Read on Twitter
Hakan Çalhanoglu dropped an absolute stinker yesterday but was the best player on SofaScore - A thread on how football app ratings are inaccurate
Football apps like Sofascore will always favor ball dominant players . They mostly rate what a player does on the ball and neglect what he does of it
These apps take out of context stats through an API and ‘compile’ it to give player ratings. Most of these stats are mostly about technical and “on-the-ball” qualities(passes , dribbles, etc) . They do account whether it contributed to meaningful play.
Intelligent off the ball play and movement mostly go unawarded. For example Lionel Messi’s movement and intelligence is the main reason this goal was possible but he did it without the ball so the person who made the prior pass will get “points” for the assist
Similarly negative off the ball play that results in the team getting punished will mostly go unnoticed . Eg.A player failing or refusing to close down or press an opponent, won’t merit a deduction in his rating, even if it results in the concession of a goal!
As I said earlier , football apps do not care about context . For instance, if there’s a chance to counter and a teammate drags the ball wide and dribbles about 5 players and gives a back pass to the keeper .
The algorithm will give points to the player for the great show of technical quality(Dribbles and passes completed) . But that show didn’t result in meaningful play ; it rather harmed the team.
Important things such decision making , judgement, etc will mostly go unawarded or unpunished if the player didn’t have the ball with him or isn’t directly linked to his on ball abilities.
So players who mostly hog the ball or have the ball for most parts of the game will likely have a higher rating than other players . In the end, these apps don’t tell who had a great game but who did the most with the ball ( whether it was helpful or not)
I know it’s called football but it will be silly to only judge a player for only what he does with the ball . There’s so much going on and focusing only on the ball is just plain tunnel vision
