The Week in Stats: Dortmund are Europe’s most thrilling side

Borussia Dortmund are Europe’s most thrilling team, while set-pieces are making a difference. We take a look at the numbers behind the headlines.

Although the UEFA Nations League has proven to be surprisingly entertaining, the limited number of matches played make it impossible to draw any meaningful statistical conclusions. Thankfully, though, Europe’s main domestic leagues are now reaching the point when we can begin to pick out potentially significantly trends.

Turning a corner

One of the most talked about — and widely celebrated — goals of the last club matchday was Manu Garcia’s injury-time winner for Alaves against Real Madrid, which came from a well-delivered corner.

It marked the second time that the Basque side have scored from a corner in the league — only Barcelona and Espanyol have netted more in La Liga. But four teams from the top five European leagues have already scored four such goals: Augsburg, Liverpool, Gladbach and Tottenham.

By contrast, only one side has conceded four times from corners: Cardiff. In addition, Neil Warnock’s team have yet to score from one, meaning that they have the worst net goal difference from corners in Europe.

Given that Cardiff are hardly going to dominate in terms of chances created from open play in the Premier League — indeed, Warnock doesn’t even set his side up to try to do so — this vulnerability from set pieces is likely to be particularly damaging for them.

By looking at expected goals per attempt on goal from a corner — both for and against a side — we can measure the quality of the chances that a club is creating and conceding from these situations.

Here we see an indicator of Bayern Munich’s extraordinary slump in form — they’re conceding better chances on average from corners than any other side in Europe. And to make that even more galling for Bayern fans, nobody on the continent is creating higher-quality opportunities from corners than their domestic rivals Dortmund.

That’s entertainment

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be looking at the various ways in which we can gauge which are the most entertaining sides in Europe.

If we start with the simplest yardstick, namely the average number goals for both teams combined that a club’s matches yield, then it perhaps comes as little surprise to learn that Dortmund’s games have been the most thrilling this season in the major European leagues.

The top two here couldn’t be more contrasting — while Dortmund’s games are gloriously unpredictable, PSG’s tend to be processions that amount to shooting practice for their expensive stars, who in many instances cost several times more to buy than the entire opposition side combined.

While it’s no surprise to see a Roy Hodgson side among the teams whose games have produced the fewest goals, we can also tell that the more expansive style of play that Diego Simeone is supposedly trying to introduce at Atletico Madrid has yet to reap dividends. Indeed, Atleti’s matches so far have yielded far fewer goals than last season, when they featured an average of 2.11 per game.

In addition, the table highlights just how poor, and dour, the starts endured by Real Betis and Valencia have been. Both sides enjoyed good seasons in 2017-18, with Valencia qualifying for the Champions League after a three-year absence and Betis finishing above city rivals Sevilla for only the second time in a decade.

They scored plenty of goals in the process as well, with Betis’ games featuring an average of 3.18 and Valencia’s 2.71. This pronounced decline in entertainment value is especially surprising in Valencia’s case, as they made a clear effort to upgrade their frontline during the summer, bringing in Michy Batshuayi, Kevin Gameiro and Denis Cheryshev.

From start to finish

Finally, we’ll assess which sides have been performing particularly well or badly at the very start and end of matches.

Serie A’s Napoli have both created the best chances and scored the most goals in the opening quarter-hours of games. Here you can see French attacking midfielder Adam Ounas scoring in the third minute against Sassulo on the last matchday, courtesy of some extraordinary defending from the opposition.

In contrast, Leicester can make a good claim to being the worst starters in Europe to date, with the most goals conceded (four) and the third-highest quality of chances allowed to their opponents.

Liverpool’s tendency to start games on the front foot is underlined by looking at xG against numbers for the first 15 minutes of matches — only Bilbao have restricted their opponents to lower-quality opportunities.

With regards to the closing minutes of games, Dortmund again lead the way. They’re the only team in Europe’s top leagues to have reached double figures in the final 15 minutes of matches.

And here there are further indications of why Cardiff currently lie bottom of the Premier League. They’ve conceded the fourth-highest number of goals in Europe in the last 15 minutes of games, but they’ve still yet to score themselves during that time period. All the signs are that this will be a brief return to the Premier League for the Welsh club.