Enjoying The Supernova

Bayern Munich Get Some More Love

Lots of talk about defending lately, and about Bayern, but why not, with the Bayern Munich squad's domination of all comers this season!  Here's a nice look at how careful Bayern are with the ball, courtesy of OPTA Stats lovely "StatsZone" app (in case any armchair analysts want to get in on the fun).

When I coach my kids, it's a fine line between playing attractive football (keep it on the carpet, use skill and thought to get a result rather than brute athleticism and, shall we say, more direct methods of advancing the ball?) and being careless about doing ourselves more harm than good.  One topic that comes up a lot as I try to teach mastery of the very grey area of risk V. reward, is in the geographical sense; turnovers in our own half of the pitch.

Great teams, no matter their style of play, don't lose the ball in their half.  It's simply too easy for an opponent to counter attack when the distance to goal is less than 60 yards.  Add to that that virtually every offensive shape requires a team to space themselves more widely than when defending, and it's no surprise that this type of turnover can be particularly painful.

Here is Bayern Munich's first 32 games of the year, with turnovers in their half in blue, and turnovers in the opponent's half in red:

Given that FC Bayern have enjoyed slightly over 60% average possession for the year in all competitions, this will come as little surprise.  However, ponder it a moment more, and knowing that many teams will "park the bus" at the top of the penalty area against Bayern we might expect them to spend vast amounts of each game deep in the opponent's territory, trying to find a way through that bus.  But intuition in football is simply a veil which hides one's eyes from the light of day.  

We can see this via whoscored.com's team stats for Bayern.  It might at first appear that they simply don't play in their half (23% looks quite low next to the other numbers) but split that middle third number to account for the halves of the field, and while it may not be super-scientific, that's another 23% in their half.  46% of an average game, Bayern play in their half.  Not terribly out of line with what you'd expect of an average team:

BAYERN MUNICH

Bottom line?  Bayern never make mistakes in their own half even though very close to half their games are played there.

By comparison, look at Wigan's numbers, another ball control team, but one which is having significantly less success in a top league:

WIGAN ATHLETIC

5.5 percent more play in their own half; may we presume they lose the ball there more often?

Yup.  And lastly, consider this:  Bayern average TOs in their half at a clip of 14% of their total turnovers.  Wigan, sadly, feature turnovers in their own half as exactly 25% of their total turnovers.

Correlation for sure, causation may be harder to prove...but if any conventional wisdom can be relied upon, it might be safe to say that if we can win the ball back at or over midfield, we'll score more goals.

Borussia Dortmund took a point off Bayern last week...1-1.  When they meet again in Wembley later this month for the Champion's League Final, Dortmund may want to have a plan to force some mistakes by the circumspect Bayern offense in the far half.  Good luck, Coach Klopp!