BBC Football’s match stats have gone granular

I’m loving BBC Football‘s new ‘Advanced match stats’ that have rolled out in the last couple of weeks.

As someone who’s always turned to the BBC Football website and app for the latest soccer news, match reports, fixtures, results, and tables, I’m fully aware of what it’s done well and what it hasn’t.

After all, it’s been my first port of call for over 20 years despite many alternatives popping up.

I remember the days when the match reports were accompanied by little more than the score, goalscorers, team line-ups, referee, and attendance figures.

If I hadn’t watched or listened to the game I was reading about, I was heavily reliant on the reporter’s words to paint an accurate picture.

The BBC only introduced match stats from the 2009/2010 Premier League season, thanks to its partnership with Opta.

They included:

⚽️ Possession
⚽️ Attempts on target
⚽️ Attempts off target
⚽️ Corners
⚽️ Fouls

Aside from a minor tweak to how attempts were presented (later becoming ‘Shots’ and ‘Shots on Target’), these five core stats have remained ever-present for 15 years.

However, the recent change now means we have a whopping 44 stats broken down into five sections, with the first being the main ones. The others are ‘Attack’, ‘Defensive’, ‘Distribution’, and ‘Goalkeeper’.

Interestingly, xG (expected goals) appears before the two familiar shot stats, reflecting a greater desire among many to understand a match by the quality of chances created rather than merely the quantity.

There are a few other categories not easily found elsewhere. I even had to look up xA (expected assists) because I hadn’t seen it before.

BBC Football now has the most comprehensive freely available match stats of any major source. It’s also some great data to scrape if that’s your thing!

If they want to make things even better, perhaps player position heat maps and passing maps could be next. 🤗