Where could I look up these "should have beaten them based on chances created but fewer goals scored" stats?
Congratulations spain
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Where could I look up these "should have beaten them based on chances created but fewer goals scored" stats?
So they were the best team but not clearly the best team?
I give you Germany but I dont remember a single good chance made by France, maybe one with Mbappe shot. So I'm not exactly sure they should have beaten Spain.
They maybe should have been beaten but they werent which doesnt make them any less the best team in the tournament.
I'd have Germany as the best team in the tournament, but mainly my point is that no one team was clearly better than the rest, given how closely matched Germany and Spain were, and that France really should have beaten Spain too.
From the BBC, France had more shots, more shots on target, way more touches in the opposition box, etc, which you can find here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/live/cd1derpyngmt#MatchStats
And France had a higher xG, which you can see here:
I wouldn't say they were the best, they were one of a few that would have been worthy winners. If I had to pick a best team, it would be Germany, but they were so closely matched it doesn't feel right to pick an outright best.
I think some on here struggle with the concept of a Cup (knock out) competition.
The best team in the tournament does not necessarily win it and Utd have won plenty when we have not been the best but the joy for the players and the fans is just to win the fecking thing.
The best team in the tournament does not necessarily win it and Utd have won plenty when we have not been the best but the joy for the players and the fans is just to win the fecking thing.
Totally, especially in the first half against Italy.
I think the players you guys had this time around were of similar quality, but I think the balance was all wrong.
Team in 2021 had a bit more variety in attacking threat with Shaw and Tripper high up on the wings and Man City's Sterling providing those runs in behind.
Frustrating thing for English fans I would imagine is the likes of Gordon, Bowen and Watkins sat on the bench for most of the Tournament while Kane, Bellingham and Foden were tripping over themselves coming short. For me, only a max of 2 of these should have been in the team.
But Spain were well worth the win. Yamal and Williams are going to be something else to watch over the next decade. And when you consider Spain losing some key players to injury like Pedri vs Germany, and Rodri at HT, they produced incredible resilience throughout the tournament, along with great football.
England miss prime Sterling more than any other player. Nothing gets the best out of Kane more than a player who can run in behind and dive for pens.
1st team in history to win 7 games (actually 6 was already the record)
Team with more goals in an Euro edition (15)
Spain won against 4 World Champions (Italy, Germany, France, England). I doubt this has ever happened before in a major tournament.
"Underdog", maybe not in the strict meaning of the word but it wasn't the favorite. It had to win to all the favorites (Germany, France, England).
And all with positive football, trying to go forward. A group of players that always believed. They had to face many and different tricky scenarios (goals in psycological minutes, injuries...) and they always thrived on them. The NT was very critizised before the Euro (RFEF scandals, coach and team election...) not even winning the Nations League helped, but here we are. They won the Spanish fans (and I think many outside) during the tournament. First title I enjoy not been one of the clear favorites. Fantastic.
Man, you (not just you, just in general) should watch more football and read less "stats", that can say a very different story from reality. Football is complex.
XG is just another ultrabiased stat that should be taken as a grain of salt. It can be useful to understand how clinical you are in a season, but it shouldn't be taken as the "holy grail" of what a team deserves or not. It is inherently biased in how it is calculated (i could talk hours about this) but more important, it doesn't take into account context.
For example, that France game. Spain had a great change in the first minutes (Fabian), just 2 minutes later France scored (min ~8). It took less that 20 minutes to Spain to put 2 goals against the best defense of the tournament. 1 banger (low xG) and another great goal by Olmo. Ok, Spain had to put pressure on France and got it done real quick. Spain wasn't in need to risk a lot anymore and just was more cautious. France generated barely nothing, but played more in Spanish zone. They accumulated xG with barely chances. They only had 1 good chance in 70 minutes needing to score (min 80 something). Spain scored 2 in 20 minutes. If Spain would be in need... then... well, we don't know, but we know what happened when in need.
Germany game was trickier, Spain was in control of the game until we substituted our best players (around min 60), before we had scored, mostly dominated, and Germany should have had Kroos red carded multiple times. From those substitutions Germany (who had to score at home), started creating chances, and it was like that until the end of 90 minutes (they scored in 88). I guess it was a coincidence that after the draw at the end of the 90 minutes, the german dominion stopped in the extra time, that was very leveled. Well... Germany didn't need it so much and Spain tried going forward again. We scored but it is true that it could have gone one way or another. You always need some luck to win a championship like this. Germany accumulated more XG because of the context. They were behind, just that.
The opener game against Croatia... Spain "lost" XG (or was very similar) but won 3-0. Well... it was 2-0 at 30 min, 3-0 at half time. Spain barely tried and Croatia created some changes.... while big down, yet they didn't score, so Spain didn't try, Why would they?
One goal in football changes context and the dynamics of the match, making XG a very poor stat to actually talk about what is truly deserved.
Team with more goals in an Euro edition (15)
Spain won against 4 World Champions (Italy, Germany, France, England). I doubt this has ever happened before in a major tournament.
"Underdog", maybe not in the strict meaning of the word but it wasn't the favorite. It had to win to all the favorites (Germany, France, England).
And all with positive football, trying to go forward. A group of players that always believed. They had to face many and different tricky scenarios (goals in psycological minutes, injuries...) and they always thrived on them. The NT was very critizised before the Euro (RFEF scandals, coach and team election...) not even winning the Nations League helped, but here we are. They won the Spanish fans (and I think many outside) during the tournament. First title I enjoy not been one of the clear favorites. Fantastic.
Man, you (not just you, just in general) should watch more football and read less "stats", that can say a very different story from reality. Football is complex.
XG is just another ultrabiased stat that should be taken as a grain of salt. It can be useful to understand how clinical you are in a season, but it shouldn't be taken as the "holy grail" of what a team deserves or not. It is inherently biased in how it is calculated (i could talk hours about this) but more important, it doesn't take into account context.
For example, that France game. Spain had a great change in the first minutes (Fabian), just 2 minutes later France scored (min ~8). It took less that 20 minutes to Spain to put 2 goals against the best defense of the tournament. 1 banger (low xG) and another great goal by Olmo. Ok, Spain had to put pressure on France and got it done real quick. Spain wasn't in need to risk a lot anymore and just was more cautious. France generated barely nothing, but played more in Spanish zone. They accumulated xG with barely chances. They only had 1 good chance in 70 minutes needing to score (min 80 something). Spain scored 2 in 20 minutes. If Spain would be in need... then... well, we don't know, but we know what happened when in need.
Germany game was trickier, Spain was in control of the game until we substituted our best players (around min 60), before we had scored, mostly dominated, and Germany should have had Kroos red carded multiple times. From those substitutions Germany (who had to score at home), started creating chances, and it was like that until the end of 90 minutes (they scored in 88). I guess it was a coincidence that after the draw at the end of the 90 minutes, the german dominion stopped in the extra time, that was very leveled. Well... Germany didn't need it so much and Spain tried going forward again. We scored but it is true that it could have gone one way or another. You always need some luck to win a championship like this. Germany accumulated more XG because of the context. They were behind, just that.
The opener game against Croatia... Spain "lost" XG (or was very similar) but won 3-0. Well... it was 2-0 at 30 min, 3-0 at half time. Spain barely tried and Croatia created some changes.... while big down, yet they didn't score, so Spain didn't try, Why would they?
One goal in football changes context and the dynamics of the match, making XG a very poor stat to actually talk about what is truly deserved.
A well deserved winner of what turned out to be a pretty average tournament.
To win all 7 matches and play some good football, they were for me the stand out team.
To win all 7 matches and play some good football, they were for me the stand out team.
This post is packed full of hyperbole, and is really defensive about the Spain team, so I don't see a great deal of worth in going through it. Even when you make a reasonable point, such as xG not being great in isolation, it's done in such an over the top way (it's impossible for a statistic to be biased, let alone "ultrabiased") that you aren't really discussing in good faith.
So let's leave it at this - I disagree with your summaries of the Germany and France matches, Germany in particular were better than Spain for most of the match, and had France's finishing been on par with Spain's, they'd have been through to the final instead. Spain were good, one of a handful of worthy winners, but not markedly clear of that group.
Pathetic attempt at a jinx thread using lower case S for Spain becomes an actual congrats thread. Thanks, OP.
For the same reason, I could say that you are really offensive about the Spain team.
It is ULTRABIASED in terms of telling who is the deserved winner. I made it very clear. I should have used USELESS in this particular case, anyway. Context matter a lot and XG doesn't capture it. I could go for hours talking about how it is calculated (I could even talk about how different companies calculate it, pros and cons, new techniques and approaches), and what new stats are being created because there are many situations where XG is completely and utterly useless and unfair. It is just ridiculous and laughable. For example, 2 strikers alone against a GK equals to XG = 0 if the striker tries to dribble and fails to do that. A striker shooting the air without GK is XG = 0. XG of a cross where the defender makes a OG but barely touches it and "steals" it from the striker is also 0. Those can be extreme situations, but you can imagine that are many dangerous situations with XG=0 while a random shot from 30 m can get a free 0.01 and a shot on target. Man, I could even talk for a very long time why XG is just a ridiculous name. It is just flashy name to be sold to the public, but the real meaning is very different.
XG is not bad itself, it is the use some people make of it, like it really measures what a team deserves, and it is one of the most laughable statements/ideas you could use in real football.
And of course statistics are biased... it is one of the most common issues (if not the most) when you are developing a predictive model (or doing an analysis). You obviously don't work in Data Science/Machine Learning. You need to understand very well what stats you are using, methodology, etc. to be able to start using them in a proper way. Without those things, stats are just numbers.
Reality is it took 20 minutes for Spain to score 2 goals when they were down/good momentum after equalizing. It took France over 70 minutes to create a single decent chance when they had to. Nothing interesting for France in those 70 minutes. Those facts affect a lot to the dynamics of the match and those dynamics govern the stats.
Btw, in all quarterfinals won the team with lower XG (you can check), so, following your theory, France match doesn't matter because they should be out anyway.
As I said before, boatloads of hyperbole and very defensive. Perhaps you feel that using words in BIG UPPERCASE LETTERS and using more charged words like "laughable" and "ridiculous" repeatedly makes your post more compelling, but in reality it comes across as juvenile.
As for your teardown of xG, I agree that it's useless by itself, as most stats are individually, but when combined they can paint an accurate picture of what happened. As they do for Spain vs France. Your post above is entirely fixated on xG, which while pointless by itself was in fact one stat of several that show France did more attacking - France had more shots, both on and off target, blocked shots, almost triple the number of touches in the opposition box, more corners, etc, and that doesn't include how often their attacks were let down by a poor final ball (there was one particular moment at 1-0 where Mbappe should have been through 1 on 1 but for Rabiot making an awful mess of a simple control and pass).
But really, your summary of the France game, the idea that they created nothing, is so far from reality that I think you're just being intentionally dishonest, and so my interest in continuing this "discussion" has evaporated.
HANDs down the best team, gotta HAND it to them, and other underHANDed hints at the elepHAND in the room