FBref Blog

Immaculate Footy Answers for Grid #35 | September 20, 2023

Posted by Sara Halloran on September 20, 2023

Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Immaculate Footy | Comments Off on Immaculate Footy Answers for Grid #35 | September 20, 2023

Immaculate Footy Answers for Grid #28 | September 13, 2023

Posted by Sara Halloran on September 13, 2023

Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Immaculate Footy | Comments Off on Immaculate Footy Answers for Grid #28 | September 13, 2023

Immaculate Footy Answers for Grid #21 | September 6, 2023

Posted by Adam Darowski on September 6, 2023

Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Immaculate Footy | Comments Off on Immaculate Footy Answers for Grid #21 | September 6, 2023

Immaculate Footy Answers for Grid #16 | September 1, 2023

Posted by Adam Darowski on September 1, 2023

Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Immaculate Footy | Comments Off on Immaculate Footy Answers for Grid #16 | September 1, 2023

Immaculate Footy Answers for Grid #9 | August 25, 2023

Posted by Adam Darowski on August 25, 2023

Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Immaculate Footy | Comments Off on Immaculate Footy Answers for Grid #9 | August 25, 2023

Immaculate Footy Answers for Grid #2 | August 18, 2023

Posted by Adam Darowski on August 18, 2023

Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Immaculate Footy | Comments Off on Immaculate Footy Answers for Grid #2 | August 18, 2023

Immaculate Footy Answers for Grid #1 | August 17, 2023

Posted by Adam Darowski on August 17, 2023

Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Immaculate Footy | Comments Off on Immaculate Footy Answers for Grid #1 | August 17, 2023

The Complete List of All Soccer World Cup Winners

Posted by Ben Curttright on December 1, 2022

“Thirty years of hurt,” the England supporters like to sing, though for most of the world, it’s been quite a bit longer; of the world’s 211 FIFA-affiliated national soccer teams, only eight have ever won the World Cup. Most winners (England and one other excepted) have more than one Jules Rimet in the cabinet. Conversely, some of the greatest national teams in history – Puskas’s Hungary, Cruyff’s Netherlands, the great Colombian side in the ‘90s with Valderrama and Rincon – have never won the tournament. So, as the Qatar World Cup marches on, here’s who has previously lifted the World Cup:

Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on The Complete List of All Soccer World Cup Winners

The Worst Goalkeepers at the 2022 World Cup

Posted by Ben Curttright on November 21, 2022

If you’re coming over from (Top ten goalkeepers at the 2022 World Cup), you know the drill. All goalkeepers who’ve been officially named to World Cup squads (as of November 13) have, for this post, been sorted and ranked according to each of the categories tracked by Opta. This time, though, we’re looking for the guys who can’t keep a clean sheet to save their life; the guys who, through either poor positioning or slow reflexes, are letting in goals you’d expect a replacement-level keeper to save; the worst goalkeepers, statistically, at the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

Read the rest of this entry

Posted in 2022 Men's World Cup | Comments Off on The Worst Goalkeepers at the 2022 World Cup

Top 10 Goalkeepers at the 2022 World Cup

Posted by Ben Curttright on November 21, 2022

Group stage, Qatar 2022. Your country is currently defending against one of those long, probing attacks; the ball is recycled from winger to central midfielder to center back, then switched across to the opposite winger. He takes a touch, jinks inside, looks up. The striker has dropped back to the top of the D. You’re screaming at the TV for someone to step up and get tight to him, but it’s too late – the ball comes in, and he hits it first time, a sweet curling effort that you can tell immediately is on target.

How confident are you feeling in that moment? How confident should you be feeling?

Advanced goalkeeping data from Opta via FBref can help answer that question. Post-shot expected goals, explained here in detail by StatsBomb’s Mike Goodman, measures shot stopping ability using the trajectory and pace of shots on target, as well as the location from where the shot was taken and whether any blocking defenders were in the frame of the goal. By subtracting goals allowed from post-shot expected goals (on a per-90 minutes basis), it’s possible to use the measure as a mark of goalkeeper quality; positive numbers indicate that the keeper is saving more shots than an average keeper would, and negative numbers indicate he’s letting a couple in that he really could’ve gotten.

Read the rest of this entry

Posted in 2022 Men's World Cup | Comments Off on Top 10 Goalkeepers at the 2022 World Cup