Join The Roar
Become a member to join in Australia's biggest sporting debate, submit articles, receive updates straight to your inbox and keep up with your favourite teams and authors.
Oops! You must provide an email address to create a Roar account
When using Facebook to create or log in to an account, you need to grant The Roar permission to see your email address
By joining The Roar you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions
Login and get Roaring
Oops! You must provide an email address to create a Roar account
When using Facebook to create or log in to an account, you need to grant The Roar permission to see your email address
Opinion
I’ve been playing around with data this week, so rather than a standard preview for Melbourne City versus Sydney FC, I’ve looked at some of the data behind each of the teams and created some data visualisations.
Shots
On average, Melbourne City take three more shots than Sydney per game. They shoot more from outside the penalty area, and in general, from further out. This has an impact on the expected goal per shot – with higher volumes of lower quality shots, the average xG of Melbourne City (0.109) is less than Sydney FC (0.161).
This suggests that Melbourne City’s style of play is more about volumes of shots, whereas Sydney’s style of play is focused on taking fewer shots, but the shots that they do take are of higher quality.
Goals
Sydney and Melbourne are the highest scoring teams in the A-League this season. Both teams have a healthy amount of goals, mostly scored in central positions in the penalty area. There’s nothing wrong with a tap in!
Goals conceded
Sydney FC have done a better job of defending their goal than Melbourne City. The conceded shot map for Sydney shows only few goals from the six-yard box, suggesting that they’ve been able to defend the space in front of their goal quite well, and shots from tighter angles are not finding their way into the back of the net.
Crossing
Melbourne City’s quantity over quality also applies to crossing, with an average of 20 crosses per 90 minutes, as compared with Sydney’s 14.04. Craig Noone has the most crosses in the A-League this season with 136 across their 23 games (average of 5.91 per game).
Melbourne City cross frequently from both sides, whereas Sydney FC are heavily focused down the right flank (Alexander Baumjohann, Rhyan Grant, Luke Brattan). Both sides aim their crosses towards the area in front of the penalty spot.
Andrew Nabbout’s arrival at Melbourne City comes as a huge surprise. Having been announced as a signing for Perth Glory only three weeks ago, the border restrictions on WA meant that the move out west for Nabbout and his family was no longer viable, resulting in the contract being mutually terminated. I’d started thinking about […]
Melbourne City midfielder Josh Brillante has parted ways with the A-League club, who have re-signed Nathaniel Atkinson, Florin Berenguer and Rostyn Griffiths.
Sydney FC won their fifth A-League championship in an entertaining but low-scoring final where both teams definitely put their best foot forward.
Despite everything 2020 has thrown at us, last night’s epic A-League grand final was another reminder that the best thing the competition has got going for it is the football on the pitch.
Sydney FC have beaten Melbourne City 1-0 via Rhyan Grant’s extra-time goal to defend their A-League crown in scoring a record fifth grand final win.
As all bar one of the experts and the voice of the people predicted, Sydney FC and Melbourne City have advanced through to the A-League grand final for 2019-20.
