Generation of Threat: Crediting football players for creating dangerous actions in an unbiased way

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel, unbiased method using Hawkes processes to quantify and rank football players' contributions to creating dangerous situations, enhancing understanding of threat generation in matches.

Contribution

The paper presents the Generation of Threat (GoT) index, a new model-based approach to evaluate players' threat creation abilities considering interactions and timing.

Findings

Eden Hazard showed high threat creation in Chelsea's 2016-2017 season.

Ranking of Ligue 1 players revealed unexpected top performers.

The method successfully credits players and identifies key threat circuits.

Abstract

We introduce an innovative methodology to identify football players at the origin of threatening actions in a team. In our framework, a threat is defined as entering the opposing team's danger area. We investigate the timing of threat events and ball touches of players, and capture their correlation using Hawkes processes. Our model-based approach allows us to evaluate a player's ability to create danger both directly and through interactions with teammates. We define a new index, called Generation of Threat (GoT), that measures in an unbiased way the contribution of a player to threat generation. For illustration, we present a detailed analysis of Chelsea's 2016-2017 season, with a standout performance from Eden Hazard. We are able to credit each player for his involvement in danger creation and determine the main circuits leading to threat. In the same spirit, we investigate the danger generation process of Stade Rennais in the 2021-2022 season. Furthermore, we establish a comprehensive ranking of Ligue 1 players based on their generated threat in the 2021-2022 season. Our analysis reveals surprising results, with players such as Jason Berthomier, Moses Simon and Frederic Guilbert among the top performers in the GoT rankings. We also present a ranking of Ligue 1 central defenders in terms of generation of threat and confirm the great performance of some center-back pairs, such as Nayef Aguerd and Warmed Omari.