Crunching Numbers: Champions League Attacking Prospects Leading to Matchday Six
The Champions League group usually ends like a bit of a deflating balloon.
However, this season, there’s a few groups that have a lot at stake in the last matchday.
Which is super exciting.
With that, I’ve looked at some underlying numbers to see which attacking players are playing well in the 20/21 Champions League Group Stage.
There’s some names on this that really surprised me, so it was awesome to see some top performing guys who are a little under the radar. Almost hidden in plain sight.
Looking For All-Rounders
Today, I was looking for prospects who are attacking all-rounders. A hard part of finding attacking players is getting the balance.
Just filtering by goals, or even expected goals can be misleading. There is so much that has to happen for a player to get a shot on goal - a lot of which isn’t done by the player themselves. A teammate’s dribble that breaks a defensive line, a cross or cut-back…. or anything else in the buildup.
Without going too far into buildup numbers, to find the best all-rounders, I’m looking at the following numbers:
Successful Attacking Actions: The amount of successful shots, crosses, and dribbles per match. These are a great way to get a basic sense of everything a player does to be an attacking threat. It isn’t perfect, but it does cover the eye-catching moments (that get a player noticed in the hobby)
Touches in the Box: Pretty straight forward…. how many times a player gets a touch in the attacking penalty box. I like this stat a lot, and I think it’s a number that scales depending on the team you’re in. Basically, getting the ball in the box equals a better chance at a shot with a high xG, or a key pass.
The way I see it, if you’re getting a lot of successful attacking actions and also getting touches in good positions (in the box), that’s a very handy player to have.
And I’ve looked at both on a per/90 basis.
What Players Are We Looking At?
To find these all-round attacking prospects, I put the following parameters on:
Players had to play over 300 minutes. This eliminates those who have had one good game skewing the data seeing we’re using a per 90 minute number.
Players were 25 and under
I also filtered out players in defensive positions. I don’t think they would have impacted the results too much besides making the graph a lot harder to read
Doing that, there were about 50 players to sort though… Enough to get a good range, without having too-small a sample.
The Caveats
This is after five Champions League games, so it’s an incredibly small sample size
Each group is different, so some players have had an easier run than others
The Results
So, without holding you too long. Here are the results in a graph. You can click on the graph to enlarge it.
Now, that’s just a massive data dump that may not mean too much to you. So with that in mind, here is the same graph quartered using the median number (middle number when putting all results in order).
Note, when finding the median, I used ALL players, not just the under 25s. I thought that gives a better look at how they’re going against everyone, not just other prospects.
Green box is below the median in both touches in the box and successful attacking actions
Blue is below the median in touches in the box, but over in successful attacking actions
Purple is below median in successful attacking actions but above with touches in the box
Yellow is above median in both
As you can see, there’s a lot of players in that below-median section for both stats. Some of these guys are more defensive-minded, but others are one’s you’d hope to do better like Dominik Szoboszlai.
All in all though, there are some really interesting players to point out (I’ll hand-pick some in the next section).
Also, for a bit of fun, here are the golden boys, who are in the top 20% for both successful attacking actions and touches in the box.
Some great names on that list - Some are the ones that you’d expect, but others are a little surprising (links to their eBay search).
David Neres (I’m going to be 100% honest, I bought some of his cards after getting this data up)
On a side note: In a way, I kinda love it when I have an idea on what stats to track and the results end up with great players at the top. I’d be fucking concerned if Felix and Mbappe weren’t in the top 20%.
Players That Caught My Eye
Looking at the data, here are the guys that caught my eye.
The Top 20%
Again, here are the top 20% for both stats. Keep in mind that while these guys are only the players ages 25 and under, they’re in the top 20% for total players.
From that list, you’d expect to see Felix, Mbappe, and Haaland. I think they’re setting themselves apart as the top three prospects. Foden and Rashford are two guys who are that next tier down but still look like they’ll be great players for a very long time.
Anthony Martial is a fun one, he’s kinda forgotten about in a lot of ways - and is up and down in form, but to see him in this list is positive.
Correa is a god in this graph and just scrapes in under the age limit. David Neres is the young promising Brazilian at Ajax who was probably the biggest surprise to me.
Jeremy Doku
Doku is an interesting one here. His first season in France isn’t the raging success he’d have hoped but his numbers here are pretty good considering his side’s performances in the group stages.
He’s fourth in successful attacking actions, but just isn’t getting in the box enough to get into the top quadrant.
I really like Doku as a prospect, and this backs that up.
You can find his cards on eBay.
Those Who Just Miss Out on The 20%
There are three guys who just miss out on getting the top 20% in both categories.
Mergrim Berisha (Also found in those 19/20 Fussball Boxes)
Arsensio and Stirling are good shouts here, and both fit in the “how the hell are they 25 and under still” category. Especially Stirling, it feels like he’s been around forever.
Mergrim Berisha is the name that sticks out here. Szoboszlai is the guy getting all the hype at the moment. But Berisha is no joke and has a really bright future. I think so many people have his sticker from the 19/20 Fussball box looking for Haaland, they didn’t even notice.
Lautaro Martinez
In a way Martinez has a similar situation to Jeremy Doku, but the inverse.
I am incredibly impressed that you can get that many touches in the box, while only having around 2.5 successful attacking actions. When you consider a shot is an attacking action, it’s pretty clear that he isn’t offering as much deep as he usually would.
However, dribbling past guys and hitting in crosses isn’t really Martinez’s game, so it kinda figures. Still a top striker though. You can find his cards on eBay.
The Other Top Performers
I won’t give too much about these guys, but they’re the others who are in the top quadrant and are above median in both touches in the box per 90, and successful attacking actions per 90 minutes (in no order).
And, you know… I’ll include those close to the line. I won’t pretend the boxes I drew in Paint.net are 100% accurate to the decimal.
Sekou Koita - It’s stupid how many good young players are at RB Salzburg
Chris Nkuku - It’s stupid how many good young players are at RB Leipzig
Enock Mwepu - It’s stupid how many good young players are at RB Salzburg…. Hmmm, I’m sensing a pattern here
Marcus Thuram - A really underrated player.
Emmanuel Dennis - Club Brugges have been one of the surprise packets from this Champions League, and Dennis is a big reason. But he’s not my favorite player form that squad.
Moise Kean - Has found is footing at PSG and I am glad he’s finding form… Was an absolute top prospect a few seasons ago when he was breaking through at Juvenuts.
Charles De Ketelaere - My top pick for Brugges attackers (well, one of them). He’s showed up a few times in these number crunch articles recently too
Timo Werner - Still not playing his best, so it’s good to see him here. Luckily for him, missing a wide open chance counts as a touch in the box (sorry).
Giovanni Reyna - For a player this young, Reyna is obviously incredibly impressive.
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