FOOTBALL MYTHS - FACT OR FICTION?

#Football Myth: ?Whoever wins the most duels also wins the game“

Many people in football would assume that this statement is true to 80 to 90%.?In fact, the following is correct: ?Whoever wins more duels only decides the game in their favour in just under 40% of cases.“ You will hear some of those or similar cliches in a lot of interviews. This should not mean that duels are not important, but duels don’t determine victory and defeat.

Analyses are often influenced by subjectivity?and emotions, decision making ist strongly biased.?

What’s about objectivity? Do we need KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) in football in order to assess performance (Coach, Team, individual players)? What kind of KPIs do we need??To be honest: Most of them (f.e. duels, possession,…) you can put in the trash.

Case Study: Coaching LASK in season 2020/21 we started to design a simple performance INDEX (see above) including KPIs. The target was to find those KPIs (tactically and physically) that have usually an influence on the result and that are strongly related to the playing style. So it was possible to measure the current?performance?of the team and the coaching staff also in relation to the strength of the opponent. In the end, we got some meaningful numbers, even though this model has of course been further developed in the meantime.