I have a feeling that every time I come on here we are either starting or coming out of an international break. Club football has happened to be what we enjoy while waiting for another national team duty to come around. There will be those who may like it… I guess. FIFA clearly does.
During the breaks there are various types of fans: there are those who agree with the sacking of the current coach because “the newcomer will get a mini preseason”, then those who go into the national team hiatus with considerable anger because their team’s positive momentum is blurred by a defeat ahead of a 15-day period of head-spinning and, of course, those who wait until Friday to read Driblab’s summary article of the season so far!
Today we are looking into a particular metric: xT (expected threat) generated from open play. We have applied it to the second tier of several countries: Spain, France, England, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, Austria, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Norway. We have come up with quite an interesting list of U21 players. Let’s get started.
Sidenote: Open Play xT’s a metric that measures the danger a player creates by driving the ball, either by carrying and passing, into areas where possession is more likely to result in a goal.
1. Szabo Szilard – 18 – Attacker – Soroksar FC (on loan from Ferencvarosi)
In contrast to his team’s poor season as of now, Szilar is performing very positively in his first ever professional adventure. In 9 games this season he has contributed to 8 goals (5 assists and 3 goals). He is a right-footed winger playing on the right, where he creates a lot of danger. He’s crossing is good (3.62 successful crosses per game), which makes him a reliable player when it comes to driving his team towards the box (2.37 passes into the box per game). He is not a dribbler, moreover, he tends to be safe on the ball and not waste possession. Beyond his passing, he’s finding good shooting situations so far this season (0.10 xG per shot, 4th best record in his league).
If we look at our passing contribution metric, which is a percentage that measures the added value in terms of danger of passes taking into account the position of the receiver, Szilard ranks number one among all his peers in the Hungarian second division. Szabo Szilar adds an average 28% of danger to each of his passes. This is certainly linked to the fact that he is the player on this list with the best figures for open play expected threat (0.41 Open Play xT per game).
2. Marcel Predenkiewicz – 20 – Wing-back/Wide midfielder – Polonia Warszawa (on loan from Arka Gdynia)
Predenkiewicz was a man in need of playing time. At Arka Gdynia he wasn’t getting enough of it. His loan at Polonia Warszawa has been giving him the chance to get significant playing time, even if he’s not always in the starting line-up and even if he has to make the most of the time by playing out of position. In fact, he has already played almost as many minutes as he did last year. His main position seems to be on the right side of the pitch, either as a wing-back or as a wide midfielder. For the comparison radar, we have only chosen the minutes played on the right flank as it is difficult to distinguish between these positions at certain times.
Despite his defensive performance appearing to have improved the most, his attacking numbers still stand out. Amongst all wing-backs or full-backs in the Polish I Liga, no one comes close to Predenkiewicz’s 1.24 open play key passes and 2.68 chances created per game. Predenkiewicz completes 83.93% of his passes in the final third (9.68). When on the pitch, the Pole is responsible for 19% of his team’s xT. The third best figure among wing-backs and full-backs in the league.
3. Ilyes Ziani – 21 – Attacker – RWD Molenbeek
Ziani played 1945′ with Standard Liege’s B-team in the 23/24 season. His team finished last and was relegated with a mere 17 points. Coincidentally or not, those are the same points collected so far by Molenbeek, who signed Ziani and who are running up the Belgian Proximus League standings. They have dropped only four points. The Moroccan striker already has 3 goals and 5 assists on his account at the start of the season.
As a right winger playing on the left and averaging 3.67 dribbles and 2.65 shots per game, we can say that Ziani should be the most guarded player when facing Molenbeek: 23.4% of the touches in the Molenbeek box are taken by Ziani, but he also completes 33.3% of the total passes into the opponent’s box. Not to mention the expected danger coming via the Moroccan: 12.9% of his team’s total.
4. Tom Fellows – 21 – Winger – West Bromwich Albion
Fellows is by no means an unknown player. In fact, his team was a regular in the Premier League not so long ago. Fellows played more than 1800 minutes in the Championship last season. I mean, if you go on Youtube, there is probably some highlights of him dribbling down the right flank and putting crosses in. Fortune (perhaps) or better finishing from his teammates (more likely) have led Fellows to 5 assists from 1.8 xA. By contrast, last season he generated 3.7 xA but only managed 3 assists.
Fellows’ right-footed, but as a good dribbler like the one he is, knows how to carry the ball with both feet to avoid the defender being able to read his next move with ease. Fellows’ major problem is his limited range of options. He almost always looks to getting to the byline and then, after a number of stepovers, crossing the ball in. However, West Brom have been trying to find him isolated in a 1v1s situation against their full-back because his success rate at dribbling is fairly consistent.
5. Yeremay Hernández – 21 – Winger – Deportivo de La Coruña + 6. David Mella – 19 – Winger – Deportivo de la Coruña
Yeremay and Mella, Deportivo La Coruña’s two first-choice wingers, have emerged from nowhere, or rather, from one of the Spanish youth academies producing the highest quality talent. The former, a right-footed, left-sided winger, has completed the most dribbles in Europe to date, and the latter, a more direct, vertical winger, won the U19 European Championship in the summer days before making his debut in LaLiga Smartbank.
As the sample is small, we’ve looked at their numbers from last season in Primera Federación. So we see that while Yeremay is a winger focused on generating danger (he dribbles more, has more touches in the opponent’s box and combines more in and around the box), Mella has stroke a better relationship with scoring goals. The A Coruña-born player averages more goal contributions per game, his percentage of shots that end in goals is higher and he generates a higher percentage of his team’s total xG.
Founded in 2017 as a consultancy, Driblab has driven innovation through data in all aspects of professional football. Thanks to a transversal model, its database collects and models statistics in all directions. From converting matches and videos into bespoke data for training academies to developing cutting-edge technology, helping clubs, federations and representative agencies in talent scouting and transfer markets. Driblab’s smart data is used by clubs all over the world, with success stories such as Dinamo Zagreb, Real Betis and Girondins Bordeaux among others. Here you can find out more about how we work and what we offer.
