The French Route To Success
Statistical analysis of the French Football Team’s performance in the 2018 FIFA World Cup and did the best team win?
The FIFA World Cup is the pinnacle of all sporting events. Naturally winning it for their country is the ultimate goal of any footballer (pun intended). So obviously conquering this tournament requires something special and can not be fluked, right?
In the following section, we determine whether France deserved to lift the prestigious 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.
IMPORTANT LEGENDS AND THEIR MEANINGS:
xG — Expected Goals: Expected goals (xG) measures the quality of a shot based on several variables such as assist type, shot angle and distance from goal, whether it was a headed shot and whether it was defined as a big chance.1. xGF — Expected Goals For = For analysing attacking performance
2. xGA — Expected Goals Against = For analysing defensive performance
3. xGD — Expected Goal Difference = (xGF -xGA)know more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSaeaFcm1SY
A Formidable Attack?
The French football team boasted a phenomenal in-form attacking line up which included players like Kylian Mbappe, Antoine Griezmann, Olivier Giroud, Paul Pogba etc.
France played 7 matches and scored 11 goals with xGF of just 6.76, that is xG of 0.96 per match! (not even 1 goal per match!!) Which clearly says that they majorly overperformed themselves tactically and statistically in the attacking department. Let’s see where they lie when compared to top 16 teams of the World Cup:
Teams like Brazil and Belgium led the way in terms of xGF and hence created the most and the best chances, although Brazil wasn’t clinical enough to convert those chances. Individual brilliance by players like Mbappe and notable set piece masterclass led by Raphael Varane and Samuel Umtiti gave France the finishing edge over their average chance creation numbers.
The Game which raised concerns: In the last group stage match, France faced Denmark which ended in goalless draw.
France could barely create a big scoring chance in this match even after having 67% of the ball possession and taking 11 shots on target.
So, we can safely conclude that France did not have the best and the most efficient attacking line up in the tournament.
A Rock-Solid Defence?
The French’s last line of defence was led by some very in-form talented players who were in their prime during the World Cup. 4 Time UEFA Champions League winner Raphael Varane was paired up in the centre with Samuel Umtiti, and the full back consisted of speedy Pavard on right and Lucas Hernandez on the left.
In 7 matches France ended up conceding 5 goals with an xGA of 4.69 that means xG(against) of 0.67 which is great. Let's see how they did when compared to others:
The teams like Belgium, England and Russia outperformed themselves defensively their xGA numbers are high compared to the actual number of goals they ended up conceding. Whereas teams like Uruguay and Brazil where airtight at the back with incredibly low xGA and actual goals conceded.
In the semi-finals when France faced Belgium, the team with the most goals scored and the best attacking numbers in the tournament. They kept a clean sheet (no goals conceded) France restricted Belgium to only 3 major shots on target showing how and defensively compact they were, not to mention that a defender scored the winner.
So clearly France were efficient in their defensive duties. Not only did they have the lowest xGA in the top 4 but they conceded almost exactly the number of goals they were statistically predicted to conceded.
The Balancing Act
The goal difference (GD = No. of goals scored — No. of goals conceded) is a good measure of how a team performs both attack wise and defensively as a unit. France had a goal difference of 6 with expected GD of 2.07 in the 7 matches they played. They can only boast about their above average GD due to their defensive unit and individual brilliance in attack, because statistically they were only supposed to have a GD of 2.
It’s clear from the above graph that France extensively outdid themselves (So did 3rd place Belgium). Interestingly the team which was most efficient with their performance were the runners up Croatia!!
The Great Escape
The highly anticipated all important final, the Game 64 was contested between France and Croatia. It promised to be a nail-biting event between a team which was massively outperforming their own stats vs the most efficient team of the tournament.
The match ended 4–2 in France’s favour and it looked like France cruised past Croatia to win the World Title, but was this really the case? Let's have a look:
France took a total of 7 shots whereas Croatia took 14 shots (double of our winning team’s number). The passing accuracy in opposition box for France was 69% whereas Croatia was riding with 83%.
The xG of France was 1.1 while Croatia had 1.24, but when we remove the penalty which was controversially awarded to France in the 38th minute, French xG drops to 0.3!
The French were truly fortunate to score four from the chances they created, generating just 0.3 non-penalty xG, scoring twice from these low-probability chances.
So, did the best team win?
The simple answer is no.
France were fortunate throughout the tournament, especially in attack, where they scored 11 non-penalty goals from just 6.76 no-penalty xG.
In attack they were fortunate, but their defence was impressive, conceding less than 1 xG in four of their 7 matches.
Belgium (3rd Place) were the best attacking team with Brazil who they eventually knocked out.
Uruguay were statistically the best defensive unit in the tournament.
Croatia was led by the eventual player of the tournament and was statistically the most efficient team in the tournament, although they were hard done by the brilliant individual displays by elite young players and some controversial VAR decisions.
But overall, as does tend to happen with knockout tournaments with such a limited amount of games, luck might be the best bet one might have.
