Name: How each Premier League team pass
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How each Premier League team pass

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Pass networks are some of the most familiar data visualisations in football. They’ll give you a quick glance at a team’s approach in possession: their average shape, the relative importance of different players, the hubs and spokes of the passing game. They show who passes to whom and how often. As nerd charts go, pass networks are easy to grasp — they look like an idealised version of what we see on the pitch. Here’s an example of a pass network from last month’s final: Let’s run through how to read them.Each player’s dot shows the average starting location of their passes between the opening whistle and their team’s first substitution in the match concerned, when the viz cuts off. The bigger the dot, the more passes that player attempted.Lines between players’ dots, as you’d imagine, show passes from one to another. There’s usually some minimum threshold to keep the network from getting too cluttered. In the viz above, players have to complete five passes per 90 minutes in one direction to earn a line. So, for example, there’s a link between David Alaba and Toni Kroos, who frequently dropped deep to link with ’s centre-backs, but not between Alaba and his left-back Ferland Mendy. Thicker lines mean more passes between the two players.The gradient of a line indicates the direction of travel. For example, the line between Alaba and goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois gets brighter as it approaches the latter, meaning it shows back passes from the centre-back. Sometimes, but not always, you’ll see a parallel line with the reverse gradient, indicating passes between the same two players going in the other direction.

Pass networks are some of the most familiar data visualisations in football. They’ll give you a quick glance at a team’s approach in possession: their average shape, the relative importance of different players, the hubs and spokes of the passing game. They show who passes to whom and how often. As nerd charts go, pass networks are easy to grasp — they look like an idealised version of what we see on the pitch. Here’s an example of a pass network from last month’s final: Let’s run through how to read them.Each player’s dot shows the average starting location of their passes between the...

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John Muller

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