Beyond assists: The Modric Pass

In the last post, we mentioned how Toby Alderweireld was crucial to Tottenham’s direct play style, because of his long passes that open up the opposition’s defense, and got this response:

Indeed, for a midfielder of his quality, Modric has unusually low assist numbers — according to Squawka, Modric made only 4 assists in La Liga’s 2015/2016 season. That’s less than players like Bebé and Paco Alcacer.

In fact, when we look at assists, 4 out of the top 5 players are Forwards. Clearly, assists are not the stat to look for when it comes to playmaking skills.

So, can we define the ‘Modric’ Pass?

The Pass Before The Assist

Let’s call them ‘Pre-Assists’: the pass made directly before an assist. The top for La Liga (2015/2016 season) was:

1. Lionel Messi (14)
2. Andrés Iniesta (10)
3. Luka Modric (9)
4. James Rodríguez (9)
5. Luis Suárez (8)

Unsurprisingly, Messi leads yet another stat.

In second place comes arguably the best midfielder of the past decade: Andrés Iniesta. Iniesta, like Modric, has really low assists numbers — only 2 in last season’s league. As expected, Luka Modric is featured, tied in the third place with James Rodríguez.

The biggest surprise is number 5, with a player that isn’t known as a playmaker: Luis Suárez.

What Suárez is doing can’t possibly be the same as what Modric is doing.

Let’s look at what the passes by both players look like:

We can spot some differences between the combinations made by them, :

• Modric’s passes are longer than those made by Suárez
• Modric tends to target wider positions, while Suárez targets the center
• Modric makes more forward passes than Suárez

The Self-Assist

Let’s look at the players with whom they combine:

And here lies the biggest difference: Luis Suárez is basically setting up his own goals — the first part of a 1–2 pass.

Back to Messi: why is he top the list? Because he is both setting up himself and others, again showing off his versatility.

If we remove the ‘self-assists’ from the numbers, who makes the most Pre-Assists?

• Luka Modric, Lionel Messi, Andrés Iniesta, and James Rodríguez (9)
• Neymar (7)
• Isco and João Cancelo (6)