Barcelona: a statistical analysis of the defense

By: Isaiah | December 16th, 2007

The question of Barcelona’s defensive capabilities has been brought up before, in comments, and I’d like to take a moment or 10 to delve into the murky depths of statistical comparisons. Is Barcelona’s defense better than it was last year? That is, in a way, asking whether the additions of Abidal, Milito, and Toure have helped solidify the defense, as is the general consensus, or whether they were great wastes of money.

Here is what I compared:

1. The stats from the first 16 games of the 2006/07 season vs the current season.
2. The 2006/07 season totals vs a projection of the totals for the current season (07/08).
3. The stats from the group stage of the 06/07 Champions League and this year’s CL group stage.

1. Comparing the first 16 games of this season and 06/07:

06/07: 10-5-1 35pts 35GS, 11GA; home 6-2-0, 19GS, 4GA; away 4-3-1, 16GS, 7GA
07/08: 10-4-2 34pts 32GS, 12GA; home 8-0-0, 22GS, 4GA; away 2-4-2, 10GS, 8GA

The overrall record for two seasons in question is almost identical to what it was after 16 matches. Barca is currently 1 point behind the pace set by their 06/07 selves, the difference being an extra loss away and no draws at home. So that is basically a wash, in terms of points. As for goal differential, the numbers are +24 and +20, the advantage to 06/07. The major difference is the number of goals scored away because, despite an advantage for the current season in home goals scored, it’s the +6 in away goals for the 06/07 season that has made the difference. Everything else is pretty much even. It does make you realize that the defense isn’t better, statistically, than last year’s version and that this season’s offense has been stuttering, comparitevly. The team is better at home this year than last year, but are quite a bit worse on the road.

2. Let’s do a full season, though. The first stat set is the actual stats from last year’s full season while the second set is the projected stats were the current trend to continue (that is, were the final 22 games to have the exact same results as the first 16).

06/07: 22-10-6 76 pts, 78GS, 33GA; home 14-5-0, 41GS, 12GA; away 8-5-6, 37GS, 21GA
07/08 projected: 24-9-5* 81pts 77GS 29GA, home 19-0-0, 53GS, 10GA; away 5-9-5, 24GS, 19GA

If this projection holds true, Barca will have been better this year than in 06/07. 1 less goal scored and 4 fewer allowed. Naturally, it’s hard to imagine that the team will go 19-0-0 at home (especially with Real Madrid, Valencia, and Espanyol yet to visit), but so far that’s the only projection one can make. Another issue I have is that I don’t believe Barca will draw away 5 more times while losing 3. It remains to be seen, but I would imagine we’ll end up with a record somewhere near 24-8-6 (home 16-2-0; away 8-6-4) which is 80 points. That’s a very large number of points, though fewer than Madrid is projected to garner (83), so winning El Clasico will be a big step towards gaining parity. Assuming that Barcelona’s away day doldrums are behind them, this year’s title race will be as good as last year’s. Only this year we’ll win…

3. The stats from the group stage of the 06/07 Champions League and this year’s CL group stage.

Last year, Barcelona came in second in a group comprised of Chelsea, Werder Bremen, and Levski Sofia. In retrospect, last year’s group stage was much, much tougher than this year’s, with Lyon underachieving and Stuttgart basically not showing up. Rangers was what I expected, but Chelsea and Werder were strong last year in ways that no one was in this year’s group.

Last year: 2nd place, 3-2-1 11pts, 12GS, 4GA
This year: 1st place, 4-2-0 14pts, 12GS, 3GA

So, really, a much better showing in this year’s CL, especially if you consider that Barca gave up 2/3 of their goals in one game, to Lyon and only gave up that pesky 3rd goal in a game that didn’t matter. Granted, in 06/07 Chelsea scored 3 of the 4 goals and Werder the other. So it is perhaps unfair to last year’s team to say that they were worse, defensively. What’s interesting is that this year had a more even distribution of goals scored during the group stage; in 06/07 the first game was a 5-0 thrashing of Levski Sofia, while this year the scores were more evenly spread out: 3-0, 2-0, 0-0, 2-0, 2-2, 3-1. And there were no losses like the one at Stamford Bridge (in fact, there were none at all).

4. Analysis of the stats

I fully realize what I’m about to do here: ignore my own stats. However, I’m going to attempt to justify saying that this year’s defense is much, much better than last year’s. The main factor in goals scored against Barcelona has been injuries. During the loss to Villarreal, Oleguer was starting on the right side and Toure was out. The back line consisted of Oleguer, Milito, Puyol, Abidal. Against Getafe, the lineup was slightly stronger: Puyol, Thuram, Milito, Abidal, Toure and Zambrotta subbed in for Thuram before getting a red card. While there is no legitimate excuse for giving up 3 goals in a game, 2 happens now and then and it was the offense that was misfiring during that game. But the point is that the defense has been far less settled than it was last year, when there was little to no movement throughout the year in terms of who started. With Milito, Abidal, and Toure new members of the defensive scheme, there is always going to be a period of acclimation, of learning the style of play required to work as a cohesive unit. I believe that that is now being found, that ESP connection, thanks to a constant lineup: Puyol, Marquez, Milito, Abidal. I think that this lineup will only get better, giving up fewer and fewer goals, especially if they can stay healthy (granted, that’s a big if, especially for this season’s Barca…).

My final thought is that yes, the defense was worth the investment, not just because they’re already a bit better than last year’s, but because they’ll remain better for several years to come. Puyol is 29, Abidal 28, Milito 27, Marquez 28, Zambrotta 30, and Toure 24. If we buy Philipp Lahm, as the current rumors suggest we’ll do as a replacement for Zambrotta, he’s 24. So for now we have an average starting lineup of 28 (Puyol, Abidal, Milito, Marquez); add in Toure and it’s 27.2…Replace Marquez with Lahm and the age drops to 26.4 for the back 5. That’s fun times for the future, I think.

What do you guys make of these stats? Was the defense worth the very large investment made? We paid 44million euros for the 3 at the back. Will they return that investment with fewer nail-biting moments? I believe they already have, though it would be interesting to see a 3-4-3 in a game or two (Puyol, Milito, Abidal staying at home at the back, Toure in front in midfield, along with Xavi, Iniesta, and Deco, then Ronaldinho, Henry, and Eto’o in front of them). Maybe against Murcia…

*This is a rough projection done by hand. I took the total number of games (38) and divided by the number of games played (16). That is, in case you’re wondering, 2.375. Then I just multiplied all the other stats, rounding to the nearest whole number (23.75 wins became 24, 9.5 draws became 9, 4.75 losses became 5). The easiest was the projection that we’ll be perfect at home. While that’s probably completely absurd, it’s the trend so far in this half of the season. For goals, I rounded up no matter what because half a goal is worth a full goal. The win against Valencia was taken into account for this analysis, by the way.