Flashscore.com<\/a> created a graphic comparing the highest league goal difference across Europe\u2019s top five leagues.<\/p>\nBayern have a 22 goal gap to Barcelona, their nearest competition, and have almost doubled the likes of Real Madrid and PSG\u2019s goal difference. Although, comparing goal difference across leagues is not a fair reflection of a team\u2019s performance on the pitch. Why? Firstly, most teams across Europe have played a different amount of games. A team who has played more games, would be more likely to score more goals, skewing the goal difference slightly. Secondly, goal difference doesn\u2019t take into account fluke goals. Some teams get lucky and score a number of goals that, in all likelihood, should have been kept out\u2014again, skewing the goal difference. Thirdly, in a similar vein to fluke goals, it doesn\u2019t factor in defensive luck or over performance. A team\u2019s goalkeeper could be having the season of their life, keeping out a number of goals that would have been scored on any other day. Or perhaps, a defense lucks out due to poor finishing. In both scenarios, goal difference can be skewed as more goals should have been scored. Therefore, goal difference alone isn\u2019t enough to say with certainty how well a team is performing. The number of games, lucky goals and poor finishing can all taint how a side\u2019s performance is perceived on paper and on the field. So then what is a better metric to use, and does Bayern still come out on top?<\/p>\n
To measure a team\u2019s performance, Expected Goal Difference per 90 minutes (xGD\/90) is a much more accurate metric. One obtains xGD by subtracting a team\u2019s Expected Goals Against per 90 minutes (xGA\/90) from Expected Goals per 90 minutes (xG\/90). The reason xG and xGA paint a more accurate picture is simple: it measures the quality of chances teams create and concede based on factors like distance, angle, body part, defensive pressure and even the type of pass received, that ultimately measure the probability of an attempt resulting in a goal. A 35 yard shot that takes a deflection into the back of the net counts the same as an open goal tap-in using goal difference. xG distinguishes between the luck and likelihood, then assigns a value between zero and one to determine how probable the goal was.<\/p>\n
So now that we\u2019ve established a metric that is a more accurate reflection of a team\u2019s performance, does Bayern still come out on top?<\/p>\n
Here are the xGD\/90 results for the same teams:<\/p>\n
Using the updated metrics, removing flukes, fluff, and fumbles, Bayern are still a country mile ahead\u2014confirmation of just how dominant they have been, not just in the Bundesliga, but across Europe\u2019s top five leagues.<\/p>\n
At the end of the day, maybe Ray Hudson is still right. Maybe it\u2019s not about the statistics. After all, football isn\u2019t played on a piece of paper with a scientific calculator and a pencil. It\u2019s played on a football pitch where the immeasurable and intangible often produce the only metric that matters: the numbers on the scoreboard come the end of the 90 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When it comes to statistics, Ray Hudson\u2019s legendary Lionel Messi commentary comes to mind: \u201cIt\u2019s not about the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[198603,403,99],"class_list":["post-491734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-bayern-munich-records-and-achievements","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}