By Jared Young (@jaredeyoung)

Friday August was 12th was Elephant Day and it’s seems like as good a time as any to free some elephants from our rooms and get them back into the wild where they belong. What elephants? What rooms, you might ask? Glad you asked. The room we are in right now is one where soccer tactics are turned into numbers. For those new to the Pscore series the idea is to very simply describe soccer tactics with two numbers, one offensive and one defensive. What tactics are quantified? From an offensive point of view we want to know if a team desires possession of the ball or is more direct with their play. From a defensive point of view we want to know how high up the pitch a team pressures their opponent. All styles can be effective but two in particular are generally used in combination. On the proactive side you have your Barcelona’s of the world that look to work possession on offense and counterpress when they lose the ball to get it back quickly. On the reactive side there are examples like Leicester City that will sit their defense deeper and then play directly on the counterattack once in possession. As you’ll quickly see Major League Soccer sports a handful of those type of clubs and a few different styles. If you are curious how these numbers are developed I’ve written about that in detail before and you can read it here.

What’s the elephant in the room? Well up until now the numbers have not been adjusted by game state, meaning the score does not come into play. As we all know, the score does change a team’s tactics. When a team is losing they must push forward and try to get the ball and keep possession. When a team is winning they are prone to sit deeper as defense become a priority. Well, I’m happy to say that adding game state data to this analysis bears that out quite clearly.

Before we get there let’s look at the teams on average this season. The offensive score from 0 to 1 is on the horizontal axis. The score ranges from most direct passing at 0 to most indirect passing at 1. The defensive score is vertical which is the passes allowed per defensive action in the attacking half of the field.