015. If he were on the open market this summer, his expected price would be at least £55-60M. Somebody is getting PAID next summer.

Everybody Else in the Top 25 Bundes_NPGA90_2014 Feel free to hit me up with comments on Twitter, and link to these on Reddit, forums, your Facebook page, print it off and send it through the mail to your dad, or John Cross, or whatever. Top 5 Individual Radars Ribery_2014 Sven_Schipplock_2014 Mandzukic_2014 Sidney_Sam_2014 Marco_Reus_2014