During the 2018 World Cup, Zito Madu pointed out the racially coded language commentators used to describe a match between Poland and Senegal, which didn’t line up with what he saw on the field. A typical article claimed that “‘Poland struggled all game against the pace and physicality of Senegal,’ which is an absurd line […]
In 2011, a software developer named Sarah Rudd got fed up with conventional soccer stats. It was easy to count how many passes a player attempted and completed, but not all passes are equal. “We know passing percentage is a terrible metric for evaluating how good of a passer you are,” she told me. What […]
Quick, who’s the most valuable player in your favorite sport? If you’re a football fan, odds are you thought of a quarterback and not a defensive lineman; in basketball, it’s probably a high-volume shooter, not a rim protector; in baseball, it’s often a slugger, rarely a pitcher. Same in soccer, where the glory goes to […]
Manchester City was in trouble. The team had dominated the Premier League by passing its way into perfect shooting positions, but if it couldn’t find a way to score against Leicester City in the penultimate game of the 2018-19 season, Liverpool could snatch the title away. In the 70th minute, center back Vincent Kompany trundled […]
Imagine you’re at a soccer game, and just as the opening whistle blows, the power cuts out. The stadium goes black. Eventually someone rigs up a single spotlight and the game goes on, but the light can only follow the ball. You can see who’s making a pass or a tackle, but as for what […]