Searching for a Unique Style in Soccer

Abstract

Is it possible to have a unique, recognizable style in soccer nowadays? We address this question by proposing a method to quantify the motif characteristics of soccer teams based on their pass networks. We introduce the the concept of "flow motifs" to characterize the statistically significant pass sequence patterns. It extends the idea of the network motifs, highly significant subgraphs that usually consists of three or four nodes. The analysis of the motifs in the pass networks allows us to compare and differentiate the styles of different teams. Although most teams tend to apply homogenous style, surprisingly, a unique strategy of soccer exists. Specifically, FC Barcelona's famous tiki-taka does not consist of uncountable random passes but rather has a precise, finely constructed structure.

2014 KDD Workshop on Large-Scale Sports Analytics

References in corpus (2)

• A network theory analysis of football strategies
• Statistical properties of position-dependent ball-passing networks in football games

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Using network science to analyze football passing networks: dynamics, space, time and the multilayer nature of the game
• Automatic Extraction of the Passing Strategies of Soccer Teams
• QPass: a Merit-based Evaluation of Soccer Passes
• Analyzing In-Game Movements of Soccer Players at Scale
• PassVizor: Toward Better Understanding of the Dynamics of Soccer Passes