July 1 – Newly re-crowned Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich also top a table of European clubs ranked by how far they move the ball while in possession.
Bayern on average move the ball 12.7km per match, 200m more than second ranked Manchester City who are 200m ahead of Premier League champions Liverpool.
The analysis by the CIES Football Observatory of InStat data covered the 2018/19 and 2019/20 seasons for 35 European leagues.
But while Bayern moved the ball the furthest, Man City players had the most touches of the ball, while Liverpool play a ‘longer’ game.
“Bayern Munich players achieve on average slightly fewer passes per game than those of Manchester City (705 versus 722), but their distance is longer (18.0 metres versus 17.3). Liverpool players only make 654 passes per match (9th position), but their length (18.8 meters) is much greater than that measured for the vast majority of teams in the top positions of the rankings,” say the report authors.
At the other end of the ranking, the distance the ball moves is almost half that of the top teams, as are the number of successful passes made.
“The Greek side of Panionios is at the bottom of the table with a ball circulation distance of about 6.8 kilometres per game. Cardiff City is anti-penultimate with the lowest number of successful passes overall (326). The highest average passes lengths were recorded for two Scottish teams: Livingston (23.1 meters) and Hamilton Academical (22.4),” says the report.
See the full data at https://football-observatory.com
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