Exploring the FBRef Target Data: La Liga

A treasure trove of data has been released at FB Ref via StatsBomb. It’s hard to understate just how big a leap this is for public analysis and the understanding of the game. It’s by far the biggest moment there has been since I’ve been involved in the rough and tumble world for soccer analytics in 2015. I encourage everyone to go, play around, click a ton, reference it, spread it on twitter, reddit, wherever soccer nerds are found. It’s amazing.

We looked at the Premier League and the Bundesliga, now it's time for La Liga.

The categories

X axis: Field tilt (how far up the pitch a players touches generally are)

Y axis: target share (how often a player is targeted per minute relative to his teams average)

Size: Yards gained toward goal per minute (includes carries and passes)

Color: reception % (how often the pass is complete to the target)

We want to see how teams distribute their passes, who they are sending the ball to the most, who do they trust?

Alaves

• This team doesn't progress the ball, almost at all. No outfield player is above the 57th percentile in total yards progressed per minute.

Athletic Bilbao

• It's a team of very different quality on the ball but it doesn't necessarily show in target share.

• Except for Unai Lopez in a monster 140 target share running the show.

• Vesga has a tiny target share, zero xG + xA and very little progression,

• Munain reception rate is 83% and he deservedly has the highest target share of the forward players, but it could possibly be even higher:

Playernp xG+xALive Shots Created per 90Yards Progressed per MinuteYards Progressed per ball lossIker Munain.333.02.922.9Inaki Williams.282.71.713.1Ibai Gomez.371.72.611.7Raul Garcia.181.41.58.4Inigo Cordoba.142.01.912.2

Atletico Madrid

• What happened to Thomas Lemar? He has a single digit xG + xA (.09), passes intended for him are completed 82% of the time (Koke is 89%, Trippier 90%, Arias 92%), and both his yards per minute and yards per ball loss are nondescript.

• Hector Herrera though has cleared out a huge role alongside Koke. Both chip in mid 20s xG + xA with huge target share but Herrera brings efficient thrust with the ball, progressing at 42 yards per ball loss and 4.7 yards per minute vs Koke's 23 and 3.3.

• Costa and Morata are only receiving 53% of the balls toward them while the other 3 forwards hover in the low 70s. Almost certainly a long ball/aerial duel explanation

Barcelona

• Did you correctly predict which Barca forward gets an enormous target share? Well done.

• 85.2% of passes intended for Lionel Messi are complete, 10% higher than Griezmann's rate. Griezmann racks up 1.7 yards progressed per minute, Inaki Williams or Angel Correa numbers, Messi is at 6.1 which is Thomas Müller plus Gareth Bale numbers. That is plus, those two together. Griezmann has to be considered an enormous bust so far.

• Jordi Alba gets a huge target share for a fullback, especially relative to the other specialist fullbacks of Semedo and Firpo. Alba is getting 76 targets per 90 min while those two are at 60.

• I know it's early but Ansu Fati has some eye-popping numbers. The xG of Griezmann with a progression rate of Perez, all of this receiving the ball far up the pitch. He's gaining 75% of his yards via the carry, which among players actually gaining more than 3 yards per minute is right at the top, only Allan Saint-Maxim and Vinicius Junior gain a higher % from carrying than Fati.

Playernp xG + xABox Touches Per 90Rec%Yards Progressed Per MinuteAnsu Fati.5210.583.93.6Luis Suarez.837.067.31.4Antoine Griezmann.435.875.31.7Carles Perez.266.884.23.6

Real Betis

• Those Sergio Canales numbers are sort of what you expect from the sterotypical Barcelona midfielders. He profiles a bit like Luka Modric, Ilkay Gündogan, Santi Cazorla or even Fred from United.

• Morón and Iglesias have almost the exact same numbers as far as 90s played, targets, and receptions. Morón is at .52 np xG + xA and Iglesias is at .25.

• Everyone is receiving the ball at 80% plus except the strikers, down under 50%.

Celta Vigo

• Denis Suarez is their best progressor of the ball by far but he gets a target share similar to Brais Mendez (half the xG and half the progression) while Sisto gets forced the ball at an very high rate.

PlayerTarget ShareYards Progressed/MinuteRec%np xG + xADenis Suarez1215.185.9.31Brais Mendez1172.881.4.16Pione Sisto1443.283.26

• Sometimes these players with huge target shares are probably just good at getting open, finding space in the defense and being an active and quality receiver of the ball. Sisto might be that, but it seems some sort of equilibrium would be where Suarez's rec% is lower than Sisto's.

• If you know the results are likely to be better when he gets the ball (which they seem to be even, though possession data would certainly help here), then you want to try and get him the ball more and see if those results hold. It's probably even worth losing a few possessions (points of rec%) relative to passing to Sisto.

Eibar

• My god, the steepness. Eibar play such a unique pressing style, their attack with the ball is designed to set that up.

• Charles and Sergi Enrich are two of the five lowest progressors in Spain, England and Germany. Both are under 0.6 yards progressed per minute alongside Chris Wood, Paco Alcacer, and Chicharito.

• They do seem to know who to get the ball to in defense though, Jose Angel and Pablo de Blasis combine the best rec% with the highest yards progressed per minute on the team.

• Orellana is certainly the standout forward player, leading the team in xG + xA, while actually playing as a sort of normal attacking player in terms of rec% and progression.

Espanyol

• Um, what's the deal with Wu Lei? Every other player at his part of the field has at least a 120 target share with RdT pushing 150 and Vargas up at 140 with a 72% reception rate. And Wu is down near 0.9 with a 53% reception rate. I guess one clue is he has the highest box touch% at 17%. So maybe he just hangs in the box I guess? Calleri has a 16% box touch% (share of total touches in the box) but he gets by far the highest amount of long aerials toward him.

• I assumed Ferreyra was going to be just a pure long ball target because his reception rate of 36.7% is literally the lowest among the Big 3 leagues.

PlayerTeamRec%np xg+ xaTarget ShareFacundo FerreyraEspanyol36.7.26134Jamie VardyLeicester40.5.5676Lys MoussetSheffield Utd40.8.51151Ashley BarnesBurnley42.2.34158Simon TeroddeKöln42.6.82118ChicharitoSevilla42.9.5895Victor CampuzanoEspanyol43.2.18123Che AdamsSouthampton43.5.35158Callum WilsonBournemouth43.8.43119Chris WoodBurnley43.8.47167

• Simon Terodde at .82??

• But anyway Ferreyra has just 35 aerials contested this year...so nope. Just can't get him the ball.

Getafe

• Please notice the scale. I hadn't adjusted it down once this entire series, from 0.6, until now. Xabier Etxeita has a target share of .33 for crying out loud. Djene is under .6 and Maksimovic as a midfield player is also under .6. Actually when I look back it turned out I have missed a few players under the 0.6 barrier: Issa Diop and Ogbonna at West Ham, Clark at Newcastle, Kabasele at Watford and one other midfielder, Gelson Fernandes, my old friend, at Eintracht. But of the 13 players with a less than 0.6 target share, 4 of them play for Getafe. None play nearly as far up the field as Maksimovic and the lowest target share by far remains Etxeita. Guess which one Maksimovic is here?

• Correct! Maksimovic also helps out there as he has a putrid 73.8% receiving rate. Might be the single most useless offensive player I've looked at so far...but Etxeita is literally getting 9 targets a game. Getafe, there is a style here.

• Damian Suarez they clearly feature among their deep-lying players and rightly so, 89% receiving rate and over 5 yards per minute progressed on a team where no other outfield player is above 3.3 are strong numbers.

• Kenedy and Cucurella have hints of something about them further forward.

Granada

• It's the Angel Montoro show when he plays, but nothing in his numbers really reflects that it should be. Victor Diaz is almost exactly the same in rec%, yards per minute and yards per ball loss. Diaz does play right back with Montoro in central midfield.

• Maybe Herrera and Gonalons are the better comparisons and then you see bigger differences.

Leganes

• The deep lying midfielder certainly seems to be something still found in Spain. Recio, Banega, Montoro, Kroos, Cazorla, Parejo, Campana, Unai Lopez, Rafinha, and Salva Sevilla all fit this deep lying, target hog role. In England you have surprise Ceballos, Pogba, Kovacic, and weirdly Moritz Leitner fit this role. In Germany only Kevin Stöger fussballgott and Amadou Haidara. So of the 16 players from the 3 leagues, 10 play in Spain. It's a Spanish role.

Levante

• Jose Campana is another example of that target hog deep lying midfielder but he also doubles creating the most live shots per team. He's in great company among players with more than 5 yards progressed per minute and 3 or more live shots created (both of which he just barely crawls over to be fair)

PlayerTeamYards Progressed Per MinuteLive Shots Creatednp XG + xALionel MessiBarcelona6.25.51.01Kevin de BruyneManchester City6.35.50.76Corentin TolissoBayern Munich5.54.10.44Paul PogbaManchester United5.65.30.42Emi BunediaNorwich City5.24.10.4Jack GrealishAston Villa5.04.90.38Trent Alexander-ArnoldLiverpool8.13.00.38Martin ØdegaardReal Sociedad5.23.60.37Felipe AndersonWest Ham5.53.40.34Eden HazardReal Madrid5.14.50.29Jose CampanaLevante5.03.30.24FredManchester United5.13.10.2MarceloReal Madrid7.03.80.2

Some good company.

• Ruben Rochina makes it a pair of target hog midfielders who make things happen. Campana generally does more (5-3.8 edge in yards per minute) and more efficiently (27-19 yards per ball loss).

Mallorca

• Another team, another target hog midfielder. Let's look at all of them across La Liga to see how they differ

• One thing that is interesting is how different Rafinha is in how much he progresses the ball via carry.

• Back to Mallorca, they also have two very good progression fullbacks in Agbenyu and Vanrell and then a guy playing not too far in front of the fullbacks and Sevilla in Dani Rodriguez who is contributing very, very little offensively. Maybe the formation isn't quite clicking with the ball.

• Cucho gets a huge amount of targets and for good reason. He's receiving 66% of them and leads the team with .41 xg + xa. 2nd best is Budimir at .33 but he's receiving just 49% of his targets. Cucho only has played 8.9 90s.

Osasuna

• Inigo Perez and Fran Merida both fit the deep lying target hog mold, they've combined for just about 16 90s. Merida was just filtered out on that last graph of all the target hogs, but would wind up close to where Perez is.

Real Madrid

• All kinds of fascinating bits here.

• Bale's use as a peripheral option is pretty clear, he still produces a solid amount of xG + xA in this role but when the people around him are getting 115, 120, 130 target shares and he's under 100 it's telling.

• Eden Hazard rec% (82%) is higher than Lucas Vazquez, in fact only two players have a higher rec% this far up the field, both Barca youngsters in Ansu Fati and Carles Perez. It's actually quite an interesting list for who is 4th

PlayerRec%Target Sharexg + xaLive Shots CreatedYards Progressed per Ball LossCarles Perez84.21040.262.818.6Ansu Fati83.9950.523.318.7Eden Hazard81.81210.294.530.6Sofiane Boufal81.61560.434.319.4Karim Bellarabi81.1970.652.821.2Raheem Sterling79.8930.714.020.2Callum Hudson-Odoi79.61170.54.723.3Ivan Perisic78.9890.523.020.7Serge Gnabry78.710314.020.7Kingsley Coman78.61010.484.721.7

• But this isn't a Boufal hype piece...primarily.

• Hazard is sort of an odd one as he's creating this enormous amount of shots, no one progresses the ball more than he does from this advanced of a position...and he is at 0.29 xG + xA.

• One of the few players close to Hazard in yards progressed this far up the field is Vinicius Junior.

• He's interesting because of how large a % of his touches come in the box and also how good he is at receiving. There are 14 players who have 20% of more of their touches come in the box in the Big 3 leagues, unsurprisingly you get Aguero, Jesus, Vardy, Lewandowski, and Tammy Abraham. Mo Salah is there, Simon Terodde, Teemu Pukki, Alexander Isak, Ihenacho, Vinicius Junior, Karl Toko Ekambi, Patrik Schick and Billy Sharp.

• The second best rec% among these players is 62% with Lewa and Schick. The best is Vinicius at 77%.

• The second best yards progressed per ball loss among these players is Isak at 14.4, Vinicius is at 23.

• The second best yards progressed per minute among these players is Salah at 2.4, Vinicius is at 4.3. He's one of a kind.

• 80% of Vinicius's yardage come from carries, a staggering amount.

• Marcelo remains a marvel for how much he drives the side forward.

Real Sociedad

• They seem to want to get the ball to this Ødegaard guy. For good reason. 90% of passes to him are complete and he leads the team in live shots created and yardage gained per minute.

• The fullbacks are sort of oddly undertargeted, Zaldua particularly.

Sevilla

• Kind of an interesting distribution here. You have the centerbacks below the average target share meaning the team is good enough to control the field really, the mega target hog deep midfielder that we've learned is a Spanish specialty, Banega is maybe the prototypical one (or Parejo) and then the full/wing backs that really power the teams progression in Navas and Reguilon.

• Franco Vazquez is just kind of there in midfield. Passes intended for him are completed at 80%, to the wingbacks and Banega it is 92-94%, Vazquez thus turns a similar target share to the wingbacks into half of the yardage progressed, fewer live shots created and a lower xg + xa...the equilibrium should shift away from him.

Valencia

• Stöger-esque dominance of the ball from Parejo.

• I once wrote about Carlos Soler where I said

His pass volume isn’t that high (~38 per game) which could be a worry but it could just be a factor of playing alongside Dani Parejo, one of the true under-the-radar megastars who we are assuming is off the table for either age (29) or $$ reasons. Soler is above average in yards gained per pass.

and that he looked like a player who could slide nicely into the Wijnaldum type role...look at Liverpool's target share map and Valencia's.

• The problem is, he is sliding further down the list at progressing the ball. Since I wrote that he's now dipped down even lower in raw yardage totals, and his efficiency no longer looks like anything special. I'm a good bit lower on him now than I was then.

• Rodrigo is the clear attacking target, and the player with the highest xg + xa on the team as well.

• Maxi Gomez doesn't have many statistical indicators in his favor. The lowest target share and lowest rec% of all the attackers by far coupled with an anemic xG...

Valladolid

• Valladolid have an odd tic about them. It's exemplified by left back Raul Garcia. There were 320 players in the filtered category of player listed as a defender playing deep on the pitch, and Garcia was dead last by a mile in yards gained per ball loss. He somehow gains only 4 yards per each time he loses the ball. Only one player is lower than that across all positions actually, the great Chris Wood. Putting Chris Wood's progression at left back seems like a problem. Another interesting bit about Garcia is he leads all those 320 players in % of yards gained from carrying. This is easier for him as he has so few yards to gain, but also either indicates the worst passer possibly in any big 3 team or just a total lack of options.

Villarreal

• My man returns. Samuel Chukwueze. The shine has come off, but just a bit. Gerard Moreno is lapping him in end product produced this year and Chukwueze has been relegated to a bench player, but his mix of live shot production and ball progression from an advanced position remains very, very hard to find. Players who have 4+ live shots created per 90 and over 3 yards per minute progressed from high up the pitch: Gnabry, Coman, Messi, Hazard, Vinicius, Hudson-Odoi, Pulisic, D Silva, Mahrez, Boufal and Chukwueze. There's Boufal again. And our man, among some stars.