The choice of formation

Introduction

According to UEFA's EURO 2020 Technical Report, 15 out of 24 participating teams employed a back three at least once. A stark contrast to the previous version of the tournament, where only four nations (Wales, Northern Ireland, Italy and Germany) used this kind of defensive formation at least occasionally. But four (or in this case, even five) years are a long time, and maybe these changes at international level don't reflect trends in domestic leagues appropriately. And how about the Austrian league, not really known to be tactically innovative?

In order to analyse (starting) formations and their use a bit deeper, I took a look at teams and games from the 2015/16 season onwards until now. This left me with 78 club seasons (three seasons with ten teams and four with twelve). There have been 2428 team games, i.e., 1214 games played with a home and an away team each, of course. Information concerning starting formation is incomplete for seven of them, so I am left with a sample size of 1207. Decent enough.

Transfermarkt, from which I got the data, uses a lot of different ways to categorize formations. In fact, in my sample there are 25 unique versions of them. Some of them obviously don't differ a whole lot (e.g., the "4-4-2 Diamond" and the "4-3-1-2" are basically the same). Others differ only marginally (an offensive 4-3-3 and a more conservative 4-5-1 might just have different heights in which their wingers act). More tactically minded readers might disagree with me, but for the sake of simplicity I decided to ignore those minor details and focus on the bigger picture. Some broader categories were necessary to achieve this.

Two decisive factors in which formations differ are the number of players in the defensive line (i.e., a back three or a back four) and the number of players in the attacking one (whether the team plays with one or two central strikers). Those were the categories I grouped teams along, leaving me with a four-fold matrix every team could be grouped in. Note that for convenience, I count back five defensive lines as back threes and systems with three strikers as lone striker formations, although the tactical experts will, again, diverge on this.

So, let's get started by looking at some simple numbers and averages before delving deeper into more robust analyses. In my sample, the back three was used by 27% of teams' starting formations. The back line with four players was therefore way more popular. Offensive formations were quite equally distributed, by contrast (60% lone strikers and 40% partnerships).

Back three formations were in fact becoming more and more popular during the first half of the time span in my sample, in fact. The percentage of starting formations using a back three rose from just over 10% in 2015/16 to more than 40% in 2018/19. It did however remain at this peak and fell back in the following years. For the current season, the figure is almost exactly at the long-term average. Back four formations have been, by definition, becoming more popular since 2019 and are back to the levels of 2017/18 in the current season.

By contrast, in offensive terms there was a much steadier development in terms of the choice of formations. Lone striker formations were something of a holy grail in the earlier days (six years ago). Three out of four starting line-ups featured just one central striker back then. But, since then they have been declining in popularity ever since, with the exception of a dip during the 2017/18 season (the last one with ten teams in the upper tier and no play-offs, by the way). For the second consecutive season now, lone striker formations are actually a minority choice now and double strikers are the new normal, although the differences in usage are rather small (54% strike partnerships vs. 46% lonely boys up front).

Teams and coaches

In terms of individual teams, LASK were during a long time the blueprint of the back three trend in the Bundesliga. Between 2018/19 and 2020/21 they used this defensive formation in every single league game. No other team has used a back three throughout a whole season, and only twenty out of 78 sides have used it in a majority of games. The only teams in the current season to do so are again LASK (56%) and Ried (83%).

Those two teams are also the two leading ones in the overall ranking and the only ones which applied a back three in more than half of games in the sample. Only three other teams with more than one full season (St. Pölten, Altach and Sturm Graz) have used a back three in at least one quarter of their games. On the other hand, out of regular participants in the upper tier serial champions RB Salzburg are the team which most sticks to a back four, using a three-man defence only in approximately one out of 20 games.

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Interestingly, they are also the team most prone to using a strike partnership, having used either a 4-2-2-2 or a 4-Diamond-2 formation almost without exception during the last few years. Wolfsberger AC, another team that used almost exclusively back four formations, were also keen to field two strikers in their starting formations.

Other teams that used more double striker than lone striker formations were Altach and Wattens, but they were just as well exceptions to the rule. All the other teams used lone strikers predominantly, reflecting that these were standard choices during most of the time span from 2015/16 onwards.

There won't be much of a surprise when it comes to teams and the formations they faced. Wacker Innsbruck's only year in the first league during the sample was 2018/19, the year the usage of back-three formations peaked. The fact that in relative terms they played against this form of defensive line-up the most is therefore no astonishment. Much more interesting are the teams that follow. Red Bull Salzburg, the serial winners (in fact, no other team won the competition since 2013) and LASK were among the best teams of the league in any year. There is however no real pattern to detect in terms of formations faced, and variance is much lower than in formations used.

Individual coaches do show a whole lot more of variation in terms of formations choice. In order not to report too much noise, I excluded head coaches with fewer than 20 games in charge during the past six and a half seasons. 

There are some who stick to their preferred choice throughout (such as Valérien Ismaël, Paul Gludovatz and Dominik Thalhammer, fierce advocates for back lines of three defenders) or Jesse Marsch, the only one never to renounce his double striker system. There are others who mix their choices quite equally (Damir Canadi sticks out in both categories). But in general, most coaches follow the overall trend. More than half of managers have used the back three in less than one quarter of their games in charge, and a majority of them opted for a lone striker in around three out of five games they were responsible for.

Explaining the choice

So far, we have looked at some rather descriptive statistics, which don't explain a whole lot. We have seen that some teams are more prone to others to apply a certain starting system, and there are some coaches that tend to opt for again a certain formation. There was also a clear long-term trend towards double-striker formations and for some time, back threes were becoming more popular. But these figures only tell us what teams and coaches have been doing, and not so much why they were doing it.

In the reminder of this entry, I will investigate three possible explanations as to which formation a team uses in a given game and why it might change from their standard choice to a different one: venue, the opposition's formation and the strength of the opposition.

Venue might be an obvious factor: home teams are typically favourites to win the game, therefore they should on average attack more and field more attacking players (so for instance, only two central defenders instead of three). Away teams on the other hand might be happy with containing their opponents, fielding more defensive players who would help to secure a draw. We could therefore in principle suspect significant differences between home and away teams in terms of formation choice.

Looking at the data in terms of defensive formation in my sample through this hypothesis, there is however no real distinction to be made between them. The tendencies are by contrast almost equal for both home and away teams. Home teams (continuous lines in the graphs) were actually a bit more inclined towards a back three (blue lines) than their counterparts in the 2015/16 season, but then sticked to back-four formations a bit more afterwards. The peak in back-three usage saw home teams applying them more than away, but differences were as usual rather small. In the current season, there is virtually no difference between home and away teams.

 

This picture is only slightly different in terms of offensive formations. Home teams had always been more inclined than their counterparts towards two-striker systems (blue lines), at least before the pandemic seasons. Their usage of this kind of formation was however basically unchanged during the last four season. What has changed was the offensive choice of away teams, who went from using a single striker in 60% of games to lining up two central attackers in a majority of games.

These facts only tell us so much and are obviously not enough to explain formation choice. But, since the differences are minor yet obviously not completely at random, I will discriminate home and away teams analytically in the remainder of this entry.

Opposition formations

Teams might also vary their tactics according to the opposition they face, to counter specific threats or exploit weaknesses. For example, a team that will play an opponent that uniquely fields two central strikers might be more inclined towards fielding three central defenders to always have a spare man at the back. This would allow them to play one against one defensively and have one man to cover his teammates, but it could also be beneficial for their build-up play.

We look therefore at teams' formation as a function of their opponents'. As a first step, we analyse the distribution of formation combinations in our sample. As we can see, all the 16 possible formations (2 of each offensive and defensive formations for both home and away teams, i.e., the number of possible combinations is 2*2*2*2) are to be found in the 1207 games we consider.

Most of them (actually, the four most common formations) include games where both teams applied a back four (662 games, 55% of games in our sample). Only 9% of games (111) saw both teams field three central defenders.

But more important are the interactions of offensive and defensive formations. Therefore, let's assume for a moment that opposition starting systems are stable (which they mostly are as we shall see, but a team could also anticipate a formation change and vary therefore themselves).

When home teams face a back four team, they play with a loan striker in 61% of games (almost exactly the long-term average). However, when face with a back three, they opted for a single central forward only in about every other game (53%). The relationship between defensive formation of away teams and offensive structure of home teams is statistically significant.

The opposite is not true. Away teams also tend to opt more often for a lone striker formation. They did so in 61% of games, but the differences between games against a back three (59%) and against a back four (62%) are rather down to noise than to substance.

Which of course in any case tells us nothing about the causal link. It might be that home teams vary their offensive formation depending on away teams or just the other way round (the data allows for both interpretations). In the end, this is a game played by actors. Therefore, modelling change in formation choice makes more sense than the use of formations.

Modelling changes and opponent quality

To start with, the data shows that teams don't choose formations on a regular basis. The most important predicator when running multivariate models on a teams' formation in a given game is always the same teams' formation in other games. It seems however that home teams are slightly more likely to change their formation anticipating their opponents' system then vice versa, but not the way you might suppose. They actually tend to mirror their oppositions formation, i.e., are more likely to field a back three against a back three and a strike partnership if their visitors also tend to use this offensive structure. But are these really formation changes?

I define a formation change in a particular game if a team uses the other variant in more than 60% of games, independent of whether this percentage was reached before or after the specific match. This is not completely clean (as a third game in a row with a back three in a season in which the team otherwise only used four-man defences would still count as a switch to a back three), but it leaves me with sufficient material.

In the 1207 games in my sample, home teams switched to a back 3 in 64 occasions and made the opposite move 43 times. Away teams were slightly happirt to switch, changing and chopping on 117 occasions (71 towards a back three, 46 to a back four). In offensive terms, change happened even more often. Home teams switch from single-striker formations to two central forwards on 136 times and reduced their front line to one 59 times, away teams made these moves 121 and 73 times, respectively. The total sum of offensive switches is identical for home and away teams.

Our final factor to consider when explaining formation choice and change is team quality. I use the goal difference for all the other games during the respective season to assess the relative strength of both teams. This is again a bit of a trick (since it uses information of games played afterwards) but is still a sufficient indicator of team quality.

Now we are ready to assess why teams change formations. Home teams, which looked more prone to changing formations according to their opponents' systems, actually change predominantly according to the difference in relative strength. Only in case of a switch towards a back three, the opposition formation also plays a role. They are both more likely to switch to a back three when playing stronger opposition and when playing against a team with the same offensive formation. On the other hand, a switch towards a back four is not explained by any of the factors in my model.

Offensive changes by home teams are both influenced by team rating, and interestingly, both in the same direction. Playing against a stronger team makes home sides more unlikely to switch their offensive patterns, whether they usually field one or two central strikers.

When factoring the difference in quality appropriately, we also see that away teams do change their defensive formation in anticipation of their opponents. Playing against a team that usually fields two central strikers makes away teams more likely to switch to a back three, independent of their opposition's quality. As in the case of home teams, switches to a back four seem to happen quite randomly.

In case of facing stronger opposition, away teams also tend to switch towards a two-striker system, independent of home teams' offensive and defensive formation. To understand the specific reasons behind these moves would be a fascinating question to ask some experts on tactics. A switch from a double to a lone striker system is however not explained by any of the variables in my models.

Predicting formations, choosing appropriately and problems for specific teams

We can use our models and findings for some cool stuff. Suppose you are working as a coach or analyst for a team and want to know the most likely formation your next opponent might field. Of course, you could look at videos of their previous games (say, for instance their last five games) and guess how they will play. This is valuable information and will work fine most of the times. But imagine your upcoming opponent is tactically quite flexible and you are having a hard time finding patterns in their formation use, both home and away. With a little script and spending a few minutes running the code instead of various hours watching videos you can gain additional information, which might back up or (more interesting) contradict your qualitative evaluation.

The data can tell you the most likely defensive and offensive formation of your opponent (and also, your own) just as in the table above. Plus, you could also evaluate the likelihood that they will deviate from their previous formations (not reported in table).

Knowing (with a little bit more certainty than from just watching games) their formation will then be useful to choose your own. As we have seen, clubs do not tend to chop and change too much in terms of the formations they apply, but suppose you are flexible enough to choose between various options.

Unfortunately, even advanced models cannot show us a magical formula, but there is reason to suppose that a striker partnership would be a good choice for away teams, given that its application has historically led them to perform a bit better than expected given teams' relative strength.

But to console you, you could still look at some numbers comparing results to expectations and evaluate them according to the tactical choices taken. For instance, you would find out that Ried, although usually quite enthusiastic about back threes, have won 13 of 29 home games with a back four. This amounts to four wins more than expected given their opponents strength. On the other hand, Austria Wien have lost 34 of 82 home games with a back four, again 4 more than expected.

To end this game, I tell you a possible way to halt the best team in the league. RB Salzburg have faced a back three in 41 away games. They were expected to win 25 of them, but managed "only" 22 wins. Meanwhile, at home they won more games than expected against both three- and four-man defences. So, when you welcome them the next time, convince your coach, field your additional centre-back and hope for the best.

 

Note: As always, click on graphs to increase their size.

Salzburg: Could their defensive weakness cost them the title?

Although they finished the first part of the season in first place, they cannot be wholly satisfied with the way things are going. They lead the table only by goal difference and average only slightly more than two points per game, their lowest tally in recent years. Even last season, when they went into the Play-Offs technically six points behind their opponents LASK, they had a better point average, more goals scored and less goals conceded.

Their current problems are mainly down to defensive issues. They have conceded 15 goals in 12 league games, which is way more than their competitors Sturm (five goals conceded in the same period) and LASK (ten). From a historic perspective, their troubles become more evident: for the first time since the start of the 2016/17 season, they are averaging more than one goal conceded per game. This holds for both expected (1.15) and actual (1.25) goals.

We can see from this number that some of this is down to variation, given that they concede more goals than an average team would. But the difference of 0.1 per game amounts to only two goals in the course of the regular season, so not a huge factor to explain their worrying trends.

The issue was more pronounced in their international campaign. They finished third in the Champions League group and will therefore continue in the Europa League in February. Finishing in this position was however a bit more unfortunate than their current league standing. According to FBREF, they conceded 17 gaols from 8.7 expected ones. Their underlying performances had them as an only slightly below average (8.4 xG conceded) team, but their number of actual goals conceded was the second worst of the 32 teams in the group stage. Accordingly, no team had a higher percentage of xG that ended in goal (195%) or a bigger difference between expected (+2.7) and actual (-7) goal difference. They also had the best xG-difference in their group, topping reigning Champions League winners Bayern Munich (+2.4) and current La Liga leaders Atlético Madrid (+0.3).

Their domestic numbers this year leave them however only in 14th position in terms of expected goals per game conceded, out of a total of 56 club seasons in the league since 2016. They find themselves behind teams like Altach 2016/17 and LASK 2017/18, which both finished fourth. Another indicator of their relative weakness is that four of the six best teams in this ranking were previous versions of their own club.

 

The only conclusion from these numbers is that they have to improve defensively if they are to win the league yet again. But preparation during the winter break (which normally lasts around two months in Austria) was shortened to two weeks this year due to the full calendar, so the question remains if they were able to work a lot on the issue. They also did not do very much on the transfer market to alleviate their problems, bringing back in only defensive all-rounder Bernardo on loan from Brighton. At the same time, central defender Jérôme Onguéné left the club also on loan towards Genoa CFC.

So we can expect that their defensive numbers won't change much in the near future, which makes their offensive output the more important. The graph shows the expected number of points per game for different levels of expected goals per game scored, maintaining their current number of xG per game conceded at the fixed level. The vertical dotted lines show the actual levels of xG scored for the current and last two previous seasons.

If they keep scoring the same way, they are expected to finish the season with around 2.25 points per game, which in turn would be approximately 47 points after the end of the Play-Offs (note that points after the regular season are halved). This would be less than 2018/19 (52) and 2020/21 (50), but would in both years still have been enough to win the title.

The problem with these metrics is that until now, there are two teams in the league with also outstanding numbers, nearly reaching Salzburg's performance levels. LASK and Rapid (both not playing international football anymore, which might be a slight advantage), will challenge them in the upcoming months. This was not the case at the same level in previous years. If Salzburg are to overcome this challenge, they will have improve their defensive work and decrease the chances they concede to a lower level.

LASK: How have they evolved under Thalhammer?

After a run of bad results and a decline of performances after restart, the club decided that the coach had to go. Although the rumours of Valerien Ismael being sacrified in order for the club board did not completely silence, the appointment of Dominik Thalhammer made sense in sporting terms. He had led the Austrian Women's national team to unprecedented heights, reaching the semifinals of the 2017 Euros. Given that the squad was predominantely kept together, he was able to build and develop it further.

By looking at some stylistic metrics, we can compare the type of football the new head coach (who at the same time is also the sporting director) has implemented with the previous regime. I use the popular radar graphs for this purpose, which report twelve different indicators. These are broadly grouped into three subcategories: 

With the ball:

• Possession
• Pass success
• High possession (passes in the final third)
• Long balls (as a percentage of all passes played)
• Crosses (per 100 passes played)

Against the ball and transition

• Pressing frequency (number of interceptions and clearances per game)
• Pressing intensity (interceptions and clearances per minute out of possession)
• Opponent pass success
  
• Transition speed (number of passes played per shot)

Performances

• Total Shot Ratio (TSR)
  
• Shot on Target Ratio (STR)
• xG-Difference

 

Comparing last year's and current season's radar, we can actually see some remarkable differences, especially concerning they game with the ball. Average possession went up from 56% to 61% and their pass success rate from 69% to 75%. The number of passes in the opponent third is basically unchanged, indicating that they keep the ball a bit more in deeper positions. This is further underlined by the percentage of long balls, which fell from 19% under Ismael to 14% under Thalhammer. Conversely, they play more crosses: from five crosses per 100 passes last year to six during the current season. 

Their approach towards the opposition goal is also a little less direct; meanwhile they played on average 3.6 passes before each shot in 2019/20, now they shoot after 3.7. Not a huge difference, but still in line with a slightly more patient game.

Concerning their game without the ball, we observe a little paradox. They are pressing less, both in absolute and in proportional terms, but still they are able to interrupt their opponents' play: meanwhile last year 39% of their opponents' passes were unsuccessful, this year they are intercepting 41%. Closing passing lanes and forcing their opponents into bad decision instead of a more direct approach in pressing seems to be the new lemma.

In terms of performances, their game has improved even more from an already high level. They are scoring one expected goal per game more than they concede. A healthy figure, although they are beaten in this regard by champions RB Salzburg and maybe title-challengers SK Rapid.

Can they themselves challenge for the title win? Their numbers are, in spite of the changes in style, largely at the same level as they were last year during the regular season, which they finished in first position, leading by six points. If it had not been for their training scandal and the subsequent point deduction, they could have at least finished better than they ultimately did (in fourth place). Their challenge will therefore be to not experience a similar drop in performances after another excellent regular season and to maintain their level in the Play-Offs.

Rapid: Can they challenge for the title this year?

Their last league title dates back to 2008. Since then, they have finished in second position six times, three times in third position and thrice outside the top four. The hunger for the league title is big at Rapid and the chances they can win it this time are definitely not lost, although they finished the calender year in fourth position. They sit only one point behind the league leaders and their underlying numbers are quite promising.

On the attacking side of their game, they have created 2.23 xG per game so far this season, their best output since the beginning of the 2016/17 season (they have created more in the 2018/19 lower Play-Offs, but faced significantly worse opponents therein). In comparison to last year's regular season, they have created around 0.3 xG per game more, which adds up to around seven goals over the course of 22 games.

Defensively, they are also quite stable and allowed their opponents slightly more than one expected goal per game, which is around at the the level of the 2016/17 and 2017/18 seasons, in which they had their best defensive record during the last few years. In terms of league-wide comparison, they are the second-best team in the league in both disciplines, bettered offensively only by RB Salzburg (2.36 xG created per game) and LASK (1.01 xG conceded).

Although expected goals do not tell us the whole story, they are an important indicator of a team's performance level. Therefore, the numbers tend to correlate quite strongly with teams' final league position. By comparing their numbers this year with those of other high-quality teams of late, we can evaluate their chances to challenge for the title in the current season. The graph shows the top 10 teams since the 2016/17 season (out of a total of 56), ranked by their average xG-difference, and their rank in the final league table.

We can see that the team of headcoach Kühbauer are beaten only by two versions of RB Salzburg, both this and the previous year. Their offensive output is likewise the third-highest of all teams, although there have been some more defensively sound teams. We can therefore conclude that they are definitely in the title race.

Their problem is that not only this year's version of RB Salzburg is in this list, but also two other direct rivals, LASK and Sturm Graz (albeit the latter already quite some levels behind). This is a wider reflection of a general trend this season. The total number of expected goals has risen by about 0.25 per game in comparison to last season. We also observe the highest xG values per game (3.15) since 2016. Post-pandemic football has turned into a chance festival, which is why most teams create more expected goals than last year.

Therefore, the question whether Rapid's better numbers are down to an actual improvement or rather due to a more general trend, remains open. But, given their stats in comparison to the rest of the league, they could finish this season with the best rank since 2008.

Sturm: Is Ilzer their best head coach of the last years?

Half a year after finishing last season on a historic low, losing nine out of ten games in the upper Play-Off and conceding more than three goals a game on the run, Sturm Graz are back in business. They go top of the table if they win the game against WAC that they have in hand. So far, they are the only team to lose only one game this season and are the most stable side with only five goals conceded in eleven matches (the second-best side is on ten goals conceded). Their goal difference is the second best of the league after champions RB Salzburg.

Although their underlying numbers indicate that they are overperforming quite heavily (+17 actual goal difference from a +8.4 expected one), their rise is quite remarkable. Last season, their underlying numbers were those of a team from the lower half of the table, incapable of competing for higher laureates. Now they have the fourth best xG difference and clearly belong in the upper third of the table. They did this despite not spending a penny on new signings, relying on free agents and loan moves. 

This passive approach leaves only their new head coach as a possible explanation for their improvement. Christian Ilzer was appointed after Nestor El Maestro was sacked for both on and off-field reasons and interim coach Thomas Hösele managed to lose all three games in charge (5:12 goal difference). Ilzer himself had had a quite underwhelming season at Austria Vienna, which ended with the loss of the Europa Qualification Play-Offs after winning the lower Play-Offs. But in general terms, he was still highly regarded after getting Hartberg promoted to the highest league for the first time in their history and leading WAC to European honours the two previous years.

After frequent changes in this position (he is their fifth permanent head coach since the start of the 2016/17 season), Sturm seem to have found their man. Out of this group of five coaches, he has the highest point and goals scored average, plus his team is by long way the most stable one (less than half a goal per game conceded). Although these numbers should regress somewhat to their mean, underlying performances have been no less impressive given last year's benchmark.

He is also the coach with the highest expected goal difference per game. His team scores more than half an expected goal per game more than those of Heiko Vogel (who got sacked midway the 2018/19 season) and Franco Foda (who lead them to the top of the table at Christmas 2017 before being appointed manager of the Austrian national team). The men in charge after Vogel's sacking (Roman Mählich and Nestor El Maestro) were both known for a rather reactive style of play and did not manage to reach the levels of their predecessors (both had a negative expected goal difference).

Interestingly and contrary to the actual numbers, the team's improvement under Ilzer is largely down to their increased offensive production. They score almost two expected non-penalty goals per game, which is largely in line with their actual output (exactly two goals per game). On the defensive side, his team is only the third best of the sample with around 1.15 xG per game conceded. Under both Foda and Vogel, the club allowed their opponents slightly less (1.08 xG per game). 

 

Given the actual numbers this season are way below that (0.45 goals conceded on average) and are based on a still relatively small sample of only eleven games, the team might fall back a bit and may be short of battling for the title this year. But they have improved massively under their new head coach and should make it into Europe easily.

WSG Tirol: How have they improved so much?

In the end, it was deserved. WSG Tirol finished the league in last position, with most goals conceded and the worst goal difference. They won only one game out of ten in the lower Play-Offs, conceding sixteen goals on the way (worst) and scoring only eight (second worst). Their relegation after just one season in the highest tier was no coincidence.

But sometimes in life, people get a second chance. In their case, it was a rival team going into bankruptcy, which gave them a spot in the higher tier for the current season. Despite a lot of issues planning the new season and putting together a squad for the highest league, they so far have used their chance really well. They sit comfortably in fifth position, with a positive goal difference and massively improved numbers on both ends of the pitch.

 

Offensively, they improved above else in home games. It has to be mentioned that due to infrastructural reasons, they have not played at their usual home stadium since promotion. This year, they seem to cope much better with this peculiar loss of home-ground advantage. In lesser terms, they also create more from counter attacks and set pieces, plus they rely less on long balls. The situations in which they have made the most important steps forward are footed shots and shots after through balls; both very effective ways to score goals. This is a side that is not riding the wave but a well playing squad.

In defensive terms and unlike at the other end of the pitch, they have diminished their opponents' chances to score in away games. They are a bit more stable in counter situations, from set pieces and after opponents' long balls. Their rivals are also less able to create footed shots against them. Again, very promising developments of a team which might likely play in the upper Play-Offs this year.

WAC: Are they suffering a European hangover?

After finishing last season in third position, which included a secure spot in the Europa League group stage, Wolfsberger AC suffered a bit of a slow start to the new season. They lost four out of five at the beginning of the term and spent most of this fall below the magic line, i.e. in the lower half of the table. During the last couple they seem however to have turned their fortunes; they only lost one league game since the start of November, winning five out of seven (including an away game against the ruling champion). Similarly, the expected goals table tells a story of a team that will most likely finish in the upper half of the table (they have played one game less, which is why they could jump to fifth already next week). The prospects of competing for international honours again are there.

 

Next month, they also have another European challenge. They play Tottenham in the round of last sixteen, an encounter that they most likely will not win. Moreover, the question is whether this tie will further affect their domestic performances. Given that they already had a small squad last season, the additional workload might do them more damage than they wished for. The question is therefore if the (most likely) two games will affect their domestic performances this spring season.

 

To answer the question, I divided the eleven games they have played so far this season into two sub-groups: European games (red in the graph) are those within three to four days after a Europa League fixture. Free Weeks (blue bars) on the other hand are games in which they had had no midweek games (domestic cup games have been played on weekends this season so far). The sample size is quite small (five European games and six Free Weeks) and I did not control for quality of opposition (which might affect the data disproportionately). Results are therefore to be taken with a pinch of salt and will give us only a general idea but given that additional workload is commonly used as a reason or excuse for poor domestic performances, there should be at least something to it.

 

The data shows that there are actually small differences in their performances, but not the way you would expect. Their points per game tally is basically unchanged, whether they have played European or not. They both won and lost two of their games after midweek fixtures, but they proportion of wins and losses is also the same after free weeks (three to three). 

 

In terms of underlying performances, they tended to play better after European nights, scoring around 0.33 xG (one goal every three games) more and conceding 0.4 less than when they could use the whole week for preparing their game. In those more challenging weeks, they created more footed shots and more from through balls, two more effective ways to score goals. Meanwhile, after long training weeks they were significantly better during set-pieces and counters.

The thing with European games with them so far has been that they struggled on both ends of the pitch to get the goals they deserved. This led them to having an actual (non-penalty) goal difference of 0, while creating a positive expected one (+.22). Heavy legs seem to influence their ability to convert their own chances and prevent the opposition from scoring theirs. On the other hand, they massively overperform in free weeks, converting an expected goal difference of -.42 (a rather poor number) into an actual one of +.16. 

 

Of course, additional games sum up and do not only influence the games in the immediate aftermath. Preparing for more game time by strengthening and broadening their squad is not a bad idea. Their results have however been ok after playing in Europe, with the only outlier being their heaviest defeat so far this season (1:4 at Wattens) after their trip to Moscow. So, rather than fearing the negative impact of European football in the future, they should worry about rather mediocre performances when they don't play in UEFA competitions.

St. Pölten: Are they a real deal?

Although they slipped out of the top six because of a 3:0 defeat against Sturm Graz in the last game before the winter break and in spite of only winning one of their last six matches (losing 8:2 against Salzburg on the way), St. Pölten are still a candidate for the upper play-offs. They spent the best part of the current season so far in the upper half of the table and are also the seventh-best team in the league in terms of xG-difference, so the chances to reach one of the first six spots still exist. This season is a massive upgrade compared to last one, where they finished the regular season as last. They are now only one win away of bettering their total points tally of last year's regular season. Last year, they were the second-worst team in the xG-difference table during the first 22 matchdays and the worst team of the lower Play-Offs.

How have they managed to improve and compete for a spot in the upper final round? Their upward trend is mostly down to higher attacking output. Last season, they created the fewest expected goals in both the regular season and the lower Play-Offs. They are now the sixth best shooting team of the league, only around one expected goal behind WSG Wattens in fifth place. Defensively, there are more worrying signs. With almost 23 expected goals conceded in twelve games, they are in the lower third of league teams in this category.

They have been maximising quality over quantity. As the plot shows, they are taking the best shots on average of all the teams in the league, with a total shot number of a relegation threatened team (third lowest of the league). Their average shot has in turn a probability to go in of more than 14%, way above the second-best team in this list (SV Ried, 12.6%) and almost 2.5 percentage points better than league average (11.6%). In defensive terms, they are not quite as good in this sense, conceding shots that are only slightly worse (11.4%) than the average team.

Their improvement in offensive terms can largely be attributed to better shot locations. They take more than 71% of their shots from inside the box, the largest share of the league, almost completely renouncing long-way shots. This strategy not only increases the chances of the single shot to go in the net, it also has the advantage of giving the opposition less opportunities to exploit possession changes that are the result of balls saved or blocked because they were taken from poor positions.

In terms of game situations, they create the highest amount of expected goals from counter situations. Bearing in mind that shots from counter situations are also more likely to go in than comparable shots from non-counters, this seems like a legit strategy to create attacking danger. They are rather poor from set-pieces (8th best team) and from long balls (11th), which could both be powerful circumstances for outsiders like them. On the other hand, they are the second-best team of the league for xG created from through-balls (after Wolfsberg and unlike another team of their region), which are another excellent way to create high-quality shots.

If they manage to become a bit more solid defensively and keep on exploiting successful offensive strategies, there chances to reach the upper Play-Off (which would mean no danger of relegation and the chance to compete for European games) are not to be neglected.

Hartberg: Are they defying common wisdom?

After narrowly surviving in their first year and making it for the first time in their history to a European competition in the second one, TSV Hartberg are back to pushing above their weight this season. They sit comfortably in mid-table (currently 8th), with less points distance to the upper Play-Offs than to the relegation zone. Head coach Markus Schopp has been doing a decent job since taking over in 2018 and doesn't seem to stop.

Their underlying numbers do however tell a slightly different story. They are actually the second-worst team of the league xG-wise. The strange thing about their season is that they do not actually overperform their xG-difference. They are on -.75 actual goal difference per game from -0.65 non-penalty expected goals. 

So what causes their overperformance in terms of points? One reason might be penalties, which are usually excluded due to not being a really repetitive skill. It is however not the reason for their good points tally. So far, they had one for them (in a game they draw 1:1) and one against (in a 7:1 defeat), hence penalties explain one single point in the table.

The answer lies more in the way they score goals under specific circumstances. They obviously score (expected and actual) goals of higher value than an average team. The graph shows the relationship between xG-difference and points per game since the start of the 2016/17 season at team level. Points are coloured according to tier (regular season or Play-Offs), they grey area is the 95% confidence interval. We can see that points are largely a function of xG-difference. There are some outliers, out of which many will be down to luck or random variation.

As we have seen, this is not the case for Hartberg (blue dots in the diagram). They perform about as well as you would expect them given their underlying performances. However, they seem to have found to way to beat these expectations by keeping games tight, with rather few goals both scored and conceded. That is when they excel. Around 60% of their games since their promotion in 2018/19 were tight games, i.e. games in which both teams either scored the same amount of goals or one team exactly one more than the opponent. They won half of their points in those games, a far higher percentage than other teams with a similar amount of tight games.

Their special strength in comparison to their direct rivals are games in which exactly one goal is scored. They win 1.36 points on average in those games, considerably more than comparable teams such as Admira (1.0), Altach (0.67) and WSG Tirol (0.6). Only St. Pölten nearly reach this same level (1.33).

When goals galore, they are however doomed. They have lost seven games in the two and a half season in which their opponent scored at least five goals, while they themselves have yet to score that many goals in a single game in the upper league.

 

Ried: how do they compare to other recently promoted teams?

In spite of sitting relatively comfortably in tenth position (out of twelve teams), with three points separating them from the sole relegation spot and five between them and the upper play-offs, SV Ried decided to sack their head coach Gerald Baumgartner after one half of the regular season. Although there was no immediate relegation threat, there were some reasons to be concerned, given that they had the second-worst defense in the league and had just previously lost a home game 1:4 to a not very great contender. 

But how evaluate their situation? They still sit tenth in the expected goal difference table, although things are very congested between the teams in spots eight and eleven, so a lot of things can still happen. It might make more sense to compare their performances to other teams in their maiden season after promotion. I included only those of the 2018/19 season onwards, given that the current league format was introduced this very year.

 

This leaves us with three other teams as benchmark: Hartberg, Wacker Innsbruck (both promoted for the 2018/19 season) and WSG Tirol (debuting in 2019/20). Innsbruck and WSG finished their first season in last position, although the latter did not have to go down due to another team being administrated. This shows how hard survival in the first league in Austria has become, reflecting the growing gap between the divisions. Unlike in earlier times, promoted teams do not tend to compete for European spots, but rather struggle to stay up.

The simple comparison shows that Ried is in general the worst of the four teams. They are conceding almost 0.6 expected goals per game more than they create, way less than their counterparts. The issue is not so much their offensive side: they score 1.29 xG per game, which is in line (Hartberg 1.27, WSG Tirol 1.37, Wacker Innsbruck 1.32). Their problems lie predominately at the back, with almost two xG conceded per game, around 0.15 per game more than the second-worst team. 

 

Their defensive issues are backed up by actual goals numbers. They have conceded 2.3 goals per game so far, around 0.25 more than the second-worst team. These differences add up to a total of around six expected goals over the course of a full season, which is quite worrying given that none of the other teams finished high in the actual table.

 

One might argue that the comparison is a bit unfair due to the small sample size it is based on for the current season; hence it could be biased because of schedule effects. The fact is however that Ried's schedule has so far been rather easy. Of the five remaining home games, only two are against teams from the upper half of the table. On the other hand, they have to play three of the four best teams of the table away from home during the remainder of the regular season. Results will therefore not improve significantly.

There is however some strength in this team. They have created the best xG-difference from set-pieces (a total of 1.63) and perform quite well after long balls (second-best, with an xG-difference of 0.7). They could do better after counter attacks and through balls. 

This leads us to questions of style. Their style so far this season has been overtly reactive, with the lowest share of ball possession (~40%), pass percentage (69%) and of passes played short (77%) of the subsample. They also play the second lowest share of their passes in the opponent half (33%) and cross the ball second-most (around five crosses per 100 total passes). 

It is ok to start the season more cautiously and not try to dominate every game from the start. But in order to be competitive, some improvement is non-negotiable. As this blog entry has shown, the three areas where they need to work on the most are defensive stability, a more active style of play and their game in possession. They already have a new head coach. Miron Muslic coached second-tier side Floridsdorfer AC since summer. They had the second-worst defence of the league.

Austria: how do they try to score goals?

Seventh, fourth, seventh, and now tenth. After finishing second (and losing more than one third of their games on the way) in 2016/17, Austria Vienna are in what you may describe as a permanent crisis. They are definitely performing below expectations, given that they are the last club to win the league not named Red Bull Salzburg and also the record champion since the competition was installed in its current format in the 1970s.

The club, formerly known for technical and offensive football, is struggling especially at the high end of the pitch. During the current season, they have scored only one goal per game, down from 1.5 during last year's regular season and on par with the worst team of the league. Their last win (and only second in total) dates back to early October. This happens in spite of reinstalling their messiah, Peter Stöger, the last one who coached them to champions honours, as head coach this summer.

The difficulty is that their performances are just that. Although they can argue that they have been a bit unlucky (only nine goals from 15 xG), there are only three teams in the league that created even less. They are playing like a below average team and deserve the position they occupy in the table.

The shot zones map underlines their weaknesses. They create less expected goals than an average team does from any area in the box and just outside of it. Their chance creation in the zone around the penalty spot is especially poor. This is not the map of a team that competes for European competitions or even more, but rather one that needs to make sure they don't finish in a lower league the following year.

The question is if there is at least anything positive about their offensive performances this year. A strength they could rely on to score more goals during the remainder of this season. By crunching the numbers concerning their expected goals and comparing them to the other teams of the league, we can detect any possible strengths.

Unfortunately, they are not leading the league in any category, and only in one they are among the top third of teams. They are below average both before (8th best team of the league) and after the break (10th). They are somehow better after crosses (7th) than after non-crosses (10th) as well as after set-pieces (6th) than from open play (9th), but nothing to be too optimistic about.

The only category in which they somehow excel is xG after long passes, in which they are the fourth best team by now. To put this into context, they also try it quite often the direct way, playing long balls both absolutely (955 times so far) as relatively (23% of their passes are long) the second-most frequently of all clubs. Plus, this kind of football might not be the one preferred by their supporters and is also not the best one suited to some of their more gifted players such as Grünwald, Fitz or Sakaria.

The most baffling fact, however, is that they are still to create a single shot from a through ball this season. Through balls are in general a very effective way to generate high quality chances, hence the team lacking this quality shows the poor season they are having. Only fellow relegation contenders Hartberg and Altach have also failed to create something from through balls this season.

The issue is as much personal as it is structural. Last season's most dangerous players are by and large also this season's, but in general most of them on a lower level. There are some promising youngsters such as Aleksandar Jukic (20) and Patrick Wimmer (19), but they still rely too much on some players beyond their peak (Grünwald, Klein last season, Suttner this year) in terms of chance creation.

Plus, one of their most exciting younger players has hardly featured this year. Dominik Fitz has played less than 200 minutes this season, missing many games due to injury and suspension. He was easily their most creative player last season, setting up 7.5 expected goals for his teammates. On the way, he created more than two expected goals from through balls last season (no other more than one), was their best assister for shots both from crosses and non-crosses, and also both from open play and after set-pieces.

He did additionally also create danger from his own shots, being their second most effective player from non-crossed shots and their third most from open play and after short passes. His tally of four goals and eight assists almost perfectly matches his underlying performances, indicating how much his team has been missing him this year.

Altach: are they declining?

When Alex Pastoor took over at Altach in March of 2019, things didn't look very bright for the team from Vorarlberg. They languished in penultimate position of the table and were in acute danger. Wacker Innsbruck, who were relegated in the end, were only one point behind them. The dutchman's take of control meant an immediate improvement of form. He took them to the second position of the lower tier of the play-offs, eight points ahead of the relegation spot. During the play-offs, the team managed to gather one more point (18) in ten games than in the 22 matches of the regular season, albeit against in general weaker opposition. In the following 2019/20 season, the team stabilized on a higher level, gaining six points more during the regular season than the year before. Then, football was stopped for some months, and after the restart the team was not the same as before. Although they did finish second again in the lower play-offs, they did so by collecting five points (i.e. half a point every game) less than the year before. They also scored almost 50% less goals, although they also improved defensively a bit. 

This year, their downward trend seems to continue. They are again in penultimate position, only one point ahead of the worst team of the league (sounds familiar?). Never in the last few years have they collected fewer points per game than this season (a mere 0.66). Their goal difference is the second worst in the league and no team has scored fewer. This leads to the question whether this trend is down to some more or less random fluctuation (as can happen in a short time of only twelve games), or are there real problems? And can we say that the fact that they score fewer goals is down to some offensive problems?

A look at the long-term trend of their xG-numbers show that they do have a worse regular season than in previous years (the current format was installed in 2018). After having performed at quite similar levels during the 2018/19 and 2019/20 seasons before the split at around -0.41 xG-difference per game, they are now down to -0.6. This difference might not seem big, but it adds up to around four goals in the course of twenty games. 

The graph shows the evolution of the total xG-difference since the start of the 2018/19 season (thick black line) and the mean difference for each sub-season (thinner blue line). Given that it is a cumulative sum, it is not very surprising to see some variability at the beginning, with the tendency stabilising after around ten games. We can see that there was an uplift after Pastoor took over, when the team reached their highest average xG-difference (0.42). 

The trend was however not sustainable, and the performances returned to the level of the 2018/19 regular season. Things did not get much better in the 2019/20 play-offs (after lockdown), when they performed around half as good as the year before. The downward trend carried on into the current season, as exposed above.

Their difficulties are still not so much down to problems in attack. In fact, they are creating more this year (1.23 xG per game) than in the two previous. The problem is that this offensive improvement is more than cancelled by some defensive struggles. They almost concede two xG per game (1.83), which may be less than their actual goal tally against but is so high that naturally more variation occurs.

Although they are clearly not the main relegation candidate this season, there are some worrying signs concerning results and performances. They need to improve defensively if they are to get back to where they have already been in past seasons.

Admira: How bad are their performances really?

Last in the real table, and also trailing in the expected goals ranking, with the worst defence (almost 25 xG conceded) and offence (only under ten xG created) of the league: the 2020/21 season of FC Admira Wacker Mödling can be described as suboptimal, at least. They are only one point behind their closest rival (Altach), but underlying performances are abysmal. Their expected goal difference of -1.25 almost doubles that of the second worst team (Hartberg) and is also way lower than their performances in recent years (between -0.31 and -0.61 since 2016/17). But how bad are they really in a historic comparison?

Going back in time (until the start of the 2016/17 season), we struggle to find comparable teams. The current Admira squad is by any means the worst team in this period. The second worst team (Wolfsberg during 2016/17) managed to survive with an xG-difference of almost -25 in 36 games. 

The comparison might be unfair, however. Given that there were only twelve games played this season, sample size issues and schedule effects might influence this seasons' data more than those of past, complete seasons. I try therefore to make a more just comparison. From the four seasons before the current one, I randomly draw 10.000 subsamples (12 games) of individual teams and compare their respective xG-difference to the numbers of this year's Admira. By sampling randomly and repeating this quite a few times (like 10.000), we are able to eliminate with high confidentiality singular effects that might influence the current season's data. The comparison is then more grounded.

The graph shows the distribution of the xG-differences of the simulation, plus a curve that indicates a normal distribution. The line shows that results are skewed, indication that some teams (usually Red Bull Salzburg) perform on an extraordinary level, causing a longer tail on the right side of the graph. However, this should us not bother us in this case.

The results of the simulation confirm that Admira's performances this season are really bad. Out of the 10.000 simulations, only 18 (way below one percent) where worse than the team so far. Interestingly, eleven of those where Hartberg last season, obviously a rather bad season xG wise. Admira themselves feature twice (both during the 2018/19 season, their worst one before the current) in this list.

Does this mean that they are doomed? Well, not necessarily. There is still a lot to play for (ten games before the league is split into two groups of six teams each, who will face each other twice). The point difference is slim (only one) and will be further reduced even if they remain in last position, given that points are halfed after the regular season. Furthermore, the results of the simulation itself give a glimmer of hope. Of the 18 worse cases, only two (FC Wacker Innsbruck 2018/19 and St. Pölten 2017/18) were from teams that ended their season in last position (St. Pölten were not relegated due to a change of the league structure). Teams can and do overperform, but there is also a lot of room for improvement for Admira after the winter break.