The Athletic recently released a new version of our team playstyle wheels, which provides an overview of each side’s stylistic profile compared with Europe’s top seven leagues.
This is broken down into defence, possession, progression and attack metrics to indicate what this team does a lot of in simple football language.
Hopefully, there is already plenty of fun to be had by looking at each team’s profile individually. For example, a glance at promoted Las Palmas shows just why Garcia Pimienta is getting so much praise for their style in La Liga this season.
While the Canarians have the second-lowest budget in Spain’s top division, Las Palmas boast the third-highest possession share behind Real Madrid and Barcelona — they focus on building out from the back with intricate passing sequences starting from goalkeeper Alvaro Valles (Deep build-up, 83 out of 99) and progressing the play through the heart of the pitch with midfielders Kirian Rodriguez, Maximo Perrone and Javier Munoz (Central progression, 96 out of 99).
While they cannot boast the attacking talent of Vinicius Jr or Robert Lewandowski, it is rather telling that Pimienta’s style has been honed (as a player and coach) at Barcelona’s talent factory La Masia and is reflected by his side’s neat, considered attack that is built upon ‘Barca DNA’ (Patient attack, 96 out of 99).
Las Palmas’ playing style is already interesting, but let’s not let the fun stop there.
When we zoom out across the whole of La Liga, you can begin to see how Las Palmas’ style shakes out compared with some of Spain’s top sides — with similar dominance in possession to Real Madrid, Girona, Atletico Madrid and Garcia Pimienta’s former employers, Barcelona.
If you were to look at the La Liga table right now, you might look at Las Palmas’ ninth position as fairly unremarkable. However, a glance at their playing style — individually and in the context of the league — allows you to dig deeper into their approach and understand why they have gained so many plaudits in the Spanish top flight this season.
Football analytics has become an increasingly valuable tool in recruitment — whether that’s for players or managers — so it is important that our team analysis can also provide actionable insight.
To do this, we can run an analysis that outlines the top five sides that profile most similarly to a chosen team. For the data enthusiasts among you, this is using Euclidean distance analysis to find the closest teams based on the 12 metrics.
To run through an example, we have to travel to Germany where Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen have an eight-point lead in the Bundesliga thanks to their exciting and progressive style of play.
The attention on Alonso’s style has increased tenfold after the news that Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp will be leaving at the end of the season. Not to be outdone, Bayern Munich’s decision to part company with Thomas Tuchel in the summer means two of Europe’s elite will be fighting for the Spaniard’s signature — but who would be the best fit for Alonso?
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Alonso is wanted by Liverpool and Bayern – which club are the better bet?
As you can see from the graphic below, Bayern’s possession-dominant style, focused on patient ball progression and a strong defensive foundation, is the second-most similar profile to Bayer Leverkusen this season — only behind another of Alonso’s former clubs, Real Madrid.
Meanwhile, Liverpool do not even make the top 10 most similar sides to Leverkusen, with Klopp’s “Liverpool 2.0” geared towards direct, transitional attacks that can often leave the back door open in defence at times. Irrespective of Alonso’s ability to adapt his system, it shows that Liverpool’s current style is not particularly close to the German league leaders.
The analysis might not identify the intricacies of every side’s playing principles, but it does show how Alonso has got Leverkusen playing football in a way that can match Europe’s elite — which explains why he is so highly coveted.
We can track just how much Alonso has improved Leverkusen by looking at their playing style since 2019-20. What stands out most below is how much Leverkusen’s attacking approach has changed.
In seasons gone by, they would be more likely to cede territory (lower “Field tilt”) and work the ball forward quickly (lower “Circulate”) to counter-attack with pace and purpose (low “Patient attack”).
This season, Alonso’s side have gone up on every measure, suffocating their opponents with their intricate passing in the final third (high “Patient attack”) and a potent attacking unit (high “Chance creation”), squeezing the pitch to allow them to regain the ball quickly if they lose it (higher “Intensity” and “High line”).
If that doesn’t work for you, let’s walk through one final method to explore a team’s playing style.
With confirmation this week that Oliver Glasner will replace Roy Hodgson at Crystal Palace, fans will understandably want to know how their new manager likes to play — and more importantly, how much it deviates from the current style.
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Glasner’s Palace in-tray: Restore confidence, stop leaking late goals, energise the fans…
By comparing Palace’s style this season to Glasner’s final campaign at Eintracht Frankfurt, you can see that the Austrian is likely to instil greater confidence on the ball — tasking his players to build out from the back more often (Deep build-up) and become less allergic to the final third (Field tilt).
Glasner’s style is known for its high pressing (Intensity, 63 out of 99), but the nature of this out-of-possession approach means greater opportunity to regain the ball in high areas and create clearer-cut opportunities (Shot quality, 92 out of 99) in transitional moments.
In his final season — where he led his side to a seventh-place finish — only RB Leipzig, Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich created better opportunities than Frankfurt (Chance creation, 74 out of 99).
With Palace’s underlying numbers currently looking a little undercooked, fans should be enthused by the profile of manager they have brought in based on his most recent output — Glasner is a coach able to create a coherent attacking structure that is not reliant on individual quality alone.
So, the choice is yours. Whether you wish to shine a spotlight on a specific team in a single season, track their style over time or compare them with others, we have you covered. If you have any further requests on how to maximise this analysis on The Athletic, feel free to post them in the comments section below.
(Top photo: Maja Hitij/Getty Images)
