Two-legged xG map for Ajax - Juventus. This isn't one of those underdog runs where you defend like hell and get a little lucky. Ajax are running folks over playing their game.
xG map for Liverpool - Atletico Madrid
sometimes in football, one keeper has a great game, one team takes a few great shots, the better team doesn't win
Two-legged xG map for Liverpool - Barcelona
Both legs were the same story -- not complete dominance like the score suggested, but the home team was better and all the finishing went the same direction. Overall basically even, but that's not what made it a classic.
xG map for Liverpool - Manchester United
while I am loath to criticize Jose Mourinho, it seems like "bench our best player and let Liverpool take as many shots as they want" didn't work out for him today
xG map for Arsenal - Manchester United.
If you chose to spend time with your family instead of being glued to the tv watching this match, I'm sorry for your bad choices.
xG map for Barcelona - Bayern Munich
..................................................................................................................................................................................that's a paddlin
Two-legged xG map for Bayern Munich - Real Madrid. There's little question which team was better. But "playing better football" is no match for the uncanny power of the threepeat.
xG map for Liverpool - Napoli. This one never should have come down to a last-second save by Alisson. Really great performance by Liverpool besides finishing.
two-legged xG map for Liverpool - Inter
one of those ties with lots of little interesting periods but when you look at the aggregate it wasn't actually close
xG map for Argentina - KSA
there's a pure football sicko sport story here with KSA scoring twice, somehow, but the defensive performance to keep Argentina under 1 xG chasing the game for 40 minutes was pretty spectacular
xG map for Liverpool - Bayern. Both sides had to cobble together a lineup without some key pieces but only Bayern looked it. They managed to scrape, claw and sadio-mane-missing-shots their way to a fortunate 0-0.
xG map for Germany - Mexico. Because xG is based on shot attempts, this map does not include the eighteen gabillion 3-on-1 counters that Mexico wasted.
xG map for Arsenal - Atletico Madrid.
There are many takes available, but the most straightforward and statistically correct is that Jan Oblak is a dimension-travelling space octopod whose true form was glimpsed in the London night.
xG map for the Champions League final
Bayern did a great job shutting the game down after taking the lead, but it was a dead even game up to that point
xG map for the World Cup Final. Very hard to say this was an impressive team performance by
#FRA
, but Umtiti and Varane prevented
#CRO
from creating clear chances and Mbappe and Pogba made the needed plays in attack. Individual talent won out.
xG map for Real Madrid in the knockouts
it's not that they've been *bad* but you need a lot of bounces to go your way to win three in a row with a +3 goal difference even before getting into the xG
xG map for Arsenal - Manchester United
the way statistics work is, if you have very good luck, you will then later have very bad luck to even it out. this is known as regression to the mean
xG map for Crystal Palace - Arsenal
dominate for 30 / defend for 60 performance from Arsenal -- obviously enough to win here but it's got some slim margins on it
xG map for Real Madrid - Club Brugge
Real banged their head against the wall until it broke, but this was no kind of lucky, just hanging in there performance by Brugge. They deserved at least the point.
xG map for Barcelona - Liverpool
Really rough for Liverpool not to come away with an away goal from a wild, wide-open match. But also they got pretty much wrecked by Messi going the other way.
xG map for
#Tun
-
#Eng
. Thanks to the ref and the finishing of non-Harry Kane players, this was a very dramatic game. Over on Earth-2 it was 5-0 and people are wondering if this could be the year.