How to score 40 goals and the "logical clock"
Talking Handball - Issue #04
Intro
Ciao and welcome back! This is Handball Talking, I am Sergio, and this will be a little different issue: I was intrigued by the fact that four different teams scored 40 goals not only in the same round but also in the same day, so I decided to not analyse a match from Euro Qualifiers or Euro Cup, but to try to answer a question, the one that you read in the title: how to score 40 goals? And win, because in Asobal, three days later Huesca – Anaitasuna ended 41-42. Amazing!
Enjoy your read! And if you like what you read, please send it to some friends.
The Game(s)
06/10/2022 | Machineseeker Champions League – 4th round
Elverum – Barça 30-46
Pick Szeged – Aalborg 29-41
Lomza Industria Kielce – THW Kiel 40-37
Paris Saint-Germain – PPD Zagreb 40-31
According to Guinness World Records, “the highest score in an international match was recorded when the USSR beat Afghanistan 86-2 in the ‘Friendly Army Tournament’ at Miskolc, Hungary in August 1981”. I read about 55 goals scored by Iceland against Australia in 2003 World Championship, but I did not find anything about EHF Champions League. I heard that Barcelona tied its best score (Barcelona – Kolding 46-36 in 2009), and I don’t know if 47 goals scored by Veszprem last season against Dinamo Bucuresti are the most scored goals in a match by a team in EHF Champions League. Please, if you have better news, let me know!
Anyway, the question is: how to score 40 goals? Is there an only way to do it? Are there patterns repeating in each of these games? What helps to make that happen? Ok, the questions are.
What I tried to do is to find some elements that could improve the number of goals and to verify if these are present in all the four matches above. The idea was to find the perfect recipe to score 40 goals. I condensed each element in 4 areas: pace, shooting opportunities, shot selection and opponents.
PACE.
Counterattack possessions: shorter possessions mean, if all things go well, more shots. Especially, fastbreaks (included “empty goal” shots) and fast throw-offs.
Suspensions: they influence the pace (think about long preparation and fake first attack when a team is short-handed).
Fouls (suffered and committed): they create downtime and bring to passive play.
SHOOTING OPPORTUNITIES.
Turnovers: less turnovers, more shots.
Rebounds and second chance shots: an immediate opportunity to score again.
Positional attack with 0 passes from the real start of attack: it means the number of attacks with no further passes after. “Real start of attack” is intended the first threat towards the defence. A team able to finish its attack soon and it is effective has skilful players and, of course, no need too many time to score.
SHOT SELECTION and SCORING PERCENTAGE.
6m shots: have teams scoring 40+ goals a better shot selection?
9m shots: have teams scoring 40+ goals a better scoring percentage on lower percentage shots?
(I will not include in this analysis the merits of the scorer or the fault of the goalkeeper.)
OPPONENTS.
I think that pace is not contagious, but, of course, if opponents run there are more possessions in the game. Thus, in this area I will see the elements in PACE (plus turnovers, while fouls are already present) from the opponent’s side to check if there is something that favoured the 40 goals team.
Well, good news: there is not a unique recipe, the beauty of Handball is safe. Let’s try to give some explanations.
How Aalborg scored 41 goals. Danes were cynical: numbers say they play a “normal” match. Counterattack possessions are in line with the average as numbers, but with an impressive efficacy (15 goals on 16 shots and only 1 turnovers). Pick Szeged’s 8 turnovers became 4 fastbreaks. The fact they are the team with most fastbreaks (53% of their counterattacks) underlined this. Aalborg punished Pick Szeged every time it had the chance. And it was the only team to not only have second chance but also a lot: 8!
You can say “bravo” to Roland Mikler, but Aalborg has 4 chance to score in a row.
How Barça scored 46 goals. We know Barça runs, we know Barça does it very well. They are simply “business as usual”. Of course, 90% shots efficacy (only 6 missed shots) then allow you to score 46 times. 52% of Barça’s possessions were in counterattack (34 on 66 in absolute numbers), 59% of their 46 goals went from this moment of the game and they scored “only” 6 fastbreaks. However, not only “run and gun”: they finished one third of their attack with 0 passes (56% efficacy). Unbelievable is that 57% finished with 1 pass and the efficacy was 50%.
How Kielce scored 40 goals. I think Kielce was the teams that received some help from the opponent in keeping the pace up, 37% of possessions were in counterattack and the lower amount of fouls. Kielce – Kiel was one of the best matches in the last seasons. Only 11 turnovers on 123 possessions (9%), only 1 in 45 counterattack possessions, to confirm, if it is still necessary, that it’s not speed to provoke turnovers, but hurry does it. However, in a tight match, Kielce converted in goal 4 of 5 Kiel’s turnovers.
The chart above shows how many times both teams played consecutive counterattacks and now you can watch 5 attacks in 50 seconds of Kielce and Kiel.
Kielce, as well as PSG, took 61% of its shots from 6m and realized 90% of them (mention to breakthroughs, 15/17). Of 9 goals scored breaking through in positional attack, 4 went from 0 passes attack.
How Paris Saint-Germain scored 41 goals. PSG had the best shot selection: only 19% of 9m shots but a tremendous 67% of efficacy. If you already score 83% of your 6m shots (14/16 from pivot position), here it is a good way to win a match. French took advantage of Zagreb’s 13 turnovers to score 7 times, but there was not the impression of a fast game like Kielce-Kiel was. PSG has a balanced counterattack, and this is a good sign. PSG, as Barça, was simply better than its opponent.
As I said, there is not a recipe, however, the lesson is pretty much like this: if you are able to run like Barça, go that way. Since only one Barça exists, try to build a Frankenstein play made of PSG’s balanced counterattack and shot selection, Kielce’s ability to not lose balls and play fast throw-offs and Aalborg’s cynicism to bite its prey when it’s time to. The only pattern seems trivial, but it’s true: you must have a high scoring percentage.
A non-statistical consideration to close the argument: is it a case that 3 of these 4 teams played Final4 last season and the fourth played it two seasons ago and want to come back to Cologne as soon as possible?
An Idea
I continue with numbers today, so forgive me if you don’t like it! I will propose you a couple of papers by Friedemann Schwenkreis. You can read them entirely here and here. His idea is to use data to provide coaches a tool based on result of the match that could help coaches during the match.
His idea is based on a “logical clock”, namely a series of moment of the match in which the coach has still time to intervene on the outcome of the match based on some indicators. Clock is not related to time, but to the moment in which a specific goal has scored, no matter the team does it. Using statistical tool, he wants to create rules to guide coaches in this specific time of the match. For example, a rule found for the Handball Bundesliga says that the team that scores first the 14th goal has more chance to win the match if it has less committed fouls, less completed passes, and more attack. In his second study, he says that goals number 13 and 17 are critical to determine the outcome of the match and “fast break goals are crucial!”.
I did a very short summary, I suggest you to read them entirely.
Outro
No This is not a drill today, newsletter is already pretty long and I don’t want to bore you.
Write me if you have suggestions and advice. And spread the word about Talking Handball!
Read you soon,
Sergio
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