The “hockey” assist makes the difference—validation of a defensive disruptiveness model to evaluate passing sequences in elite soccer

Abstract

With the growing availability of position data in sports, spatiotemporal analysis in soccer is a topic of rising interest. The aim of this study is to validate a performance indicator, namely D-Def, measuring passing effectiveness. D-Def calculates the change of the teams’ centroid, centroids of formation lines (e.g., defensive line), teams’ surface area, and teams’ spread in the following three seconds after a pass and therefore results in a measure of disruption of the opponents’ defense following a pass. While this measure was introduced earlier, in this study we aim to prove the usefulness to evaluate attacking sequences. In this study, 258 games of Dutch Eredivisie season 2018/19 were included, resulting in 13,094 attacks. D-Def, pass length, pass velocity, and pass angle of the last four passes of each attack were calculated and compared between successful and unsuccessful attacks. D-Def showed higher values for passes of successful compared to unsuccessful attacks (0.001 < p ≤ 0.029, 0.06 ≤ d ≤ 0.23). This difference showed the highest effects sizes in the penultimate pass (d = 0.23) and the maximal D-Def value of an attack (d = 0.23). Passing length (0.001 < p ≤ 0.236, 0.08 ≤ d ≤ 0.17) and passing velocity (0.001 < p ≤ 0.690, −0.09 ≤ d ≤ 0.12) showed inconsistent results in discriminating between successful and unsuccessful attacks. The results indicate that D-Def is a useful indicator for the measurement of pass effectiveness in attacking sequences, highlighting that successful attacks are connected to disruptive passing. Within successful attacks, at least one high disruptive action (pass with D-Def > 28) needs to be present. In addition, the penultimate pass (“hockey assist”) of an attack seems crucial in characterizing successful attacks.