Winning the beautiful game
This weekend Canberra's own reigning champions Canberra United kick off their title defence against arch rivals the Brisbane Roar.
But when you're cheering our girls (or any football team), what should you really be looking at in the game. While the commentators will be providing their expert analysis backed up with a mountain of statistics, are they really telling the whole story of how each team is performing and the likelihood of a goal being scored?
To find out the truth we recently sat down with UC Alumna and current Teaching Fellow and PhD candidate Jocelyn Mara. Jocelyn was not only a talented footballer herself who played for W-League team Canberra United, she is also an expert in sports analytics and performance analysis who has worked with Canberra United, Touch Football Australia and the Australian Institute of Sport.
Currently completing her PhD related to performance analysis of attacking strategies in high level women's football, few are better qualified to tell us how teams really win a game of football.
How exactly do teams score goals?
Teams can make scoring goals look ridiculously easy or frustratingly difficult. According to Jocelyn the measure of a good football team is their ability to create quality goal scoring opportunities.
When it comes to creating a goal scoring opportunity, or even judging the quality of an attack the most important concept for any fan to understand is "zone 14".
"Zone 14" is a term used in football performance analysis to refer to an imaginary area on the pitch. To help with the analysis of events on the field it is divided into 18 rectangular "zones" using a six-by-three grid. Zone 14 is located at the top of the 18 yard box directly in front of goal for the attacking team.
"It is a zone from where a large proportion of goals are scored from. It isn't necessarily where the shot is taken, but where the final pass is delivered from" explained Jocelyn.
"If you can get a pass away from zone 14 you are 80% likely to then create a goal scoring opportunity."
But while a pass from the top of the box into the penalty area is more likely to create a goal scoring opportunity, having a shot from the same area is not nearly as successful.
"If you're shooting from zone 14 you only have a 5% chance of scoring. While scoring from out there does happen, and when it does it looks brilliant, it doesn't happen very often."
While a broadcast will tell you how many shots each team has had during a match, this is not an indication of potential goal scoring ability or quality of either side.
"When quantifying a team's quality we should always consider the quality of the goal scoring chances and not just the quantity."
What makes a good defence?
This rationale holds equally as true for judging a defence as it does for an attack.
Recently studies of ice hockey matches have been conducted to quantify the quality of shots made to measure the quality of defensive teams.
"A team could have five shots right in front of goal which implies that the defence hasn't really done their job because the attack has created five quality shots and been in a position to create those shots. On the other hand a team could have created 15 shots from a large distance or bad angles which are less likely to score and implies that the defence has done their job."
So when judging how likely a team is to concede a goal, be sure to notice where shots are being taken rather than simply the quantity. A 40 yard bomb or tight angle is more likely to indicate a good defence than a quality attack.
Is possession nine-tenths of a victory?
Perhaps the most widely reported statistic in any football match is possession. Having a high rate of possession compared to the opposition is generally considered to correlate with a team being superior, but according to Jocelyn in isolation this couldn't be further from the truth.
"It is not often a good indicator of success or performance because often possession isn't quantified by the zone on the field, or ball speed."
The ability to quickly move a ball to break down a defence is considered a much greater indication of a team's quality than simply holding the ball.
"Ball speed is the time between a pass. So a team could have really good ball speed and get the ball from A to B really quickly, but their overall possession would have decreased as they can quickly turn the ball over."
When looking at possession it's more important to consider where on the field a team has the ball than how long it is held it.
"Having more possession in the attacking third implies you have greater attacking momentum in the game and is more likely to be correlated to being more successful in the game."
What's making your team tired?
You see it in all big matches, as the minutes tick by fatigue begins to set in.
Players hunch over desperately trying to fill their lungs with oxygen and to avoid dreaded cramps there are more downward dog calf stretches than in a Bondi yoga studio.
The broadcast flashes up the distance covered by your team's key player showing the extreme amount of kilometres they have travelled during the game. It has to be a bad sign? Not necessarily according to Jocelyn.
"In the media you often see the distance run reported as a measure of physical performance. But what's even more of an indicator of a successful physical performance is your ability to accelerate and decelerate."
While running up and down a sideline for 90 minutes can certainly be draining, it can actually be less fatiguing than the high intensity sprints completed by a forward or defender.
"To accelerate is more energetically demanding than it is to maintain a constant velocity, even at higher speeds. And to decelerate is more fatiguing as it is an eccentric movement which places a lot of strain on muscles and joints."
Canberra United are proudly sponsored by the University of Canberra, how have more than just sponsorship in common. Canberra United- and football in Australia- has been shaped by people who have studied and worked at UC.
Words by Daniel Murphy