Source: FIFA+ Technical Match Reports Tool: R Studio

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Pedri is so good. The way the dude find space is literally xavi reincarnate

I'm trying to understand the axis labels.

This is the fifa terminology. X axis is how many times a player received a ball while being put under direct pressure by an opponent. Y axis is the total number of times a player received the ball.

Per 90?

Per 90 minutes - we normalise the stats to be reflective of a 90 minute period (per match), instead of raw numbers which just show absolute values

Pedri is so good, also one of the leaders for passes into the final third.

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Some of the most influential players (Messi, Bellingham, Modric, De Jong, Gundogan, Pedri, Fernandes) tend to receive the ball whilst under less pressure. Other teams may want to consider marking them more tightly.

Mbappe and Depay receive the ball under the most pressure. Tadic, Musiala and Olmo next. All are technically skilful players, able to control the ball and think quickly about distribution or taking a player on one-on-one. Mbappe is a huge outlier though, as he is far above the others in this section; standing off him would invite even more trouble. This is what makes him the most dangerous player at this World Cup.

There are an interesting mix of players in the low ball reception/low pressure category. Some are older/slower players, like Giroud, Mitrovic, Ayew and Choupo-Moting. But there are also younger players with higher levels of movement like Richarlison, Gakpo and Sarr. What does that suggest? These players are heavily marked, which can create space for those more influential playmakers.

This would be meaningful if I knew who any of these people are

Im certain you heard the name Messi at least once or twice.

Does that give me any meaningful context? While I'm sure some of these guys are big names in popular soccer leagues, I doubt anyone is familiar with every soccer league globally and can put most of these names into a meaningful context.

I've made this as its the world cup at the moment -there are plenty of people who are watching the tournament!

I would say that Modric tends to go back in his own half to get the ball where he is under less pressure than for example Mbappe that receives the ball in very offensive positions where there are more defenders and more pressure.

Very cool. Did you do some sort of unsupervised clustering or did you choose the three zones manually?

You said it would!

I simply pointed out the one you probably do know out of these. But since you call it soccer I now know who I’m messing with.

You mean the original name from the British who invented the game as we know it today? Are you saying hearing a name gives meaningful context that would help me understand the information in this graph? Do you know more than 20 percent of the names represented?

Maybe it’s their ability to get into spaces away from opposition players

I know literally all the names on the graph, and I would say any half committed football fan probably would. It’s not some amazing feet of memory, they’re all well known players at the top level.

This is really cool! Do you mind sharing the variable you used to determine direct pressure? Thanks!

Hi - the "receptions under direct pressure" variable is reported directly by FIFA :)

Does this account for substitutes who come in later in the game?

I've set this as a minimum 180 minutes played during the World Cup

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