Stat, Viz, Quiz is the weekly Opta Analyst football newsletter. Our latest edition includes numbers on Kylian Mbappé’s move to Real Madrid, Euro 2024 playing styles, and goalkeeper appearances.
Football is a simple game, really. Twenty-two people start and at the end of it, Real Madrid win the Champions League.
In a tale as old as time, Madrid looked relatively mortal against Borussia Dortmund for much of Saturday’s Champions League final at Wembley, before inevitably winning it.
To follow that, on Monday it was confirmed they will add Kylian Mbappé to their ranks ahead of next season. Are you all puffing your cheeks out too? Well, we’ll take a look at what Mbappé in Madrid could mean.
Euro 2024 gets under way in less than two weeks and so we’ll also get our international tournament hats on and start investigating what we can expect from the competing teams in Germany.
This week’s quiz looks back at the 2023-24 campaign, while we list goalkeepers with impressive longevity in the latest Ask Opta question.
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Before We Start…
Firstly, we’d like to thank you all for subscribing to SVQ in 2023-24 and joining us on this journey to find the best and most interesting stats in football, while also making silly comments about Erling Haaland and expected goals whenever the opportunity arises.
Just because the season is over, we’re not stopping. There’s a Euros to be analysed, so analyse it we shall.
Next Tuesday will be your regularly scheduled SVQ, previewing Euro 2024 in all its glory, but after that, we’re going rogue for a few weeks.
Instead of Tuesdays during the tournament, SVQ will be sent out (and latterly uploaded to the site) after each matchday, which means you’ll be getting even more content over the summer. That’s one after each of the three rounds of group games, followed by one after every knockout round up to, and including, the final.
We’ll have the same SVQ format along with new features with some Euros twists. It won’t be exclusively Euro 2024 focused, though, with Copa América and high-profile football transfers also covered. We don’t want to oversell it, but it could be the biggest thing to happen to summer since the invention of the barbecue.
So, do us a favour and tell your friends, your family, your postman, your dog, whoever you think would like to receive a regular dose of stats-based joy into their inbox. Forward them this link, or direct them to our sign-up page.
Now, on with this week’s edition…
STAT – Mbappé and Madrid, Together at Last
Apparently, it wasn’t enough to take the Champions League trophy home.
Real Madrid wanted to ‘complete’ football, and so just two days after winning the biggest tournament in men’s European club football, they announced the signing of arguably the best player on the planet.
Yes, after years of flirting with each other, the biggest ‘will they, won’t they’ since Ross and Rachel reached a conclusion as Kylian Mbappé and Real Madrid confirmed they will partner up from next season.
The La Liga giants were happy to gloss over their ‘didn’t fancy him anyway’ attitude when he chose to sign a new deal at Paris Saint-Germain two years ago, finally rubber stamping his move on a free transfer from the Ligue 1 champions. Well, ‘free’ in the loosest possible sense.
A brilliant player signing for a club that is already winning the biggest trophies on the regular doesn’t seem all that interesting on paper. What are they going to do, win the Champions League more next season?
Well… maybe, yeah.
Since Mbappé made his debut for Monaco in December 2015, only Robert Lewandowski (358) has scored more goals in all competitions in Europe’s top five leagues than the France international’s 283, with the Polish striker having played 32 games more (400 to 368).
Playing with Vinícius Júnior, Rodrygo and Jude Bellingham among others, Mbappé should not be short of service, and he’ll undoubtedly be the favourite for next season’s Pichichi Trophy for the top scorer in La Liga. This season, that award went to Girona’s Artem Dovbyk with 24 goals; Mbappé scored at least 27 league goals in five of his seven seasons in Paris, still scoring 18 goals in 20 games in 2019-20, one of the two campaigns in which he scored fewer.
Mbappé is yet to win a Champions League, which he’ll expect to remedy at the perennial collectors of the big-eared trophy.
It’s not been from a lack of trying, though, with Mbappé scoring 48 goals in 73 games in the competition since his debut. Only Lewandowski (66), Cristiano Ronaldo (56) and Lionel Messi (50) have more in that time.
The world’s most inevitable transfer has finally happened. Let’s see if it lives up to the hype.
VIZ – European Styles
“It’s the final countdown!” we all sing; appropriately, a song by Europe as the days are ticked off in preparation for Euro 2024. “Bama-na-na. Bama-na-na-na!..”
With the club football season over, attention turns to internationals and the European Championship in Germany, which kicks off on 14 June when the hosts face Scotland.
But what sort of football can we expect?
This week’s viz above tries to give us a sneak peek into how each team will play at Euro 2024. Based on their qualifying campaigns, it shows which teams played faster and more direct, and which may be slower and more intricate.
As I’m sure you’ll all be shocked to learn, Spain were the slowest and most intricate in qualifying. Luis de la Fuente’s side like to have a lot of the ball and wear their opponents down, as is tradition for La Roja. Looking at their Group B opponents, Croatia weren’t far behind while Italy were a little faster still in their direct speed upfield. Albania were a bit of an outlier in that they weren’t particularly fast in their build-up or intricate in their passes per sequence, but will that still be the case during the group stage?
At the other end of the scale, Austria were the fastest team in terms of direct speed upfield, while Romania averaged the fewest passes per sequence.
Austria take on more intricate opponents in France and Netherlands in Group D, as well as Poland who are closer to the median for both speed and intricacy as anyone.
Romania are in Group E with Belgium, Slovakia and Ukraine, who are all not too far from that median crossover themselves.
As for favourites England, Gareth Southgate’s men are the second-most intricate team in terms of passes per sequence, which may surprise some. In Denmark, Serbia and Slovenia, the Three Lions will come up against teams in Group C who attack faster but they will likely see plenty more of the ball themselves.
You may have noticed that Germany do not appear in the viz, obviously due to not taking part in qualifying as hosts of Euro 2024, but they have averaged 60% possession in their seven games under Julian Nagelsmann so far. Their Group A opponents Hungary and Scotland are on the faster and more direct side, but Switzerland are almost as intricate as they come. Only France, Portugal, England and Spain averaged more passes per sequence than Murat Yakin’s side in qualifying.
Whatever styles we see at Euro 2024, it promises to be a fun summer ahead.
QUIZ – The Season That Was
With club football in Europe finished for another year after the climax of another exhilarating Champions League, we look back on some of the more notable stats from the 2023-24 campaign in this week’s quiz. Answers at the bottom of the page.
1. Let’s start with an easy one. Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola clinched his sixth Premier League title, with only Sir Alex Ferguson winning more. How many did the Scot win with Manchester United?
2. How many away games did Paris Saint-Germain lose on their way to the Ligue 1 title?
3. Hakan Çalhanoglu scored 13 goals in Serie A for champions Inter. Who was the last midfielder to score more goals for the Nerazzurri in a single league campaign? Clue: It was all the way back in the 1990-91 season.
4. Bayer Leverkusen had a season to remember, winning a Bundesliga and DFB-Pokal double. Who was their top goalscorer in all competitions?
5. Carlo Ancelotti has won the European Cup/UEFA Champions League more times than any other manager (5), with three of those coming in charge of Real Madrid. That is also the joint-most for a manager in charge of a specific team. Can you name either of the other two managers to achieve this?
Ask Opta
This week’s question comes to us from Paul Heighton, who asks: “Can you tell me from the teams that have just completed the 2023-24 Premier League season, who are their all-time goalkeepers in terms of appearances?”
Do you have a stat-based question you’d like Opta to answer in a future edition of SVQ? Email us at editors@theanalyst.com or message us on X @OptaAnalyst with #AskOpta and we’ll pick the best one.
Answer:
Absolutely. Here are the goalkeepers to have made the most Premier League appearances for each team:
- Arsenal – David Seaman (325 appearances)
- Aston Villa – Mark Bosnich (178)
- Bournemouth – Artur Boruc (79)
- Brentford – David Raya (62)
- Brighton – Mat Ryan (121)
- Burnley – Nick Pope (141)
- Chelsea – Petr Cech (333)
- Crystal Palace – Vicente Guaita (149)
- Everton – Tim Howard (354)
- Fulham – Mark Schwarzer (172)
- Liverpool – Pepe Reina (285)
- Luton – Thomas Kaminski (38)
- Manchester City – Joe Hart (266)
- Manchester United – David de Gea (415)
- Newcastle – Shay Given (354)
- Nottingham Forest – Mark Crossley (162)
- Sheffield United – Alan Kelly (63)
- Tottenham – Hugo Lloris (361)
- West Ham – Lukasz Fabianski (181)
- Wolves – Rui Patrício (112)
What Are We up to at Opta Analyst?
Here’s some of the latest data-driven offerings you can find on our website:
Who Will Win Euro 2024? The Opta Predictions
Toni Kroos Always Makes the Right Decision
Quiz Answers
1. Thirteen
2. None (W13 D4). PSG were the first team in history to remain unbeaten away from home for an entire Ligue 1 season, having never even trailed in an away game in the top-flight this season.
3. Lothar Matthäus (16 goals)
4. Victor Boniface (21 goals in 34 games)
5. Bob Paisley at Liverpool and Zinedine Zidane at Real Madrid (both 3).
Before you go…
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