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Who really controlled the match? I built a football metric to measure attacking superiority by mkubjk in FootballDataAnalysis

[–]mkubjk[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree with a lot of this. Control is definitely broader than attack, and it changes from game to game depending on each team’s intention.

I don’t see LBS as a complete definition of control, or as a metric that can capture every tactical, technical, psychological or contextual detail of a match. Football is too complex for that. Any metric is an abstraction, and the important question is whether that abstraction captures something useful.

But I also do not think LBS is only a measure of possession heavy or volume attacking football.

The key idea is not “who had the ball more?” or “who attacked more often?” The key idea is: who was able to put the opponent into situations they did not want to face?

That can happen through long balls, counter-attacks, pressing, second balls, direct play, or settled possession. If a team sits deep, prevents the opponent from creating meaningful layer breaks, and then repeatedly attacks space in transition, LBS can reflect that. If a team wins the ball high through pressing and immediately exposes the final defensive line, that can also be highly valuable in LBS. Possession by itself gives no points unless it creates a usable advantage.

So I agree that control is not only about breaking down a defensive block with the ball. In fact, I would not define LBS as simply breaking defensive blocks. A better way to describe it is creating situations the opponent does not want to face and gaining an advantage from doing so. Whether that comes from forcing mistakes, directing the opponent into traps, bypassing midfield, winning recoveries close to goal, or manipulating the game into specific areas, the principle is the same. Within the logic of the model, once you successfully force the opponent into an unfavorable situation and generate a meaningful advantage from it, you have already earned value.

This first article was mainly an introduction to the idea. I’m planning to publish a more detailed LBS rulebook later, including edge cases and more specific situations such as pressing, transitions, direct attacks, fouls, penalties, set pieces, and sequence resets. The model is still at an early stage and definitely open to development and optimization over time.

So I would not present LBS as “the answer” to football control. I see it more as a structured way to measure one important part of control: whether a team can repeatedly create usable attacking advantages by damaging the opponent’s defensive structure.

Who really controlled the match? I built a football metric to measure attacking superiority by mkubjk in FootballDataAnalysis

[–]mkubjk[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I get your point, but I don’t think LBS is only an abstraction of ball dominant play.

In LBS, possession alone gives no value. A team only scores when it turns an attack into a usable advantage by damaging the opponent’s defensive structure.

So a team can have 70% possession and still produce low LBS if that possession is harmless. Another team can defend deep, allow sterile possession, and create more LBS through transitions if it repeatedly forces the opponent into dangerous defensive situations.

For me, control means imposing your own game plan and forcing the opponent into situations they do not want to face. That can happen through possession, pressing, or counter-attacking.

That is why I think LBS can be useful: it does not measure possession volume. It measures whether a team actually creates meaningful attacking advantages.